Technical Progress and Programmability Expansion Solutions of the BTC Ecosystem

As more and more developers join the BTC ecosystem and become familiar with its model, the technical progress of BTC has been rapid, especially in terms of programmability expansion solutions. This article will introduce some of the more notable BTC programmability solutions, including Fractal Bitcoin and the programmability solutions of BTC metadata protocols such as BRC20, CBRC, and ARC20.

Fractal

Fractal is a scalable framework based on the virtualization of the bitcoin core client software, which improves the overall network performance by recursively creating a tree structure. It is fully compatible with Bitcoin and its infrastructure but activates the op_cat operator, allowing for more logic to be implemented.

Fractal is developed by the Unisat team and is expected to launch its mainnet in September 2024. Its token economics include 50% generated from mining, 15% for the ecosystem, 5% for early investor pre-sales, 20% allocated to advisors and core contributors, and 10% as community subsidies.

Architecture Design

Fractal packages the bitcoin core client into a deployable and runnable Blockchain Software Package (BCSP), recursively anchoring multiple instances running on the Bitcoin mainnet. It makes some modifications to bitcoin core, such as shortening block confirmation times and increasing block sizes, to improve performance and reduce latency.

Fractal activated the op_cat operator, providing more possibilities for scaling solutions on BTC. It also constructed a universal asset transfer interface, enabling seamless asset transfers between different layers.

Security

The security of Fractal mainly relies on its hash power. It introduces a joint mining mechanism, where one out of every three blocks is generated through merged mining with BTC miners to prevent potential 51% attacks. The newly created virtual instance chain will undergo an initial vulnerability period during the startup phase, during which operators can set specific block heights to provide protection.

AVM (Atomicals Virtual Machine)

AVM is the BTC smart contract implementation of the Atomicals Protocol. It creates a virtual machine that simulates BTC scripts and opens up multiple original BTC opcodes, allowing developers to implement smart contracts through combinations of Bitcoin scripts.

AVM achieves Turing completeness through a dual-stack PDA (Pushdown Automaton). It operates in a sandbox containing an indexer, instruction parser, and global state, enabling the processing of smart contracts and the synchronization and verification of states.

The AVM instruction set includes the full BTC opcode, allowing developers to program using the unlaunched features of BTC. It is suitable for any metadata protocol, requiring only minor adjustments to the indexer under the virtual machine.

OP_NET

OP_NET aims to introduce Ethereum-like smart contract functionality on the Bitcoin network, but in a way that is more aligned with the characteristics and architecture of Bitcoin. It offers a complete, compact, and user-friendly development library primarily written in AssemblyScript.

Core Functions and Features

OP_NET retains the block consensus and data availability of BTC, executing complex computations on BTC blocks through a virtual machine (OP_VM). It supports multiple programming languages, leveraging Tapscript to enable advanced smart contract functionalities.

When interacting with the OP_NET network, users need to pay additional fees. OP_NET also provides a Proof of Authority system that allows BTC to be wrapped as WBTC.

Ecological Project

The ecosystem of OP_NET covers multiple areas including decentralized trading, lending, market making, liquidity provision, and cross-chain bridges, with projects such as Motoswap, Stash, Ordinal Novus, Ichigai, and SatBot.

BRC100

BRC-100 is a decentralized computing protocol built on the Ordinals theory, which implements complex DeFi operations by adding new operations to brc20. It provides operations such as mint2/mint3 and burn2/burn3, allowing tokens to be safely converted between the UTXO model and the state machine model.

Expansion and Compatibility

The BRC-100 protocol and all its extensions and improvements are collectively referred to as the BRC-100 protocol stack, and all extension protocols are mutually compatible. Currently, there are extension protocols such as BRC-101 (Decentralized On-chain Governance Protocol), BRC-102 (Automated Liquidity Protocol), and BRC-104 (Liquidity Staking/Re-staking Pool Protocol).

Ecological Project

The BRC-100 ecosystem includes multiple projects, such as inBRC (the first BRC-100 market and indexer), 100Swap (a decentralized exchange based on the BRC-102 protocol), and 100Layer (a liquidity protocol on Bitcoin L1), among others.

Programmable Runes (Protorunes)

Programmability runes are an extended layer of runes that allow for the creation of programmable assets with runes. The Proto-Runes Protocol is the main project that provides a framework for programmable runes, allowing for the construction of AMM, lending protocols, or mature smart contracts by managing and transferring rune assets between sub-protocols.

Protoburn and Protorunes

Protoburn is a key mechanism of Proto-Runes that allows users to destroy runes and convert them into a representation used exclusively by sub-protocols. This mechanism ensures that rune assets can be safely transferred from the main protocol to sub-protocols, allowing for further operations and transactions within the sub-protocols.

Protomessage

Protomessage is an operational instruction executed within the subprotocol, implemented by encoding it in the Protostone structure and parsed by the indexer. It typically includes requests for operations on assets, such as transfers, transactions, or other functions defined by the protocol.

Latest Progress

Recently, the first Protorune—QUORUM•GENESIS•PROTORUNE has successfully completed the Protoburn. This genesis Protorune is designed to serve as a public forum for the Protorune standard and can be integrated into protocols to provide governance functions for project tokens. Currently, the development team is working on a WASM indexer for this genesis Protorune.