2026 has been a defining year for Rootstock.
- 84% of Bitcoin’s hash rate secures Rootstock via merged mining (Q1 2026)
- $60M+ in tokenized real-world assets settled on Rootstock (Q2 2026)
- Four leading institutional custody platforms now support rBTC and Rootstock
- Vetiver 9.0.0 activated on Mainnet 4 May 2026
- Atlas launched 15 April 2026, supporting ~10 assets including BTC and Lightning
- Union Bridge live on Testnet 27 May 2026
- 3,000+ days of uninterrupted operation with zero chain resets since launching in 2018
- 21M+ transactions processed on Rootstock since launch in 2018
- A new Bug bounty program launched on Immunefi with a $200,000 maximum
Bitcoin is evolving beyond a store of value. As more institutions, businesses, builders and users look to put Bitcoin to work, the infrastructure supporting it needs to evolve too. That means making Bitcoin easier to move, easier to build with, more secure and better suited to real-world financial applications.
Over the past year, Rootstock has made significant progress toward that vision. New products have launched, the network has been strengthened, institutional access has expanded, and long-term investments in protocol security have continued.
Dive into the 2026 Rootstock Roadmap below for an idea of what shipped so far, and what’s still to come as the rest of the year unfolds.
Q1 2026: Vetiver, Midas, and Institutional Custody
Midas joined the ecosystem, bringing tokenized investment products such as mHyperBTC to Rootstock, while Mellow Protocol and Tyr Capital introduced permissioned institutional Bitcoin vaults offering market-neutral BTC strategies with independent NAV and monthly liquidity. Together, these additions expand the range of institutional investment products available on Rootstock, giving treasury managers and asset managers new ways to deploy Bitcoin into onchain financial markets.
On the 27th of January 2026, Animoca Brands joined the Rootstock ecosystem after signing an agreement with RootstockLabs to explore Bitcoin-native institutional use cases for Japanese corporations.
Utila joined a growing group of institutional custody providers, alongside Fireblocks, Fordefi and Cobo, in supporting rBTC and the Rootstock network. This gives treasury teams and institutional investors greater flexibility in how they securely custody and deploy Bitcoin onchain.
On the protocol side, Vetiver 9.0.0 was announced on 2 April and got activated on Mainnet on 4 May 2026 at block 8,804,200. Some of the improvements shipped as part of Vetiver include groundwork for the block-headers that Union depends on, the fundamentals for true Account Abstraction and parallel transaction processing on testnet. Beyond improving network resilience today, it introduced the technical foundations for capabilities such as Union and Account Abstraction that will continue rolling out over the coming quarters.
Q2 2026: Atlas, Union on Testnet, and Bitcoin Capital Markets
On the 15th of April 2026, Atlas launched as Rootstock’s unified interface for moving approximately ten assets including BTC, Lightning, ETH, USDT and USDC into Rootstock. Instead of navigating multiple bridges, users can compare routes based on speed, cost and trust assumptions through a single interface.
Union, Rootstock’s BitVMX-powered Bitcoin bridge, also launched on Testnet, giving developers their first opportunity to experiment with it. Today’s release supports happy-path flows only, with dispute resolution, fraud proofs and security audits still ahead on the path to Mainnet. Rootstock is taking a security-first approach, working toward a future where Union becomes the primary withdrawal verification layer while the PowPeg continues to provide an additional security layer during the network’s evolution.
Bitcoin also took another step toward becoming the foundation for regulated financial markets. Through the partnership with Mercado Bitcoin, more than $60 million in tokenized private credit has already been issued on Rootstock, with a roadmap to $100 million. This demonstrates how Bitcoin-secured infrastructure can support real-world financial assets at scale.
Through the collaboration with the DMND mining pool, Bitcoin miners can now directly control their own Rootstock merged mining, the mechanism that lets Bitcoin miners secure Rootstock with the same proof of work that secures Bitcoin. Enabled by Stratum V2, this shifts control and rewards from mining pools to individual miners, giving them greater sovereignty while strengthening decentralization across both the Bitcoin and Rootstock ecosystems.
Stablecoin infrastructure also continued to evolve with RIF On Chain V3, which introduced multi-collateral support for USDRIF (MIP-261801) using both RIF and the Bitcoin-backed stablecoin DOC. The upgrade improves capital efficiency and resilience while helping USDRIF scale alongside the growing demand for Bitcoin-native lending, payments and tokenized financial products.
Rootstock also surpassed 21 million transactions, reflecting growing activity across payments, stablecoins, tokenized assets and other Bitcoin-native financial applications. As adoption continues to expand, the milestone highlights the increasing use of Rootstock as infrastructure for Bitcoin’s onchain economy.
Q3 2026: Bitcoin Security, FACON, and Post-Quantum Readiness
Today, more than 80% of Bitcoin’s total hash rate secures Rootstock through merged mining. That gives businesses, builders and users confidence that applications built on Rootstock inherit security from the vast majority of Bitcoin miners.
Alongside ongoing audits, expanded bug bounty programs and continuous reviews of critical infrastructure, Rootstock is also investing in the long-term evolution of the protocol. This quarter includes publishing the roadmap toward quantum-resistant cryptography, helping prepare Rootstock for future advances in computing.
The proposal for Fork-Aware Consensus (FACON – RSKIP-555) is also advancing. It would move hidden-fork protection directly into the consensus protocol. If adopted, FACON would reduce trust assumptions, remove reliance on centralized monitoring infrastructure and further strengthen Rootstock’s security model.
Q4 2026: Institutional Vaults, Union on Testnet V2, and Rootstock Cardamom 10.0.0
Institutional BTC and USD Vaults will introduce secure infrastructure for Bitcoin-backed lending and yield strategies with audited smart contracts, onchain risk management and self-custodied collateral.
Atlas will continue evolving with enterprise-ready capabilities, including institutional custody integrations, advanced transaction workflows and onboarding designed for treasury teams and financial service providers.
Rootstock Cardamom 10.0.0 network upgrade will also deliver the next major network upgrade, bringing together Account Abstraction (RSKIP-545), Parallel Transaction Execution (RSKIP-555) and other core protocol improvements. Together, these capabilities increase throughput, expand programmability and prepare the network for more sophisticated financial applications.
Union on Testnet V2 will validate additional bridge capabilities and prepare the ecosystem for Mainnet deployment.
2027: Payment Rollup, Union on Mainnet, and Next-Generation Vaults
The roadmap doesn’t stop at 2026. In 2027, the focus shifts toward scaling the infrastructure required for Bitcoin capital markets.
That includes launching a Bitcoin-native payment rollup on Rootstock, bringing Union to Mainnet, expanding the PowPeg to approximately 60 members, and evolving Rootstock Vaults into a platform for Bitcoin-secured financial services. Institutions, fintechs and Bitcoin businesses will be able to configure and launch their own Earn and Borrow products using audited, custody-integrated and compliant vault templates.
Every milestone on this roadmap serves a single objective: making Bitcoin more useful without compromising the security that made it valuable in the first place. From institutional custody and tokenized private credit to trust-minimized interoperability and scalable payments, Rootstock is building the infrastructure that enables Bitcoin to evolve into the foundation for global financial markets.
See the full Rootstock Roadmap and explore the milestones driving the next chapter of Bitcoin-native financial infrastructure.
