FAQ
Do I need permission to create a market?
No. A market on BATHRON exists when someone brings inventory, publishes quotes and finds a counterparty. There is no listing process, no committee, no fee to the protocol. Nobody can approve a pair, so nobody can delist it. → How a market appears
Who decides which assets can trade?
Nobody. The consensus does not know which pairs exist — it only settles. A chain that supports hashlocks and timelocks can be paired against M1 with the same pattern used for native BTC — but each chain needs its own application work: script shapes, timelock ordering, reorganisation handling and a provider willing to hold both sides. Only the Bitcoin pair has been demonstrated. That is a capability of the primitives; no pair other than BTC/M1 has been tested or shipped. → Pairing an external asset
Is M1 a coin I should buy?
No. M1 is the settlement unit — the working capital of whoever runs a market. End users settle in the assets they already hold; market builders and providers settle in M1. Because anyone can create M1 by destroying bitcoin, destruction is a permanent reference supply route that tends to limit any premium when it is accessible — there is nothing to speculate up — and nothing guarantees a floor or any external price. There is no token sale, premine, treasury, block reward or promised yield. → The settlement unit
Is M1 pegged to Bitcoin? Is it "backed by Bitcoin"?
No, and no. Consensus enforces the internal 1:1 between M0 and M1. It does not enforce, and the protocol never promises, an external price. The destroyed bitcoin is gone — there is no reserve and no redemption desk. What makes native BTC available again is the market: providers holding inventory on both sides, paired with linked hashlocked legs. → Bitcoin is the final asset
Why destroy bitcoin at all?
Because it is the only way to create the unit without a keeper. A reserve needs a custodian or a federation; a destroyed satoshi needs nobody. The BTC is gone, verifiably, and one M0 unit exists in its place. Irreversible by design — a cost recovered through service revenue, never through appreciation. → From destroyed BTC to M1
Why not just use an exchange, or a bridge?
An exchange's listing committee is the permission problem itself; a bridge always has a keeper. BATHRON is custody-free, verifies Bitcoin itself, and is open — and gives up a recoverable vault in exchange. → Why not an exchange, a bridge, or a stablecoin
Does BATHRON hold my BTC?
Never. BATHRON verifies Bitcoin facts and irreversible burns; it cannot move native BTC or trigger a Bitcoin transaction. Native BTC moves only through Bitcoin-side contracts (hashlocked legs) between you and a counterparty.
Who provides the service?
Settlement Providers — participants, not administrators. A Clearing Provider quotes and orchestrates; a Liquidity Provider holds inventory and prices a pair. Operators run consensus and finality; they publish facts about themselves and never rank anyone, choose a provider or set a price. → Roles
Is the network permissionless today?
Anyone can build, quote, pair and settle on BATHRON without asking permission. Operator admission is not yet open: the current operator set is project-run while the open-admission threat model is worked. → Open-network hardening
Is settlement atomic and risk-free today?
Not as a general guarantee. Paired-HTLC and covenant components have run on the testnet; the complete cross-chain state machine, reorganisation handling and timelock ordering still need formal specification and external review. → Status & claims
Why is the consensus so small?
On purpose. Anything that can be built above consensus must be built above it — quotes, matching, reputation, provider choice, fast liveness signals. Every consensus line is decades of maintenance and attack surface, and a protocol that lists cannot be neutral about listing. The surface is frozen. → Why the consensus is frozen
Why confidentiality?
Commercial settlement exposes counterparties, sizes and treasury flows. Shielded transfers hide amounts and linkage on the internal leg while consensus still checks conservation. It is a property of settlement, not a "private cash" product, and not Monero's anonymity set. → Confidential settlement
Is this CLS for crypto?
No. Payment-versus-payment — one leg if and only if the other — is a useful functional analogy. BATHRON has no central-bank accounts, no regulated membership, no equivalent legal finality and no systemic track record.
What exists today?
A public testnet with covenant execution, Bitcoin headers and proofs checked in consensus (source: Bitcoin testnet4), confidential internal transfers, paired-HTLC demonstrations, fast finality, and provider prototypes exposing quotes over HTTP. No mainnet, no external audit, no proven market. → Status & claims