In addition to the high-profile ETFs, this year Bitcoin ecology will usher in new development vitality and opportunities. The Ordinals Protocol was born, and the BRC20 ProtocolIt has brought a new wave of energy to the entire Bitcoin ecosystem, ushering in a surge in popularity for inscriptions. New technologies such as BitVM and BitStream attracted widespread attention from the industry as soon as they came out, bringing new hope to the vitality of the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Meanwhile, the BTC ecosystem is expanding rapidly. New projects are constantly emerging from DeFi, Wallets, Marketplace, BRC20, Ordinals, Infrastructure and other fields, accelerating the expansion of BTC’s ecological landscape.
From the "Jubilee" plan of the Ordinals protocol, to the launch of the ARC20 token standard, from the rise of the BRC20 token standard, to the asset distribution of Taproot Assets, BitVM's new calculations on Bitcoin, and BitStream uses decentralized file hosting incentivized by Bitcoin payment. TinTinLand has compiled the recent hot trends in the BTC ecosystem for you and will give you an in-depth understanding of the current status of the ecosystem. Let’s explore the unlimited potential of the latest technology together.
Ordinals Agreement: Revenues up, Jubilee plan underway
In January this year, the Ordinals protocol was launched by Bitcoin Core contributor Casey Rodarmor and officially launched on the Bitcoin mainnet. The protocol allows users to create Bitcoin versions of NFTs - described on the Bitcoin network as "digital artifacts" , supports JPEG image, PDF, video or audio format content. Similar to many NFT projects on the Ethereum chain, these "digital artifacts" will be minted on the Bitcoin network.
Currently,Ordinals' inscription income is increasing. According to Dune data on November 13, the cumulative fee revenue from minting of the Bitcoin NFT protocol Ordinals reached 2433.5 BTC, which is approximately $90,286,981. The current total number of minted inscriptions reaches 40,089,490.
On November 14, Ordinals protocol founder Casey said thatOrdinals protocol officials are considering conducting a "Jubilee" at the Bitcoin mainnet block height 820512< /span>. That is, starting from the selected block height, the new inscriptions are processed, so that the inscriptions that were originally marked as "curses" are changed into "blessings", and positive numbers are given to them. This may mean that the curse inscriptions will be Facing out of print. The cursed inscription is actually an unrecognizable inscription from earlier versions of ord.
The Ordinals protocol continues to evolve and has received widespread attention from the community. After the Bitcoin SegWit upgrade, the Ordinals protocol allows the content of a single block to incorporate more information by separating witness data. Earlier this year, the project opened up new ways for asset transfers by engraving data, such as images, text, audio, etc., on Bitcoin’s Satoshi. In October, the Ordinals protocol also underwent a major update, releasing version v0.10.0, which added batch inscriptions, added metadata, inscription number endpoints, etc. A variety of functions.
ARC20: A token standard more in line with the spirit of Bitcoin
Ordinals is not a perfect protocol. Three months after its launch, an anonymous developer launched the Atomics protocol in September this year to address its shortcomings. . Its basic unit "atom" is composed of sat, the smallest unit of Bitcoin, which means that each unit of ARC-20 token is always supported by 1 sat, realizing 1 Token = 1 sat. are more consistent with the fundamentalism of Bitcoin technology,
The ARC20 token standard provided by the Atomics protocol also attracted enthusiastic attention from the community in September this year. The Atomics protocol is committed to driving Token innovationon Bitcoin’s Unspent Transaction Outputs (UTXO). Unlike Ordinals, which were originally designed for NFTs, Atomics rethinks the way to create centralized, immutable, and fair tokens on the Bitcoin network. ARC20 is the first protocol to inscribe Mint through PoW, and everyone can participate in mining. Through Atomics and the ARC20 protocol, users can issue and trade their own Tokens on the BTC network without relying on other blockchain platforms. This brings more functions and possibilities to the Bitcoin ecosystem, making the issuance and use of Tokens more flexible and convenient.
