Exploration of BTC Ecosystem Expansion Plan

Although the speculative enthusiasm for the Bitcoin ecosystem has cooled since the first quarter of 2024, progress on the technical front has been quite rapid, especially regarding programmability expansion solutions. This article will introduce several noteworthy BTC expansion solutions, including Fractal Bitcoin, AVM, OP_NET, BRC100, and programmable runes.

Fractal

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

Fractal is developed by the Unisat team and is expected to launch its mainnet in September 2024. In its tokenomics design, 50% will be generated through mining, 15% will be allocated to the ecosystem, 5% will be pre-sold to early investors, 20% will be distributed to advisors and core contributors, and 10% will be used to establish partnerships and liquidity.

In terms of architectural design, Fractal encapsulates the Bitcoin Core client into a deployable and executable blockchain software package (BCSP), and independently runs multiple BCSP instances on the Bitcoin mainnet through recursive anchoring. It makes some modifications to Bitcoin Core, such as shortening the block confirmation time to 30 seconds and increasing the block size to 20 MB, to provide better performance and user experience.

The mining output of the Fractal mainnet coin is to ensure the operation of the chain. The fb chain is basically consistent with BTC and does not have the capability to directly run smart contracts. Complex DeFi functions such as swaps require additional infrastructure support.

AVM

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

AVM achieves Turing completeness through a dual-stack PDA, and its instruction set includes the complete BTC opcode. This makes AVM the native pioneer network for the expansion of the BTC ecosystem. AVM is an architecture that is applicable to almost 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 to the Bitcoin network, but is more aligned with Bitcoin's characteristics and architecture. It offers a complete, compact, and user-friendly development library, primarily written in AssemblyScript.

OP_NET retains Bitcoin's block consensus and data availability by executing complex computations on Bitcoin blocks through the virtual machine (OP_VM). It supports multiple programming languages and utilizes Tapscript to enable advanced smart contract functionalities.

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

BRC100

BRC-100 is a decentralized computing protocol built on the Ordinals theory, which enables complex DeFi operations by adding new operations such as "burning" and "minting" to BRC20. It provides operations such as mint2/mint3 and burn2/burn3, allowing tokens to be securely converted between the UTXO model and the state machine model.

The BRC-100 protocol stack includes the BRC-101( decentralized on-chain governance protocol), the BRC-102( automated liquidity protocol), and the BRC-104( liquidity staking/re-staking pool protocol), among other extension protocols. Currently, there are projects in the ecosystem such as inBRC, 100Swap, and 100Layer.

Programmable Runes ( Protorunes )

Programmable runes are an extension layer of runes that allow the creation of programmable assets with runes. The Proto-Runes Protocol is the main project among them, providing a framework for programmable runes and supporting the management and transfer of rune assets between sub-protocols.

The key mechanisms of Proto-Runes include Protoburn( converting runes into a form usable by sub-protocols) and Protomessage( executing operational instructions within sub-protocols). Recently, the first Protorune "QUORUM•GENESIS•PROTORUNE" has successfully completed Protoburn, providing a functional model for on-chain governance on Bitcoin L1.

These expansion plans inject new vitality into the Bitcoin ecosystem, providing more possibilities for developers and users, and are expected to promote further development and application of the Bitcoin network.