A brief history of the new BTC L1 protocol that even beginners can understand
Original author: 0xSea.eth (X: @_0x Sea_), host of the podcast program Sea Talk and co-founder of NextDAO
Have you been confused by the endless new protocols such as Ordinals / BRC-20 / Atomics / Pipe etc. that have appeared recently? Not sure what the relationship is between them?
Dont worry, let me help you sort out the timeline and the several lines implicit between them. Try to use concise language without complicated concepts. The goal is to help newcomers understand it, and even old ladies can understand it. This article does not constitute investment advice (NFA).
Chapter I
Ordinals and BRC-20: Casey and domo’s joyful world
Bitcoin’s Pandora’s Box was discovered by a man named Casey Rodarmor (@rodarmor) man opens.
In December 2022, Casey launched the Ordinals protocol. It gives each Satoshi a unique serial number and tracks them in transactions. Anyone can attach additional data through Ordinals, including text, pictures, videos, etc. This is determined by the permissionless feature of the blockchain/Bitcoin.
In the early days, Ordinals was far from as popular as it is today. Players mainly created NFT on it, and the transaction volume was not large. Founder Caseys initial positioning of it was to allow people to store something eternal and immutable on Bitcoin, the oldest chain with the strongest consensus. Therefore, for a period of time, many people will equate Ordinals with Bitcoin NFT.
Things changed on March 8, 2023, a man named@domodataAnonymous developers launched BRC-20 based on the Ordinals protocol. This name reminds people of the ERC-20 token standard on Ethereum. Yes, you can simply understand that BRC-20 is an altcoin issuance protocol based on Ordinals (that is, based on Bitcoin).
Issuing altcoins on BTC? Most peoples first impression is that its magical and driving in reverse. first token$OrdiWhen it was released, generation tools like Unisat had not yet appeared, and you needed to run a Bitcoin full node locally, like@shep_ethSuch technology developers have seized the opportunity and obtained chips at a very low cost.
As BRC-20 became popular in two rounds from May to June and October to November, BRC-20 transactions accounted for the majority of the Ordinals protocol. This matter made Casey very unhappy. He has publicly stated that BRC-20 brought a bunch of garbage to the Ordinals he created. So a few days ago we saw that the Casey team publicly issued a letter asking Binance to$OrdiDelete Ordinals in the token introduction. He doesn’t want Ordinals and$OrdiGet involved.
Conclusion 1:In progress$OrdiIn this matter, Casey himself has no money. Domo seems to have made 1,000 (one piece), but it is unknown whether there are other wallet rat positions. Ordi is rising more and more fiercely, and it is not clear what the two people are thinking in their hearts.
Gossip 1:During the Singapore Convention in September, a good person arranged for Casey and Domo to attend the same event. It is said that the two met and greeted each other in a friendly manner. Looking at the speeches of these two people on 𝕏, you will find that their involvement in the project is completely different.
Gossip 2:Why did Domo always wear a mask in public when attending the conference in Singapore? Does anyone know the reason?
Chapter II
A Guy Called Beny: The Intricacies of Matryoshka Doll Governance
After the BRC-20 appeared, there was an active developer in the community named Beny (he doesn’t seem to have a personal ID). This guy is an energetic developer: he launched the BRC-20 generation tool LooksOrdinal in about March ( no token), deployed in May$Trac @trac_btc, and the first Cursed Inscription-crsd with a total amount of 21 million, launched the BRC-20 improved version of Tap Protocol positioned at OrdFi in August@tap_protocol, an improved version of Runes Pipe was released in October@PipeBtc。
You may be wondering why this guy has so many projects. Then you have to ask Beny himself. All I can say is that this guy is really energetic and has a keen sense of smell.
What is the relationship between these projects?
$TracIt is a BRC-20 token and the governance token of Tap Protocol.
Tap Protocol is an improvement to the BRC-20 protocol level. Both $Tap and $-Tap tokens are issued based on Tap Protocol and are no longer within the scope of BRC-20 (but still based on Ordinals).
$TapIt is the governance token of the Pipe protocol.
The Pipe protocol is an improvement based on the Runes idea (which will be discussed later) and has been separated from the category of Ordinals.
Wonderful, what a matryoshka doll to manage!