For developers, ARC20'sprogrammability brings an easier and more convenient development experience. The ARC20 standard is written in Solidity. Solidity is a programming language specially designed for writing smart contracts. The standard provides functions such as token issuance, token transfer, Core functions such as token value management. By using the ARC20 standard, developers can more easily create and exchange digital assets without worrying about the legal and compliance issues associated with tokens. The ARC20 standard also provides tools such as ARC20 Standard Client to allow developers to more easily deploy and operate ARC20 tokens on the Ethereum blockchain .
Compared with BRC20, Atomics and ARC20 Seamlessly integrate the Token issuance and transaction process with the BTC network, reducing the need for third-party sequencers< a i=2>, which improves the decentralization and security of the system, brings more control to users, and is more in line with the culture of the BTC community. Overall, the ARC20 standard provides a simple, secure, and globally applicable way to create and manage digital assets, making it a good choice for developers and token holders.
BRC20: Trading is booming, and centralization risks cannot be ignored
The BRC20 inscription concept may be the hottest topic in the BTC ecosystem recently. Currently, the BRC20 series has the highest market value of inscription assets. The skyrocketing price of related inscriptions has also driven the community’s attention to BTC-related tracks. Many stakeholders are promoting the continued expansion of this craze.
Inspired by the Ordinals protocol to mint NFTs, developer @domodata conceived and created the BRC20 token standard in March this year, using JSON data Ordinal Inscriptions to deploy token contracts, mint and transfer tokens, aims to formulate a set of specifically formatted JSON data packages that are inscribed on the BTC chain through Ordinals and managed through an off-chain indexing platform.
After nearly a year of explosion, silence and resurgence,currently all leading exchanges have announced their support for the BRC20 protocol, and many BRC20 generations The currency price broke new highs, Ordi's market value exceeded US$400 million, and its daily trading volume reached US$800 million. The Brc20-swap launched by UniSat provides richer liquidity for decentralized trading of the top BRC20 tokens.
The emergence of Ordinals and the BRC20 standard was praised by Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin as a major advancement in Bitcoin technology and ecology, and community members believed that it achieved a "fair launch."
It cannot be ignored thatBRC20 has certain centralization risks. Potential problems such as network congestion and dust attacks are all caused by Bitcoin fundamentalism. completely unsupported by the author.
The BRC20 protocol treats the inscription as a ledger that records the deployment, minting, and transfer of BRC20 tokens. Since smart contracts cannot be run on Bitcoin, BRC20 tokens cannot query relevant information about the current token by running the program. As a result, BRC20 records the deployment, minting and transfer operationsof all BRC20 tokens by using a centralized server to retrieve Bitcoin blocks. This centralized settlement process may lead to different platforms having different results for the token balance inquiry of a certain account. Although all operations are recorded on-chain, it is the responsibility of a client to verify these operations. Therefore, the entire BRC20 ecosystem still needs to further implement decentralized indexing services.
Taproot Assets: Expand the distribution and circulation of assets
In October, Taproot Assets v0.3 was released on the mainnet alpha version, laying the foundation for the issuance of stablecoins and other assets on Bitcoin. According to Lightning Labs, current releases support on-chain functionality, with Lightning Network support coming soon. Lightning Network is a two-way payment channel network built on the Bitcoin blockchain, designed to enable fast and low-cost micropayments.
Taproot Assets is a protocol released by Lightning Labs, the development team of the Lightning Network. It realizes asset recording by writing various information in the UTXO script of the Bitcoin network. Therefore, Taproot Assets can be used to issue various assets such as tokens and NFTs, aiming to create and trade various digital assets on the Bitcoin network. This protocol is integrated with the Lightning Network to expand the distribution and circulation channels of assets. Elizabeth Stark, CEO and co-founder of Lightning Labs, believes that Taproot Assets will help lead the "Bitcoin renaissance" and make the Lightning Network a multi-asset network, further consolidating Bitcoin's role in the "Internet of Money" "The status of the field.
