Mass Withdrawals Cause Issues in Rootstock Due to Concerns Over Liquid Network

Numerous users attempted to withdraw their funds from Rootstock, a sidechain of Bitcoin, which temporarily exhausted the UTXO inventory of the bidirectional bridge. Sergio Lerner linked the situation to concerns over a recent incident in Liquid Network, where 4,000 bitcoins were stolen. Currently, the PowPeg mechanism has a single large UTXO, causing each withdrawal to return almost the entire remaining balance as change, creating a bottleneck that requires 100 confirmations on the Bitcoin network. This has led to waiting times of between 36 and 46 hours for withdrawals, adding about 10 additional hours to the usual time. Lerner clarified that a single outgoing transaction can group multiple requests, keeping the delay time capped at 46 hours. To mitigate the situation, the team is seeking actors willing to make multiple small fund deposits to create new UTXOs and restore normal processing times.