BitSov: A Composable Bitcoin-Native Architecture for Sovereign Internet Infrastructure
2026-03-30 • Cryptography and Security
Cryptography and SecurityDistributed, Parallel, and Cluster ComputingNetworking and Internet ArchitectureSoftware Engineering
AI summaryⓘ
The authors describe BitSov, a new internet design that uses existing decentralized tools like Bitcoin and mesh networks to reduce reliance on big companies. Their system includes unique ideas like requiring Bitcoin payments to send messages to stop spam, and linking contracts to Bitcoin's block numbers instead of regular time. They also propose a way to keep the network growing by reinvesting service earnings back into infrastructure. This paper outlines the design, discusses challenges, and suggests future steps to test the system.
BitcoinLightning Networkdecentralized storagefederated messagingmesh connectivitypayment-gated messagingtimechain-locked contractsmicropaymentsblockchaineconomic incentives
Authors
Oliver Aleksander Larsen, Rasmus Thorsen Larsen, Mahyar T. Moghaddam
Abstract
Today's internet concentrates identity, payments, communication, and content hosting under a small number of corporate intermediaries, creating single points of failure, enabling censorship, and extracting economic rent from participants. We present BitSov, an architectural framework for sovereign internet infrastructure that composes existing decentralized technologies (Bitcoin, Lightning Network, decentralized storage, federated messaging, and mesh connectivity) into a unified, eight-layer protocol stack anchored to Bitcoin's base layer. The framework introduces three architectural patterns: (1) payment-gated messaging, where every transmitted message requires cryptographic proof of a Bitcoin payment, deterring spam through economic incentives rather than moderation; (2) timechain-locked contracts, which anchor subscriptions and licenses to Bitcoin block height (the timechain) rather than calendar dates; and (3) a self-sustaining economic flywheel that converts service revenue into infrastructure growth. A dual settlement model supports both on-chain transactions for permanence and auditability and Lightning micropayments for high-frequency messaging. As a position paper, we analyze the quality attributes, discuss open challenges, and propose a research agenda for empirical validation.