BRC-20: The Innovative Transformation and Future Outlook of the Bitcoin Ecosystem

Ordinal is an innovative technology on the Bitcoin network that assigns a unique serial number to each Satoshi (the smallest unit of Bitcoin). This mechanism allows individual Satoshis to be tracked and traded, and they can carry additional data such as images, text, or videos. When this data is written to a Satoshi and confirmed through a transaction, it will be permanently stored on the Bitcoin Blockchain, making each Satoshi a unique non-fungible asset.

The emergence of ordinal technology has brought new possibilities to the Bitcoin network, especially in the non-fungible token (NFT) space. Compared to traditional NFTs, ordinal-based NFTs exist directly on the Bitcoin blockchain without relying on other platforms or protocols. Since the launch of ordinal technology in January 2023, NFT activity on the Bitcoin network has increased significantly, driving rapid development in this field.

Based on ordinal technology, a new token standard BRC-20 emerged in March 2023. BRC-20 is a fungible token standard on the Bitcoin Blockchain that differs from Ethereum's ERC-20 standard, as it does not rely on smart contracts but instead utilizes ordinal inscription technology. BRC-20 tokens achieve deployment, minting, and transfer functions by directly writing JSON data into Satoshi.

It is important to note that while BRC-20 is an application of ordinal inscriptions, not all ordinals are BRC-20 tokens. Regular ordinals can contain any type of information, whereas BRC-20 tokens always include JSON data in a specific format. This design gives BRC-20 tokens their fungibility, which is the main difference between them and standard ordinals.

According to market data, the total market capitalization of BRC-20 tokens has increased by 3.4 times in just 7 months, reaching approximately $3.4 billion. Among them, ORDI (as the first minted BRC-20 token) and top tokens like SATS have performed particularly well.

The advantages of BRC-20 technology include:

1. Brings new features to Bitcoin beyond "digital gold".
2. Inherits the high security of the Bitcoin network
3. Completely based on on-chain operations, no additional file storage system is required.
4. Able to attract the vast user base of the Bitcoin network
5. Good compatibility with existing Bitcoin infrastructure

However, BRC-20 also faces some challenges:

1. Limited by the transaction processing capacity of the Bitcoin network, this may lead to high fees and long wait times.
2. Compared to ERC-20, the smart contract functionality is limited.
3. There are difficulties in interoperability with other blockchain networks.
4. As a new technology, it is still in the experimental stage, support tools are limited, and there are certain risks.

Nevertheless, the emergence of BRC-20 has changed the landscape of the Bitcoin ecosystem. With the development of Bitcoin's second-layer network, it is expected that in 2024, more decentralized finance (DeFi) projects centered around BRC-20 will emerge. Although BRC-20 is still in its early stages, its development trajectory somewhat resembles the growth process of Ethereum. The increasing interest from users, project parties, developers, and investors in BRC-20 fully demonstrates the potential and future development space of this technology.