What is special is that the total amount of 21 million$TapCurrently all are in the hands of Beny, with 0 in circulation; the first token on the Tap Protocol, $-Tap, is circulating in the market. The next thing is that the project team will$TapIt is used for financing and governance, and a part of it will be airdropped to$Trac,$-Tap and$Pipeof holders, the specific proportion is still uncertain.
Regarding Tap Protocol, if you are interested, you can read what I wrote beforeintroduce。
As for the other two projects Looksordinal and -crsd: the former is a pure tool without tokens; the latter because the ord development team has not completed all negative inscription types, the index for -crsd is not complete yet and cannot be traded at present.
Conclusion 2:A team launched a troika and matryoshka-style binding. This gameplay is considered unique in the current L1 arena.
Chapter III
Half a year to sharpen the sword: Protocol rookie Atomics shows its talents
About 3 months after Ordinals was released, another anonymous developer noticed it. After some thought and research, he felt that Ordinals had some shortcomings.
Then he started working, and after 6-7 months of intensive development, he launched the Atomics Protocol in September (@atomicalsxyz). In the early morning of September 21, someone issued the first token on the Atomics protocol$Atom,It was dug out in about 5 hours. $Atom needs to be mined through the computer CPU, and the local environment needs to be installed and configured. Compared with the BRC-20 method of directly pulling gas, it is more technically demanding (more geeky), and to a certain extent, it is also fairer.
At the bottom level, Atomics Protocol has several important differences compared to Ordinals:
Atomics is minted and spread based on BTCs UTXO, 1 token = 1 sat, which is more consistent with Bitcoin technology and does not bring additional burden to the BTC network. It is superior in terms of legitimacy of the technology and is more in line with BTC Maxi’s fundamentalist technical aesthetic;
In comparison, Ordinals is doing nothing and does not have a currency issuance protocol (hence the later BRC-20). However, when the Atomics protocol was launched, the ARC-20 token standard and other More use cases.
With the communitys in-depth research on Atomics, everyone discovered that its long development time, the founders determination, and the many scenarios and features it considered are a very complete set of protocols that are well prepared, so it has gradually received great attention from the community. Respect!
correct,@shep_ethAfter reading several interviews with the anonymous founder of Atomicals, I felt: This man talks too much like the young Steve Jobs. I feel the same way. His speech is very rational and eloquent, and his favorability + 1. At that time, Vitalik believed that Bitcoin had many limitations, and his proposal to improve Bitcoin was rejected, so he and several other friends created Ethereum, which is somewhat similar to the birth story of Atomics Protocol.
If you are interested, you can watch the interview with the founder:https://youtube.com/watch?v=JS4xCNFWO-I…andhttps://youtube.com/watch?v=dfj1QOge11Q…
Conclusion 3:Atomics has been developing for half a year and is attracting attention as a strong competitor of Ordinals. The ecosystem is still in its early stages, and more builders are pouring in.
Chapter IV
Unconvinced, Casey brought the menacing Runes
As mentioned above, Casey has always disliked BRC-20, thinking that it brought too many garbage inscriptions and polluted the holy Ordinals. Less than a week after the release of Atomics, on September 26, Casey sent a tweet saying that he had a terrible new idea to create a homogeneous token protocol based on Bitcoin called Runes.
Like Atomiglas (the hero sees the same thing), the important improvement of Runes compared to BRC-20 is based on UTXO technology. Casey believes that creating a good homogeneous token protocol for Bitcoin may bring significant transaction fee income, more developers and users to Bitcoin.
Shortly after the release of Runes-related documents, Comrade Beny saw this opportunity and launched the Pipe protocol based on the idea of Runes, which is related to Chapter 2 above.
On Caseys side, he is still busy with the upgrade of the Ordinals protocol and some minor bugs that appear from time to time, which takes up part of his energy. The official launch time of Runes is still uncertain. I believe this will be the next protocol that will attract much attention in the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Summary 4:As the founder of the most popular Ordinals protocol, Casey will receive enthusiastic attention from the market once Runes is launched.
For the above-mentioned protocols and highly related tokens, I have compiled a simple mind map explanation (I don’t have time to do more detailed drawings) to help you understand the dependencies and competition relationships.
Finally, in the past six months, there have been too many new protocols on Bitcoin. My energy and ability are limited and I cannot mention them all. Please forgive me.
IOS
Android