Super Testnet, a freelance developer focused on Bitcoin and the Lightning Network, is known for developing some rather novel ideas and pushing them out to drive discussion and innovation.
Every so often, the tinkerer pops up with a new proof of concept and leaves some of us scratching our heads as we try to keep up with his thought processes; in recent months, we saw him put out ideas like Handcrank and BitVM.
Now, the mad lad is at it again, and we have a new prickly customer named Hedgehog making the rounds.
The scaling struggle is real
Bitcoin’s magic comes from its decentralised nature, but there is a downside to transacting on-chain: it has a hard limit on the number of transactions it can process. As a result, Bitcoin transactions can be relatively slow compared to other blockchains and, during times of congestion, can result in high fees.
That’s how Bitcoin works right now; based on the technology, we must maintain a network of decentralised nodes for the base chain. Perhaps someday, as computer chips get faster and cheaper, we will have more powerful entry-level nodes that allow the Bitcoin network to improve throughput on the base chain, but that future remains to be determined.
For now, we have to work within the confines of Bitcoin, and off-chain scaling is the best way to add throughput without having to tinker with the time chain.
Off-chain scaling comes in many flavours; the first out of the gate were variants of sidechains like Liquid and Rootstock, while Lightning offered a different solution, scrapping the need for another blockchain in favour of a P2P network of interconnected payment channels backed by a time lock contract and a 2 or 2 multi-sig.
Lightning has received the most attention from the scaling solutions we have today and is by far the most popular method of transferring Bitcoin outside of requiring a block confirmation.
Balancing act: Different solutions, different trade-offs
As Bitcoin has once again crossed the Trillion-dollar market cap range, the reality that more people are coming starts to creep closer. So, current scaling solutions need to step up if the broader network wants to onboard this new and likely larger cohort.
Scaling is a hot topic, and solutions could net millions, if not billions, in liquidity along with possible revenue generation opportunities, so I expect proposals to be rolling out over the next couple of years.
We’ve already seen projects like Statechains make considerable progress with the Mercury layer rolling out, along with FediMint moving into a public launch.
We’ve also seen a host of opportunists try to launch faux scaling solutions, trying to capitalise off of the hype and sell tokens to the initiated.
There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to solving Bitcoin scaling, and each layer might find its niche or run into its limits as we push the boundaries of what different layers can do.
Each solution tackles the problem differently, with its pros and cons. Scaling tech, like the Lightning Network, handles transactions off-chain, speeding things up. However, it introduces some complexity, encouraging many users to opt for custodial use and management of Lightning balances.
Where Lightning is lagging
One key pain point of Lightning is that you must remain online to update balances as you send, receive or route payments. If your node goes down, you must retrieve funds using a channel backup, which will cost you an on-chain transaction.
This isn’t exactly an issue if you have access to a high-quality device to run your Lightning node, and it has redundancies for issues like power outages, but this does pose a limitation for those in the developed world where L2 payments would be the default interaction with Bitcoin.
I’ve had my own experience with channel recovery after a series of blackouts, and that was before node clients like Umbrel made it easy to create and restore backups, so I know the pain of the process.
Introducing Super Testnets Hedgehog
Now, let’s talk about SUPER TESTNETs HEDGEHOG, an off-chain protocol that borrows some elements from the Lightning network to create a new approach to payment channels.
The main difference between HedgeHog and Lightning is that Hedgehog replaces pre-signed transactions with revocable transactions via connectors. Revocable scripts are similar to Lightning Justice transactions in that they allow a party to revoke a transaction after a certain period, adding an extra layer of security and control.
The difference with Hedgehog is that instead of having the requirement to remain online to update the balance of payments, Hedgehog channels allow for the transfer of money where participants can be offline at the time of the transaction.
A Hedgehog user can trade secret keys to send or receive funds within these payment channels. The validity of a transaction is determined by the existence of an on-chain UTXO, which is an original input backing these payments.
“This is a protocol similar to the Lightning Network,” Super Testnet stated. “And that it is a layer 2 for Bitcoin payments, only in this one, unlike the Lightning Network, the two parties don’t have to both be online, it’s asynchronous. One party can send the other money then they’re offline.”
SuperTestNet
How do Hedgehog transactions work?
Hedgehog channels operate using a multi-sig address. Sonic opens a channel with Knuckles by sending a certain amount of bitcoin into the newly created Hedgehog address to fund the channel.
Using the revocable connectors, Sonic can conduct one or several micropayments to Knuckles offline. These payments are embedded in a text used to issue a claim over the funds, similar to a cheque, and can be sent via email, telegram or other communication methods like nostr.
Knuckles can accept or reject the payment using the claim text when he comes online.
Knuckles can cosign and broadcast the transaction to update the channel balance if accepted. If Knuckles rejects it, he can propose an alternative transaction for Sonic to consider until both parties agree to update the balances.
If Sonic makes a payment and Knuckles becomes permanently unavailable, the Hedgehog channel’s time-lock conditions can ensure that funds can be recovered after a set period.
If the concept excites you and you want to try it out for yourself, Super Testnets HedgeHog is under development, and you can play with it on Signet.Â

Expanding Hedgehog with Burrow
Super Testnet also proposed a possible route for expanding on Hedgehog channels to allow for greater scalability of these Hedgehog channels by building a federated CoinPool he named Burrow.
The pool is a multi-sig n-of-n with the trade-off that all key owners must be online for it to function. That’s why one honest participant can halt the pool in case of dishonest behaviour by federation members.
In this case, all funds will have to be withdrawn on-chain.
The pool could be compared to a sidechain federation, like Liquid, where 11 out of 15 federation members can agree to seize others’ Bitcoin. However, it differs from Liquid in that it assumes a single honest party, so the Hedgehog CoinPool federation can only rug users if all members are corrupt.
The Coinpool can have several customised properties, including:
- Users can onboard into the pool without an on-chain transaction (e.g., you send in coins via Lightning, or another Hedgehog user pays you your first coins from within the pool.
- Users would experience no transfer fees within the pool, and internal transactions happen faster than Lightning (due to no need for pathfinding, and no liveness assumption about the recipient — only the server must be online)
- Users can issue off-chain “cheques,” which are essentially vtxos (borrowing from Ark), which you give someone else the right to spend. The recipient does not need to be in the coin pool; they can be anyone. The cheque issuer can send the cheque to the recipient, e.g. via email, and the recipient can redeem it off-chain even if the issuer is offline (but the server has to be online for this part and can censor, though the issuer can override censorship via a forced closure)
Is Hedgehog competing or complementary?
Transfers between HedgeHog and Lightning Network are possible. A lightning gateway can transfer sats into or out of the pool for users who want to withdraw to a fully self-custodial wallet or wish to interact with the broader Bitcoin network.
As funds are withdrawn from Hedgehog, routing fees will apply to transfer funds to the Lightning wallet, while mining fees will apply there if you send the funds to a base chain wallet.
Do your own research.
If you want to learn more about Hedgehog, use this article as a starting point, and don’t trust what we say as the final word. Take the time to research other sources, and you can start by checking out the resources below.