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Snowside Docs

Introduction

Snowside is a dedicated Avalanche Layer-1 blockchain built to host Paul Sztorc’s upcoming eCash hard-fork. It runs as a clean EVM sidechain where the native gas token is BTC itself — no new minted tokens, no pre-mine, just Bitcoin security via blind merged mining.

Key properties

Section titled “Key properties”
Base Fees and Priority Fees paid in BTC. Contract Fees optional (BTC or USDC). No new token, no pre-mine. Blind Merged Mining (BIP-301) anchors Snowside to Bitcoin's hash power. Avalanche Snowman consensus confirms transactions in 1–3 seconds. Trust-minimized USDC bridge from C-Chain via Avalanche Interchain Messaging. Remix, Hardhat, Foundry, viem, ethers.js — all work out-of-the-box. Automated deployment, monitoring, and updates eliminate the operational burden.

What Snowside solves

Section titled “What Snowside solves”

Paul Sztorc’s previous EVM sidechain, EthSide, was discontinued because standalone chain management was too time-consuming. Every update required manual intervention. Every validator restart required SSH access. Every monitoring alert required human attention.

Snowside solves this by combining:

  1. Bitcoin’s economic security via Blind Merged Mining — miners secure Snowside without running a full node
  2. Avalanche’s high-performance consensus — sub-second finality, sovereign validator set, full EVM compatibility
  3. NodeRunr’s operational automation — one-click deployment, 24/7 monitoring, automatic zero-downtime updates

The result is a chain that is secure enough for Bitcoin purists, fast enough for real applications, and operable enough to stay alive without constant human intervention.

Where to start

Section titled “Where to start”
Understand the three-layer design: EVM execution, Snowman consensus, BMM settlement. Deploy a Snowside validator using NodeRunr in under a minute. Use Foundry or Hardhat to deploy Solidity contracts to Snowside. Transfer USDC from Avalanche's C-Chain to Snowside via ICM.