The biggest difference from BRC20 and ARC20 is thatTaproot Assets’ token issuance method requires owners to pre-mint before distribution. However, users must run the Bitcoin full node and Taproot Assets client themselves, or use third-party services, and token transaction records need to rely on third-party indexers for storage,. Potential centralization risk
The development team stated that after the release of Taproot Assets, will focus on developing the Lightning Network into a multi-asset network once completed With the protocol's payment channel functionality, users will be able to send and receive the currency of their choice on the Lightning Network, leveraging existing Bitcoin liquidity as a globally routed currency and medium of exchange.
BitVM: Compute anything on Bitcoin
Bitcoin has always been the benchmark in the field of encryption, but there has always been the problem of insufficient ability to execute complex, Turing-complete smart contracts, and the emergence of BitVM is accelerating the solution to this problem.
In October,ZeroSync project leader Robin Linus released the "BitVM: Compute Anything on Bitcoin" white paper, in which he noted BitVM is able to implement Turing-complete Bitcoin contracts without changing Bitcoin’s consensus rules. It can perform virtually any arbitrary computation and leverage that computation to perform on-chain Bitcoin transactions, performing off-chain computations without leaving any trace on the chain.
BitVM is Bitcoin Virtual Machine (Bitcoin Virtual Machine), which combines Optimistic rollups, Fraud Proof fraud proof, Taproot Leaf and Bitcoin Script . As a middle layer, BitVM speeds up transactions and reduces the burden on the Bitcoin blockchain. This is extremely valuable for tasks requiring complex calculations or smart contracts, as they can be verified externally before any permanent decisions are made. Such a setup also ensures the integrity of the blockchain while paving the way for advanced and secure operations.
Compared to Ethereum's EVM,BitVM focuses on two-party contracts and handles most of its tasks off-chain. This approach has minimal impact on the Bitcoin blockchain and reduces transaction fees. However, the design of BitVM creates certain limitations in complex multi-party scenarios, but Ethereum's EVM has better performance in this regard.
You can view it here BitVM white paper original text: https://bitvm.org/bitvm.pdf
BitStream: Decentralized file hosting incentivized by Bitcoin payments
In November,Robin Linus published the article "BitStream: Decentralized File Hosting Incentivized by Bitcoin Payments", proposing BitStream, a decentralized file hosting incentive protocol, provides a sustainable alternative.
For example, a user may upload a video only once, incurring a one-time fee, but if the video becomes popular and downloaded 100,000 times, the server's bandwidth costs may far exceed the initial upload revenue. BitStream's pay-per-download approach provides a solution:It allows servers to charge for each download, ensuring that revenue scales with the popularity and demand of the content, creating a balance and profitable ecosystems.
The white paper states thatBitStream addresses the current imbalance in hosting economics, aligning server profits with content demand - Server Receive compensation for providing network services, namely file distribution. The Bitstream system leverages Bitcoin's payment channels, including Lightning Network, Liquid, Chaumian ecash, Fedimint or Cashu, to enable fast micro-transactions for file access. In Bitstream's design, the use of Merkle trees for file verification promotes the uniqueness and security of hosted data. By breaking the file into hashed components, the system can quickly confirm the accuracy of the transferred content.
Bitstream offers avariation of traditional data hosting methods, proposing an incentive system for decentralized file hosting without dependencies for trust or complex cryptography, but its practical applications remain to be seen.
You can view it here BitStream white paper original text: https://robinlinus.com/bitstream.pdf
Conclusion
The development of these new technologies has opened a new chapter for Bitcoin. They not only make BTC transactions more efficient, but also give the BTC ecosystem more data programmability and transaction convenience.
As the absolute leading ecosystem in the encryption market, Bitcoin’s market value accounts for more than half of the total market value of the entire encryption market. However, under the bubble, only by returning to the essence of technology and innovation can we attract more developers to try to enter the Bitcoin ecosystem. From this "Spring of Inscriptions", we will usher in the Web3 Summer where hundreds of flowers bloom in various tracks.