The BRC-420 protocol ecological project bucked the trend and rose amid the overall market correction some time ago.

Among them, the price of blue box (BRC 420) once soared from 0.15 U to 26,000 U, and the market value reached 6900 BTC, following BAYC and CryptoPunks. As of now, Blue Box still ranks first in terms of unit price among the 10k collection in the Ordinals range.

(Source: Twitter @zad1130)

Behind the blue box is the Bitmap Tech team. In addition to the BRC-420 protocol, they also launched Bitmap.Game (Bitmap Metaverse) and Recursiverse (a product matrix based on recursive protocols). Bitmaps market value has recently soared from US$3 million to a maximum of US$290 million, with currency holding addresses reaching 30,000+. Like Blue Box, it has become one of the projects that have attracted much attention in the Ordinals ecosystem.

The Bitmap Tech team launched the testnet of the second-layer Bitcoin solution Merlin Chain this week, and revealed in an interview that its mainnet will also be launched in February 2024. This article aims to restore its vision and solution path by sorting out the public information of Merlin Chain.

Aims to become the leader of Bitcoin’s second-layer network

The transaction volume of the Bitcoin layer 1 network has grown rapidly with the rise of the Ordinals ecosystem. However, data-intensive transactions were not fully considered in the design, resulting in congestion on the Bitcoin network. In order to solve this problem, many Bitcoin expansion plans have emerged recently, ranging from side chains that need to ensure self-security to DA Rollup based on the Bitcoin layer network, and there are a lot of discussions.

(Bitcoin network daily transaction fee, source token terminal)

Among these many solutions, the solution of EVM side chain combined with cross-chain bridge has become an immediately implementable solution and will become the standard configuration of Bitcoins second-layer network in the short term. The Bitmap Tech team has been deeply involved in the Bitcoin ecosystem for many years, quickly devoted itself to the development of the second-layer network, and launched Merlin Chain.

It is worth noting that improving the congestion of the first-layer network and reducing transaction fees are only one of the problems that Merlin Chain needs to solve. The team is focusing on the more profound and complex problem of very few new users in the Bitcoin network.

(Number of daily active addresses on the Bitcoin network, source token terminal)

The goal of Merlin Chain is not only to improve the transaction environment on the first layer of Bitcoin, but also to introduce more native applications on the second layer. By empowering the first-level assets, protocols and user ecology on the second layer, such as building a metaverse that users can easily enter based on Bitmap, and building a DeFi protocol based on BRC-420 to maximize the release of its duality of graphics and currency, amplification is achieved The asset potential of the Bitcoin ecosystem as a whole.

ZK-Rollup technology integration and asset security

On the technical implementation path, Merlin Chain adopts ZK-Rollup technology to compress a large number of transaction proofs into a simple checksum, thus reducing the cost of DA on-chain. The second-layer sequencer node is responsible for collecting and batch processing transactions, and generating compressed transaction data, ZK state root and Proof through zkEVM.

The compressed transaction data and ZK Proof will be uploaded to the taproot of the Bitcoin layer through the decentralized Oracle network and made public to the entire network to ensure transparency and fairness.

Among them, decentralized Oracle network nodes will be required to pledge BTC to ensure that they will not do evil. Users can initiate challenges to ZK-Rollup based on compressed data, ZK state root and ZK Proof. A successful challenge will result in a rollback to the previous verification state and the confiscation of the locked assets of the Oracle node to ensure the security and credibility of the system.

Through the integration of these technical modules, Merlin Chain is expected to build an efficient, secure, and native Bitcoin second-layer solution.

Leading the integration and expansion of the native Bitcoin ecosystem

In addition to its strong technical strength, the difference between Merlin Chain and other Layer 2 projects is that the team attaches great importance to Bitcoin native and hopes to eventually contribute to the development of Bitcoin. Therefore, as the first step to serve the Bitcoin ecosystem, the team successfully integrated the Bitcoin wallet on the EVM chain through the account abstraction protocol.

On Merlin Chain, users of the native Bitcoin ecosystem can continue to use their Bitcoin wallets, switch freely between the first- and second-tier networks, and experience seamless interchange between Bitcoin and other assets. At the same time, users of the Ethereum ecosystem who have never been exposed to Bitcoin before can also use their familiar EVM wallets, such as MetaMask, to interact and pay for stablecoins or EVM-based tokens such as Ethereum, BNB, and MATIC. In this way, Merlin Chain has successfully lowered the threshold for interaction between users of the two ecosystems of Bitcoin and Ethereum, and is expected to bring new user growth and activity to the Bitcoin ecosystem.

In addition, Merlin Chain also supports inscription protocols such as BRC-20, BRC-420, Bitmap, and Atomics. Users can transfer these native assets to Merlin Chain through cross-chain bridges, and even mint the inscription of Bitcoin layer on Merlin Chain at a lower price and at least three times the transaction speed.

On Merlin Chain, the inscription assets obtained by users on the first-tier network will be automatically added to the whitelist to ensure the security of users transactions on Merlin Chain. This series of designs makes Merlin Chain a diversified and efficient ecosystem, attracting partners from various fields.

At present, Merlin Chain has announced ecological partners covering DEX, DeFi, games, social networking and other fields. It is expected to further expand its ecological scale after the mainnet is launched.

Adhere to the original belief of Bitcoin and practice decentralized governance

In terms of token economy, Merlin Chain insists on its belief in Bitcoin native and rejects the idea of ​​using Ethereum assets as Bitcoins second-layer network governance tokens, choosing instead to adopt the native BRC-20 protocol. In compliance with the concept of decentralization, Merlin Chains governance tokens will release most of the tokens to users and the community based on the pledges and activities of users on the chain.