15 years ago, 10,000 bitcoins in exchange for two pizzas was considered a joke. 15 years later, Bitcoin reached a new historical high, but OKX Wallet announced that it would stop supporting Runes.
The debate between Bitcoin and BTCFi has never stopped. The stablecoin bill has been passed, and Satoshi Nakamotos great idea of peer-to-peer electronic cash has been seized upon by governments, central banks, and traditional financial giants today.
Where is the Bitcoin ecosystem heading? Let’s dig deeper!
Indeed, 15 years later, a richer industry has emerged around Bitcoin. There are already 429 applications in the Rootdata Bitcoin Ecosystem Map, ranking in the top 10. Infra, Layer 1, Layer 2, NFT, Ordinals, Runes, and various applications around PayFi and DeFi have emerged in an endless stream, and with the help of capital, they have also become the main narrative.
When the tide goes out you can see who is swimming naked and who is working hard.
Is BTCFi dead?
Many people ask this question. It should be more accurately understood as: Is the Bitcoin staking track dead? According to the understanding of users, if there is a large-scale reversal and the market value/price is low, then this track is really dead. However, we also have to look at another angle, that is, the project side. Have they made money? Are they still building? If you look at it this way, it will be interesting.
Babylon gradually became silent after the last subsidy gas was received, but it did not stop building. The second phase of the mainnet was launched on May 9, and on May 16, a single transfer of 10,000 bitcoins to Babylon phase-2 provided punitive security, with a total stake of 50,000 bitcoins, equivalent to a TVL of 5 billion US dollars.
In addition, B² and Merlin have both recently entered the CoinPress Alpha. You read that right, it is Merin. They have not been lying down, but have been working quietly. Lorenzo has launched the CoinPress wallet IDO and contract. The new narrative of on-chain investment banking has begun to bear fruit. Lombard recently cooperated with Pendle and Aave to enhance the liquidity of Bitcoin assets; Nubit demonstrated the Bitcoin Thunderbolt protocol at FBC 25; Sol continues to expand its on-chain micro-strategy territory and supports the landing of Chainlink CCIP on Solana.
It’s not like they’re all working hard. For a project starting with B, the Chinese Twitter account has only updated 2 pieces of content since May, and one of them was about the Pizza Festival lucky draw.
Still inscribed runes Ordinals?
OKX Wallet chooses not to support Runes, which is understandable. After all, this is a product for the general public. The BTC ecosystem has now faded out of the mainstream and returned to its original point.
Most of the creativity in this part is related to OP_Return. This round of Bitcoin upgrades has also turned some assets into antiques. Bitcoin has been reaching new highs, but the assets around Bitcoin have become the opposite direction of the clock. Is this reasonable? So there is a project that is not happy.
Unisat’s Secret Bitcoin Garden
If we talk about true love, Unisat absolutely loves Bitcoin and the Bitcoin ecosystem, and I believe that peers, investors, and users will not refute this. This team is dead set on Bitcoin. Although there are praises and criticisms, everyone admits that Unisat cannot be ignored when talking about the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Let’s first take a look at what flowers Unisat has planted on the land of Bitcoin:
UniSat Wallet
A wallet that supports Ordinals, Runes, BRC-20 and rare satoshis, with multiple terminal products, compatible with mainstream asset management needs.
UniScan
The browser is an essential entry infrastructure for chains and ecological protocols. Uniscan can provide a full range of data services for ecological projects and users, and also ensure the consistency of various data structures, such as BTC and Fractal addresses. If new protocols are added, Uniscan can also be compatible with access to maintain data consistency of complex protocols under the same address.
UniSat Marketplace
The BRC-20 asset trading platform based on PSBT became the mainstream inscription market after its launch in April 2023, and integrated the wallet to become an all-round product for issuance, new issuance, trading, and fundraising.
PizzaSwap
PizzaSwap is upgraded from BRC-20. The new brand indicates that it is no longer limited to BRC-20 assets, but is targeting the entire Bitcoin ecosystem. PizzaSwap began to test and deploy on Fractal to complete productization. The domain name was also upgraded to an independent domain name and developed independently. How to go from Fractal to the mainnet? The answer is open cooperation. PizzaSwap will cooperate with OKX Wallet and L1 F to break through the protocol restrictions and embrace the mainnet. In the future, it will also support decentralized transactions of more new assets.
