Blockstream has introduced Simplicity, a new smart contract language designed to outperform Bitcoin Script and the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) by offering greater expressiveness and stronger safety guarantees. After eight years of development, Simplicity has launched on the Liquid Network mainnet, enhancing Bitcoin's smart contract programmability. The language features formal verification, eliminates global state, and prevents reentrancy bugs, aiming to improve security and functionality for Bitcoin-based contracts. This deployment is expected to drive innovation on Liquid, making the network more powerful. Concurrently, developments in Bitcoin-native decentralized finance (DeFi) are advancing with projects like Bitscaler and Portal to Bitcoin, which focus on trustless, non-custodial cross-chain swaps without bridges or custodians. Portal to Bitcoin's Swap SDK enables seamless, in-app asset swaps across blockchains, maintaining user control and enhancing user experience. Additionally, the Warden protocol reports strong adoption metrics with over 6.5 million users, 700,000 weekly active users, 2 million daily AI interactions, and 1.4 million on-chain swaps by agents, highlighting the growing traction of frictionless crypto solutions. The Backpack exchange also facilitates on- and off-ramping between USD and USDC across multiple chains, integrating with user wallets to support these developments.