Design & Architecture

Execution Client (sova-reth)

A customized EVM execution engine built using the Reth SDK, extended to support native Bitcoin precompiles and Bitcoin transaction tracing. It enforces Bitcoin finality through direct coordination with the Sentinel which traces state updates tied to BTC transactions and ensure the state on Sova accurately reflect the state on Bitcoin.

Consensus Client (op-node)

The canonical Optimism consensus client responsible for sequencing, block building, and L2-to-L1 rollup logic. On Sova this service has the important job of anchoring each Sova block to a Bitcoin by including confirmed Bitcoin block headers in Sova blocks.

Bitcoin Core

Each validator connects to a full Bitcoin node. This ensures that all Bitcoin-related operations (e.g. tx confirmation, block hash validation, UTXO availability) are verifiable directly from the Bitcoin network without having to trust the sequencer's Bitcoin connection.

Sentinel

An off-chain database-backed service that tracks the confirmation status of Bitcoin transactions. It locks or reverts contract storage slots based on whether associated BTC transactions have been confirmed on-chain. Critical for enforcing the sovaBTC peg. Every validator runs the sentinel service alongside their execution client.

Deposit Address Derivation

This is a service that is built into every sova-reth node and dependant on the current hardfork. The address derivation algorithm determines which Bitcoin public key that will receive the users funds when users deposit into the network to mint sovaBTC.