The future of the Bitcoin ecosystem: From wallets to a new paradigm of cross-chain technology
presentlyBitcoinEcology is at a critical moment, waiting for the continuous development and improvement of infrastructure, and waiting for a turning point. How can we seize the opportunity and lay out the next wave of ecology and projects?
The Bitcoin ecosystem has long been more than just inscriptions.
Although there are still people who are debating whether the value of the public chain inscription is a “false proposition,” in fact, in addition to the inscription, the Bitcoin ecosystem also includes several BTC L2 projects and DeFi projects under development, all of which have attracted the attention of a large number of developers and institutional capital. What many people don't know is that the token market value of these projects is not that low compared to some Bitcoin inscriptions.
The current Bitcoin ecosystem is at a critical moment. Although large-scale financial applications have yet to appear in the Bitcoin ecosystem, we can already see the trend of inscriptions shifting from the primary market to the secondary market. This trend heralds the continuous development and improvement of Bitcoin's ecological financial infrastructure. It is awaiting a turning point and has the potential to continue to attract attention in the cryptocurrency sector in the future.
How can we seize the opportunity and lay out the next wave of ecosystems and projects? In this article, BlockBeats introduces some Bitcoin ecosystem infrastructure projects that deserve long-term attention.
Stacks
Stacks was originally called Blockstack and was founded by Muneeb Ali in 2013. Its goal is to allow smart contracts and decentralized applications (dApps) to run on the Bitcoin network, and Stacks can be viewed as a second layer (L2) solution for Bitcoin.
Stacks introduced a unique consensus mechanism called Proof of Transfer (PoX), which allows Stacks not only to maintain the security of Bitcoin, but also to bring new features such as smart contracts, without changing Bitcoin itself. Through PoX, Stacks settles transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain and also operates its own autonomous state machine and consensus mechanism, expanding the scope of Bitcoin's functions.
While anchored to the Bitcoin blockchain, Stacks is also an independent protocol. By introducing the smart contract language Clarity and the virtual machine SVM (Stacks Virtual Machine) to execute these contracts on the Bitcoin blockchain, it opens up new possibilities for applications such as Bitcoin DeFi and NFTs.
STX is its native token and has staking, governance, ticket smart contracts, and value transfer purposes. In 2019, Stacks' native token STX became the first token issue approved by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In addition, Stacks also launched sBTC linked to Bitcoin, which allows Stacks to communicate with the Bitcoin network and enhances decentralized communication and security. Unlike wBTC, sBTC is entirely community-run and has no central custodian entity. This is also an important innovation that Stacks brought to Bitcoin.
Alex
ALEX, founded in 2021 under the full name Automated Liquidity Exchange, is a Bitcoin based on the Stacks blockchainDeFiplatform. ALEX's main goal is to combine the features of Bitcoin Layer 1 and Layer 2 to provide a smooth DeFi experience. ALEX's native token is used for a variety of functions, including incentives, staking, and voting.
ALEX provides a variety of services, including IDO (initial decentralized exchange issuance) launchpad, DEX (decentralized exchange), staking, and lending services, and all transactions are settled on the finality of the Bitcoin network. The characteristic of ALEX is that it not only provides liquidity support for emerging projects, but also introduces a decentralized trading platform to provide liquidity for traders.
Currently, ALEX is a very large project on Stacks, with twice as many active users as Sovryn. The next phase of the platform focuses on improving the scalability and user experience of the Bitcoin economy. According to reports, the ALEX team consists of experienced Wall Street quantitative trading experts from Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley. ALEX Labs has previously received investments from OKX Vetures, Stacks Foundation, Trust Machines, etc.
As of now, ALEX has completed audits with CoinFabrik and the Lease Authority, and launched the mainnet in January 2022. Additionally, ALEX received $5.8 million in new funding led by White Star Capital, with participating investors including Cultur3, GBIC, and OK Blockchain Capital. On December 20, 2023, LK Venture, a crypto investment and research institution under the Hong Kong-listed company Blue Port Interactive, also announced a strategic investment in ALEX Labs (proposed by Wang Feng) to jointly build a broader Bitcoin financial ecosystem.
UniSAT
As the main BRC20 wallet, UniSat now plays an important role in the Bitcoin ecosystem. In the early days, when the Bitcoin ecosystem was still a small circle, UniSat began developing the BRC-20 wallet. At that time, it was also seen as an “alien” in the ecosystem. Over time, BRC-20 attracted a great deal of attention on the Bitcoin network, and UniSat became one of the early projects to seize this opportunity.
It can be said that UniSat is on BitcoinOrdinalsThe first open source browser extension wallet that can not only store and transfer Ordinals, but also view unconfirmed inscriptions, and is completely open source. This greatly enhances its potential within the Bitcoin DeFi ecosystem. UniSat also supports instant minting, making it easier for users to store and transfer BRC-20 tokens.
