In this episode of Validated, Justin discusses the intersection of Bitcoin and Solana, particularly focusing on the work his team is doing at Zeus. Unlike previous integrations that create liquidity bridges like TBTC, Zeus is building a new communication layer, termed as 'Layer 1.5,' to enable programmability for Bitcoin and other non-programmable UTXO chains on Solana. Justin explains that Zeus does not support fragmentation on Layer 1, advocating for seamless usability through Solana's RPC. Zeus employs nodes using multi-party computation (MPC) models for security, safeguarding assets while enabling their use within Solana's ecosystem. The discussion includes detailed technical insights on how Zeus manages transactions, secures assets using Taproot addresses, and coordinates through its nodes. Justin shares his vision for the future of web3 applications that could leverage Zeus to build more integrated and functional decentralized apps, implying a strong potential for Solana to interact with various Proof of Work (PoW) chains. Upcoming initiatives, such as the Apollo project and prospective hackathons, aim to bring more developers into the fold to innovate using this new layer.