Is this project still going?

[JamesANZ]

Seems like a really important project but are people even relaying any more?

[JamesANZ]

I was thinking of creating a service that would allow a swap cross chain between ethereum and bitcoin, it can do this by checking the spv on ethereum, logging it and sending back ether on the same key as the key that sent the bitcoin (just taking the public key and hashing it differently to get the ether address)

I have started the effort here: https://github.com/James-Sangalli/Solidity-Contract-Examples/blob/eth-2-btc-swap/Finance/bitcoin-to-ethereum-swap/BTC2ETH.sol

[ethers]

Incentives (for relayers) are tricky: I think it's a finding from projects like the Ethereum alarm clock too. Maybe some projects will innovate on incentives and when they do, they can call/see that someone has relayed a header to BTC Relay and "reward" that person appropriately: it would be an additional contract that would get the fee/reward from BTC Relay but redistribute/forward it.

Right now, it's quite like chicken-egg: the hurdle is when BTC Relay is generating "revenue", then relayers will want a piece for it and will continue relaying, but to get "revenue" BTC Relay needs to be current with the Bitcoin blockchain and needs the relayers first...

Gas price spikes, Shanghai attacks, cryptokitties congestion, etc also make it more difficult for relayers. It looks like the last relayer stopped around cryptokitties congestion?

The provided code for relayers is also basic, and may have been buggy like https://github.com/ethereum/btcrelay/pull/46

Thanks for your efforts and continue to test what you are doing (I filed an issue with a suggestion).

[JamesANZ]

@ethers Thanks for your comment.

I am also curious, how are the spv proofs even validated? e.g. two nodes relay the proofs but they are different, how is the truth determined?

Any chance of a revival? Is Consensys still interested in maintaining the project?