Another highlight is that UniSat has introduced an innovative on-chain BRC20-swap feature, which allows users to exchange BRC-20 tokens within the Bitcoin blockchain, which opens a new chapter in Bitcoin decentralized transactions. UniSat also opens an API interface, which is friendly to developers and provides rich function calls. It is worth mentioning that in the BRC20-swap feature, UniSAT chose SATS as the transaction fee to enable SATS.
Recently, UniSat also announced a series of major updates, including the launch of the UniSat Ordinals Marketplace and the integration of Atomicals, which further enhanced the functionality and user experience of the platform. As these technologies advance, UniSat's position in the Bitcoin DeFi and NFT ecosystem is becoming increasingly important and is a project worth watching for a long time.
ZetaChain
Established in 2021, ZetaChain is a Layer1 smart contract blockchain focused on solving the challenges of cross-chain interoperability. Its goal is to establish a seamless framework that handles messaging, state synchronization, and free exchange of assets between heterogeneous chains. It can connect not only EVM chains such as Ethereum, Ethereum L2 rollups, Solana, Terra, and Algorand, but also non-EVM chains such as Bitcoin and Dogecoin.
Currently, some DeFi projects use a “wrap BTC (wrap BTC)” method, which encapsulates Bitcoin into another token for use. However, ZetaChain is different. There is no need to encapsulate assets when transferring value; instead, it has completed a “native BTC swap (native BTC swap)” based on omnichain technology. Since there is no interdependency between encapsulation/locking, all of the users' static funds are not at risk. All transactions and activities, including cross-chain transactions, are fully transparent, verifiable, and run with minimal trust.
The team is led by former Coinbase and Brave employees, as well as co-founders of 0x and BAT, and has extensive experience. ZetaChain has received support and endorsements from a number of top investment institutions, including Blockchain.com, Jane Street Capital, VY Capital, Smrti Lab, Sky9 Capital, Lingfeng Capital, Vistalabs, and Foundation Capital.
On November 17, ZetaChain partnered with Sushi to expand to ZetaChain and add native support for BTC. This addition introduced DeFi's first native Bitcoin transaction. As a major public blockchain that supports full-chain, general-purpose smart contracts, and communication between all blockchains, zetaChain has cleverly solved the problems of “cross-chain” and “multi-chain” with omnichain's full-chain technology. This unlocks Bitcoin's potential for greater application.
Recently, ZetaChain's testnet attracted a lot of attention, with more than 1.3M wallet addresses participating. This number reflects the broad appeal of ZetaChain and the market demand for its solutions. The participation of 1.3M wallet addresses is quite an impressive amount for an emerging blockchain project, demonstrating its strong influence and potential growth potential in the blockchain community.
As an incentive for these early participants, ZetaChain announced its token allocation strategy. It is estimated that 22% of the total amount, or 462,000,000 ZETAs, will be rewarded to ZetaChain contributors. Of this, 10%, or 210,000,000 ZETAs, will be distributed to end users as a user growth pool to motivate and reward community members' participation and contributions. Additionally, 12%, or 252,000,000 ZETAs, will be distributed to developers as an Ecosystem Growth Fund to support the developer community and drive ecosystem growth.
In addition, ZetaChain will also launch various wallet cooperation activities and social tasks on the main network as part of its main network promotion. With the booming development of the Bitcoin ecosystem, demand for cross-Bitcoin chains has surged. At the same time, the maturity and wide application of the Zetachain platform will greatly benefit users and the entire crypto ecosystem, so it is also a project worthy of long-term attention.
Bounce Finance
Bounce Finance, founded in September 2020, is a decentralized auction protocol. Founded by NGC Ventures partner Jack Lu, Bounce Finance offers a diverse range of auction products, including tokens, NFTs, physical collectibles auctions, and tools such as SDKs and plug-ins.
Back then, Bounce Finance wasn't outstanding, and as the crypto market grew worse, it gradually faded out of the eyes of crypto users. However, the good news is that the Bitcoin ecosystem is booming, and Bounce Finance can also support multi-chain functions, and can create and participate in various types of auctions on different blockchain networks.
In November, Bounce Finance successfully completed the IDO auction of MUBI tokens on the Ethereum chain and achieved a return of over 80 times in a short time. Additionally, Bounce has completed the public sale of the Bitstable project, a Bitcoin-based cross-chain DeFi protocol. On December 1, Bounce Finance launched Bounce Bit, a DeFi solution designed for the Bitcoin ecosystem, which will be based on Binance Bitcoin (BTCB) and powered by AUCTION. BTCB is a BEP2/BEP20 asset that is 1:1 linked to Bitcoin and locked to the Bitcoin blockchain, enabling Bitcoin holders to participate in the DeFi ecosystem while maintaining their Bitcoin investments.
As the crypto market grows, Bounce Finance has become an important IDO platform within the Bitcoin ecosystem. By successfully issuing tokens for multiple Bitcoin ecosystem projects in a row, Bounce Finance not only proved its ability as an asset issuance platform, but also brought significant wealth effects to users. These successful IDO projects have made Bounce Finance a notable presence in the crypto market.