Support for Fractal Bitcoin (FB)
UniSat is the core promoter of Fractal Bitcoin, helping to build the Fractal ecosystem by providing infrastructure support (such as BRC-20 index open source and Runes activation).
Alkanes
This is the new Meta Protocol on Bitcoin Layer 1. Simply put, it adds a smart contract plug-in to BTC. The code is written in Rust, compiled into WebAssembly (WASM), compressed and directly inserted into the Bitcoin blockchain. With the Metashrew indexer, the on-chain status is clear at a glance, safe and transparent! With the support of smart contracts, this must be paid attention to, it is definitely a big event in the future.
This seems to have been discovered, and UniSat-related infrastructure may gradually support Alkanes. Wallets and browsers will be the first, and minting and market functions may gradually follow. Swap modules will also be compatible in the future.
Last year, UniSat worked with Layer 1 Foundation to promote the BRC-20 standard upgrade, with the goal of achieving a fully decentralized AMM mechanism, similar to the Uniswap trading experience. In addition, UniSat enhanced the interoperability of assets through PizzaSwap and cross-chain bridges, laying the foundation for the DeFi scenario of the BTC ecosystem.
It can be said that these are all necessary infrastructure for the ecosystem! Many people may criticize, why do you do everything Unisat, I have to be fair, there is no way, my friend, no one is doing the infrastructure, and if you do it, you don’t maintain it well, and you stop it at any time... Don’t you have to grit your teeth and do it yourself? Everyone is staring at the issuance of coins, my friend, issuing coins also requires wallets, protocols, chains, and DEX. If you don’t do these things well, you let users use code to buy assets?
The heavy hammer of Bitcoin’s resurgence
Among them, I think the most difficult and most promising ones are Fractal Bitcoin and PizzaSwap.
Fractal Bitcoin
This is a Bitcoin expansion solution developed by the UniSat team, based on the Bitcoin core code, and fully compatible with existing Bitcoin wallets, tools, and mining equipment. Its uniqueness lies in the fact that it expands itself through Bitcoin itself, using fractal design to improve network performance while retaining the security and decentralization characteristics of Bitcoin.
It is worth mentioning that Fractal Bitcoin has obtained the support of over 90% of the total network computing power, especially the participation of Foundry, the largest compliant mining pool in the United States. Through the innovative Cadence Mining model, Fractal is able to share Bitcoins computing power resources and further enhance network security and stability.
As an underlying protocol, Fractal Bitcoin uses the FB protocol to shorten the block confirmation time from 10 minutes to 30 seconds, supports multiple protocols such as BRC-20 and Runes, and significantly improves transaction efficiency. At present, Fractal Bitcoin has been launched for nearly a year, and its TPS is still stable at around 170, far exceeding the 7-10 TPS of the Bitcoin main network, indicating that the protocol is highly active and transactions are cheaper, faster, and more efficient.
What is the user doing?
According to OKX and Fractal browsers, the main active behaviors are inscription minting, trading, Defis Swap and liquidity management, and $FB transfers.
Is Fractal considered Layer 2? It is still controversial. Amid the controversy, modular solutions can indeed optimize the BRC-2 0 protocol, save block space and build a sustainable incentive model. Let’s learn by doing.
PizzaSwap
This is a decentralized exchange launched by UniSat on Fractal Bitcoin, providing an efficient and native trading platform for assets on the Bitcoin mainnet and the Fractal ecosystem.
How is this AMM implemented?
PizzaSwap implements fully decentralized trading logic by storing the mainnet assets and Fractal assets in the module and locking them without transferring them. Bool Bridge and SimpleBridge can also realize cross-chain of mainnet and Fractal assets.
Will PizzaSwap support the Alkane Protocol soon? I think it will definitely support it, and it won’t be too late. In comparison, Oyl also supports it, but its compatibility with Runes and other BRC-20 assets is a little weaker. DotSwap can also support it, but the experience is a little worse, and the centralization risk has not been relieved.
On one hand, the application layer is making a great leap forward in production, issuing coins, transforming or playing dead, while on the other hand, the underlying infrastructure and protocols are slowly innovating. Some people choose to sneak into Chencang, while others choose to make up for their shortcomings with diligence. Both are good, depending on what you like. I always love Bitcoin and the Bitcoin ecosystem, and I am willing to take a closer look and support it a little more. After all, there will be fewer and fewer such niche and pure things in the future.
