# Alpen

> Alpen powers Bitcoin-native financial markets, secured by zero-knowledge proofs. Alpen builds Bitcoin-native financial applications and infrastructure around settlement, bridging, verification, and execution layers. BTC is the native asset; there is no separate token.

Alpen inherits Bitcoin L1's consensus and security directly. Strata, our orchestration layer, uses garbled circuits (Glock) to enable ZK verification on Bitcoin and trust-minimized bridging. Alpen EVM is the first execution domain on Strata; additional domains (privacy, high-throughput) are under research.

Foundational partners include Morpho and Fluid (lending), Circle and Agora (stablecoins), and Hermetica (BTC yield). BTD (Bitcoin Dollar) is a BTC-collateralized stablecoin built on Alpen EVM using Liquity V2 mechanics.

## Active network

- Alpen Testnet: EVM-compatible, chain ID 20310, currency sBTC. RPC `https://alpen.testnet.alpen.org`. Explorer https://explorer.testnet.alpen.org.
- [Full network manifest (YAML)](https://www.alpen.org/networks.yaml): canonical chain IDs, RPC endpoints, contracts, and status across all Alpen networks. Machine-readable.

## Product documentation

- [Alpen Testnet III documentation](https://docs.alpen.org): canonical, current developer and protocol documentation.
- [Machine-readable documentation index](https://docs.alpen.org/llms.txt): current documentation pages in Markdown.

## Research

- [Alpen research library](https://www.alpen.org/#research): selected whitepapers, cryptography research, and market-structure work with authoritative source links.

## Optional

- [Alpen homepage](https://www.alpen.org): marketing landing page with product overview.