RGB
The issue of issuing assets on the Bitcoin network has actually been something that people have been thinking about for a long time. The origin of the RGB protocol dates back to 2016, and while the evolution of RGB can be attributed to the entire community, it was inspired by Peter Todd's early work on client-side verification and single-use sealing.
The RGB protocol is designed to take advantage of Bitcoin's secure and decentralized nature while supporting complex functions such as asset issuance and smart contracts. RGB uses client-side verification, combined with the Bitcoin UTXO model, to enable smart contract execution while maintaining off-chain processing of data and code, improving scalability and privacy protection.
RGB's core features include the use of single-use seals to enhance transaction security, support various applications such as tokenized assets and digital identities, and protect transaction privacy and reduce fees. RGB's digital assets support homogenized and non-homogenized tokens, bringing new application potential and functional expansion to the Bitcoin network.
The RGB protocol is a promising development for Bitcoin and may enable a wide range of smart contract applications and digital asset features. It represents a new method for executing smart contracts off-chain, and uses Bitcoin's secure settlement layer to enhance Bitcoin's scalability and functionality, and is a project that can be watched for a long time.
bitStable
bitStable is a decentralized asset protocol based on the Bitcoin network. It is embedded in the Bitcoin blockchain and provides a unique framework for the creation, trading, and management of synthetic assets. This platform enhances asset liquidity on the Bitcoin chain through a dual-token system and cross-chain compatibility structure. Important components of bitStable include DAII and BSSB tokens.
DAII is a US dollar stablecoin issued by BitStable, and the total supply of DAII is 1 billion. Users can obtain it by staking ORDI or MUBI on the BitStable official website, and the project party has also issued part of DAII on Ethereum, which can be purchased directly.
Following the success of BitStable's Launchpad on Bounce, DAII also became more involved in more Bounce-related projects. Staking DAII is one option to participate in the Bdid (BDID) Launchpad on Bounce, and Launchpad on Bounce can also choose to qualify by staking DAII.
BSSB is the platform's governance token, and the community uses it to maintain the system and manage DAII, and bitStable also incentivizes BSSB holders through dividends and other measures. The total supply of BSSB is 21 million, of which, in addition to 50% of this public sale on Bounce Finance, the team will hold 5% of BSSB (6-month locked and 15-month linear unlock), 3.5% of airdrop credits, 36.5% of staking rewards, and 5% LP (locked indefinitely).
TurtSat
TurtSat, which can be easily compared to the role played by Bounce Finance and Bounce Brand, is a newly born asset issuance platform based on the community-led Ordinals open platform. The mission is to become the Gitcoin of the Ordinals world. Anyone can build and donate to the Ordinals ecosystem through Turtsat to participate in and benefit from the Ordinals ecosystem. Its native token is TURT.
TurtSat will build three core business modules: Adoption Protocol, Indexing Service, and Ordinals Open Source Tool Platform. Since its launch, the TurtSAT platform has launched a number of projects (BRC 20 asset protocol CHAX, BRC 20 cross-chain bridge MUBI, ordinals aggregation platform NHUB, ordinals lending platform DOVA, Bitcoin ecosystem gaming platform RAIT, etc.). These projects are all early BRC 20 infrastructure construction platforms, and have performed well since the project was launched.
Notably, on December 21, TurtSAT announced a strategic partnership with DWF Labs. Both parties will provide full support to the Ordinals open source project and ecosystem builders in the development of Ordinals infrastructure, so they also deserve long-term attention.
multibit
Multibit is a bridging protocol that connects BRC20 assets to the EVM network that appeared in May of this year, allowing users to seamlessly transfer tokens between the ETH chain, the BNB chain, and the BTC network. It aims to facilitate the seamless transfer of tokens between the Bitcoin blockchain and other EVM networks, enhancing liquidity and interoperability.
Multibit completed an IDO auction on the auction platform Bounce Finance on November 12 to raise 88 ETH. On November 4, another IDO was completed at the same unit price on the Bitcoin online donation platform TurtSat to raise 4.64 BTC. The two fundraisers totaled approximately $350,000.
On November 14, MUBI opened the market with an increase of 1140%, an increase of more than 300% in the past week. Currently, the market capitalization is close to 70 million US dollars. There are over 6,000 holders. The total supply of MUBI is 901,224,547 pieces, all of which are currently in circulation.
MultiBit has simplified the process of transferring tokens between Bitcoin's BRC20 and EVM networks. First, users transfer BRC20 tokens to a dedicated BRC20 address. After confirmation, the Multibit protocol began operating, minting the same amount of tokens on the Ethereum or BNB chain. Multibit Protocol collects tokens from unique addresses for all distributions. These tokens are securely transferred to a unified cold wallet. When users need to withdraw tokens, Multibit Protocol will burn the corresponding amount of tokens from the EVM chain. The equivalent token is then transferred from a secure cold wallet to the user.
