In the clamor of the crypto world, the market’s attention is always drawn to the fleeting changes in prices. However, recently, a joint letter that circulated quietly on the Bitcoin Core forum, like a stone thrown into a deep lake, may not have immediately stirred up a massive wave, but it could be profoundly changing the trend direction of the entire Bitcoin ecosystem. This letter does not directly discuss wealth, yet it may determine where future wealth is born. It resembles a “ceasefire protocol,” attempting to put an end to a protracted “civil war” concerning the soul of Bitcoin.

The core of this “war” is the “Inscriptions” that have recently ignited the Bitcoin network and the ordinal theory behind them. When developer Casey Rodarmor cleverly utilized a long-neglected corner of Bitcoin transactions—witness data—in early 2023, successfully etching non-financial data such as images and text permanently onto the smallest unit of Bitcoin, the “Satoshi,” he perhaps did not anticipate that he was unleashing a Pandora’s box filled with opportunities and controversies.

“Spam” or “Renaissance”? A divisive debate tearing the community apart.

In an unprecedented way, inscriptions have ignited the Bitcoin ecosystem. For a time, a large number of “BRC-20” tokens and NFTs surged onto this public chain, known for its “purity”, creating an astonishing wealth effect and bringing a blessing to the increasingly depleted miner incomes — transaction fees soared at one point, even exceeding the fixed block rewards. Supporters cheer that this is a “Renaissance for Bitcoin”, believing it proves that the Bitcoin network can still build a rich and diverse application ecosystem without relying on complex smart contract virtual machines, thus attracting massive users and capital.

However, the other side of the coin is the anger and concern of Bitcoin purists and some core developers. In their eyes, these inscriptions, which are seen as “financial graffiti,” are a serious abuse of the precious space resources of the Bitcoin blockchain. Among them, the most famous opponent, senior Bitcoin core developer Luke Dashjr, denounces the inscriptions as a “spam attack” that exploits a “vulnerability” in the Bitcoin Core client.

His logic is solid and clear: the original intention of Bitcoin’s design is a peer-to-peer electronic cash system, and every byte of its blockchain should serve this core goal. Inscription permanently engraves a large amount of irrelevant data onto the ledger, causing the blockchain to expand at an unprecedented rate, which not only raises the hardware threshold for ordinary users to run full nodes but will also undermine the decentralized foundation on which Bitcoin relies for survival over time. He believes this behavior seriously deviates from Bitcoin’s ultimate vision as a robust currency. Thus, Luke and developers with similar views began to research how to ‘fix’ this flaw through software upgrades, the so-called ‘soft fork’, to fundamentally prevent the generation of inscriptions. For a time, the emerging inscription ecosystem was shrouded in the shadow of being ‘one-click cleared’ at any moment.

This debate quickly evolved into a profound philosophical and ideological struggle, tearing the Bitcoin community into two major camps. One side is the “minimalists,” who firmly believe that Bitcoin should maintain its most minimalist and purest form, focusing on becoming digital gold and the ultimate store of value, and any “impurities” that could interfere with this goal should be eliminated. The other side is the “expansionists,” who argue that Bitcoin is the most secure computing and consensus platform in human history, and its enormous security budget should not only be used to protect simple transfer transactions. Treating Bitcoin as a settlement layer for broader applications not only increases its utility value but also creates sustainable income for miners through a prosperous on-chain economy, thereby ensuring the long-term security of the Bitcoin network in a future where block rewards are continually halved.

The “hidden agenda” behind a joint letter

Just when the contradictions between the two parties seemed irreconcilable, the emergence of this joint letter brought a turning point to the tense situation. The list of signatories of the letter is itself highly persuasive, as it includes not only the founder of ordinal theory, Casey Rodarmor, but also core developers like b10c, as well as influential projects in the inscription ecosystem such as Taproot Wizards. This signifies that the builders, once regarded as “heretics,” are now presenting their ideas to the entire community, especially miners and developers, in a more mature and constructive manner.

The core argument of the letter cleverly sidesteps the subjective value judgment of “whether inscriptions are useful” and instead directly addresses the most fundamental and indisputable principle of Bitcoin—Censorship Resistance. The letter emphasizes that the greatness of Bitcoin lies in its nature as a permissionless, neutral platform. As long as a transaction complies with the network’s consensus rules (format is valid, the spender owns the corresponding UTXO, and sufficient fees are paid), it should be packaged without being scrutinized for its “intent” or content by any developers, miners, or groups. Today, one can refuse to package inscription transactions simply because they “do not like JPEGs,” and tomorrow, they might refuse to package any “unpopular” transactions for other reasons, which would open a dangerous Pandora’s box and fundamentally erode the value proposition of Bitcoin.

Rather than being a defense, this is more like a higher-dimensional “general”. It has kicked the ball to those developers who are trying to “fix” the loopholes: Are you willing to sacrifice the fundamental principle of censorship resistance in order to maintain your own “pure” Bitcoin?

Furthermore, this letter unabashedly points out a reality that everyone cannot avoid: the economic security model of Bitcoin. With the block reward halving every four years, miners’ income will increasingly rely on transaction fees. A quiet Bitcoin network with only a small number of transfer transactions will not be able to sustain a security budget worth trillions of dollars, sufficient to resist nation-level attacks. Non-financial applications, such as inscriptions and various potential future applications, are precisely the most powerful engine of the Bitcoin fee market. The letter clearly states that helping miners receive compensation is equivalent to helping the Bitcoin network maintain vitality and security. This is undoubtedly a “sunlit conspiracy” that directly targets the core interests of the mining community, forcing them to make a choice between “philosophical ideals” and “economic realities.”

From “Block” to “Unblock”: The Three Acts of the Evolution of the Bitcoin Protocol

The far-reaching significance of this joint letter lies in the fact that it marks a shift in the Bitcoin community from “confrontation” to “integration,” moving from simple “blockages” to more intelligent “diversions.” It does not end the debate, but it sets a healthy baseline for the discussion. When the question of “whether to build” is no longer an issue, the community’s creativity focuses in an unprecedented way on “how to build better.” History is confirming this, as the option of “blocking” is set aside, and the path of “diverting” becomes clear.

The wave of innovation surges on the ancient river of Bitcoin, while the evolution of metaprotocols has become the most noteworthy three-act play in this tide.

Act 1: Genesis - The Groundbreaking of Ordinals Ordinal theory and inscriptions are the starting point of this evolution, serving as a great “proof of concept,” roughly yet powerfully demonstrating to the world that issuing non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and fungible tokens (BRC-20) on Bitcoin is entirely feasible. Although it has brought issues such as UTXO set expansion, it ignited the first spark, allowing people to see another side of Bitcoin that had long been dormant. However, its limitations are equally evident: its functionalities primarily remain in token issuance and simple peer-to-peer transfers, lacking broader programmability. This has led to a seeming bottleneck in further innovation of the ecosystem after the initial hype.

Act Two: Improved Tune - The Ingenious Turn of Runes Against this backdrop, the Runes protocol, personally crafted by ordinal founder Casey Rodarmor, has emerged. It acts like a meticulous engineer, precisely optimizing the drawbacks of the BRC-20 that produce a large amount of “garbage” UTXOs during transactions. Through a more efficient and more “Bitcoin-native” UTXO model, Runes offers an elegant solution for homogeneous token issuance. The emergence of Runes is a logical necessity in the evolution of meta-protocols, transitioning from “feasible” to “better.” It makes asset issuance cleaner and more efficient, but ultimately, it still operates within the framework of “asset issuance” and does not touch on deeper transformations.

Act Three: Paradigm Revolution - The Incredible Leap of Alkanes However, whether it is Ordinals or Runes, they are still addressing the question of “how to issue assets on Bitcoin.” The real breakthrough lies in answering a more fundamental question: “Can Bitcoin become a decentralized computer that supports complex applications?” The latest “Methane Protocol” (Alkanes) is attempting to achieve this incredible leap, pushing the entire narrative to new heights.

Alkanes is no longer satisfied with patching existing protocols, but ambitiously introduces a complete, WASM (WebAssembly)-based smart contract environment on top of the foundations of Bitcoin. WASM is an efficient binary instruction format that allows developers to write complex applications using various high-level languages (such as Rust, C++) and securely execute them on the Bitcoin network. Theoretically, this is equivalent to directly embedding an “operating system” at the base layer of Bitcoin.

This leap is revolutionary. It means that developers can finally build truly autonomous and decentralized applications (DApps) on the Bitcoin main chain, such as automated market maker (AMM) decentralized exchanges, trustless lending protocols, on-chain derivatives, and even complex yield aggregators. This is no longer just about issuing a “small image” or a “meme coin”, but about constructing a complete, composable DeFi Lego world.

Since its launch in January 2025, Alkanes has begun to gain momentum after several months of silence. Data shows that in just three months from March to May, the exchanges interacting with the Alkanes protocol generated transaction fees amounting to 11.5 BTC. Although this figure is still less than Runes (41.7 BTC) and BRC-20 (35.2 BTC), it has significantly surpassed the same period’s Ordinals NFT (6.2 BTC), demonstrating a strong growth momentum.

The true trump card of Alkanes lies in its upcoming native AMM DEX. Once launched, it will completely transform the trading experience of Bitcoin native assets. Users will no longer need to go through the cumbersome process of manually placing orders and waiting for counterparties to match, but can directly interact with liquidity pools driven by smart contracts, achieving instant and smooth transactions. This is not only a significant leap in user experience but also a fundamental breakthrough in functionality. It means that the Bitcoin ecosystem can finally bridge the gap with modern smart contract platforms like Ethereum, laying the groundwork for more expressive and native DeFi activities. The emergence of Alkanes represents the next evolution of the Bitcoin meta-protocol, shifting the narrative from static ‘asset issuance’ to dynamic ‘application deployment.’ Behind the door it opens is a world full of imagination.

Evolution, never-ending

The story of Bitcoin, from the moment of its birth, has not been a perfect script written by a single “deity,” but rather an epic of evolution co-authored by countless developers, miners, and users through debate, compromise, and consensus. From the early “block size war” to today’s “inscription dispute,” each significant disagreement has ultimately become a catalyst for the forward evolution of Bitcoin. This seemingly inconspicuous open letter is yet another key chapter in this epic.

It reminds us that the most powerful force of Bitcoin is not the rigidity of its code, but the strong resilience and self-correcting ability of its consensus mechanism. A truly decentralized system will ultimately find a path that is inclusive and sustainable. From the groundbreaking achievements of Ordinals, to the refined improvements of Runes, and the revolutionary leap into the era of smart contracts with Alkanes, we are witnessing the acceleration of this evolution.

For those who are interested in this field, it might be time to shift some attention away from the candlestick charts and spend more time gazing at this ancient yet youthful public blockchain. Because amidst the seemingly dull code and forum debates, the seeds of the next paradigm shift are brewing in new protocols like Alkanes. The future of Bitcoin may be broader than we imagine.

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