Countdown to halving, what feasts will be in store for the Bitcoin ecosystem?

The overall market has been weak recently and is in a consolidation phase, but the tokens related to the Bitcoin ecosystem have performed relatively strongly and received relatively high market attention. As the Bitcoin halving enters the countdown, what sectors and tracks will the Bitcoin ecosystem be worth paying attention to? In addition to BCH, what other halving concept coins are worth paying attention to? What major upgrades will inscriptions and runes usher in after the halving? What major benefits will the Bitcoin Layer2 ecosystem release one after another?

Halving concept coins are beginning to move, and the bull market is about to begin

With the coming of Bitcoin halving, multiple halving concept coins have also begun to attract market attention. Among them, BCH halved in the early morning of April 4 and has seen a large increase recently.

According to the detailed description on gitlab.com, BCH will usher in the next upgrade on May 15 this year, and this upgrade is expected to implement CHIP 2023-04 Adaptive Blocksize Limit Algorithm. In order to reduce BCH's social attacks and save costs for all network participants, developers proposed to automatically adjust the block size limit after each block based on the exponentially weighted moving average size of the previous block.

In addition, BSV is expected to halve on April 14; ETC is expected to halve on June 7; DASH is expected to halve on July 10; ZEC is expected to halve on November 22; and ZEN is expected to halve on December 11.

Runes will be launched after halving, challenging BRC20 head-on

Both BRC 20 and Runes protocols are homogeneous token distribution protocols based on the Ordinals protocol. Since the release of the BRC 20 protocol, many BRC 20 tokens have been produced, including the famous ORDI and SATS. However, due to the limitations of the protocol itself, a large number of UTXO sets have been generated. Too much information is stored on the chain, causing congestion in the Bitcoin memory pool, and continuously raising gas. The behavior of engraving tokens has also had a counter-effect on the normal operation of the Bitcoin ecosystem.

In order to solve the drawbacks of the BRC 20 protocol, the Runes protocol, which claims to be more concise, announced that it will officially use the RUNE rune protocol based on the UTXO model after the Bitcoin halving. The difference between the Runes protocol and the BRC 20 protocol is that all rune balances will be stored in unspent UTXOs, so the problem of the continuous expansion and spread of useless UTXOs is well solved. And because it is based on the UTXO model, it is compatible with the Lightning Network on the one hand, and on the other hand, it is less dependent on the off-chain centralized index, which better guarantees security. In fact, compared with the BRC 20 protocol, the Runes protocol has obvious advantages in technology.

Interestingly, the BRC 20 protocol has recently announced that it will be upgraded. The BRC 20 protocol chose to upgrade at the time when Runes is about to be activated. The founder domo has currently shown the update content in the relevant documents, including the introduction of a self-issuance mechanism, the modification of deployment inscriptions, the use of 5-byte codes, and the establishment of consensus on the destruction method of BRC-20 assets. The upgrade has been activated at block height 837090. Due to the introduction of a self-issuance mechanism, the deployer can choose to complete the mint completely by himself and then decide how to distribute it to other users, so that the first batch of enthusiasts scrambling to deploy five-character tokens even raised the gas cost to thousands of dollars.

Inscriptions and runes compete openly, and the two have re-attracted the market's attention to the Bitcoin ecosystem. Casey even said on the social platform: "If the market value of the rune ecosystem does not reach $1 billion within a month after the release, I will commit suicide." After the Bitcoin halving, a new wealth-making effect seems to be imminent.

Bitcoin Layer2 concept leverages halving, and a number of positive news are about to be released

With the Bitcoin halving approaching, the Bitcoin Layer2, which has attracted much attention in the market recently, has also expressed its readiness to release big moves after the halving. Unlike the simple functions of inscriptions and runes, most Bitcoin Layer2 are compatible with EVM and can unlock more application scenarios. This article will mainly review the Bitcoin Layer2 ecological projects that are worth paying attention to.

Merlin Chain – Unlocking of Pledged Assets

On February 28, Merlin Chain launched a Merlin's Seal staking activity, through which users can accumulate M points by staking various assets to obtain Merlin Chain's governance token $MERL. The Merlin Chain governance token $MERL awarded in this staking activity is 20% of the total supply. On March 19, Bitcoin's second-layer network Merlin Chain announced that M-Token was officially launched. The staked assets of users participating in Merlin's Seal are expected to be unlocked in April, when users can unlock the original staked assets by destroying the corresponding mapped assets M-Token. At that time, M-Token can be exchanged for the original assets 1: 1.

Stacks – Nakamoto upgrade

Stacks is a smart contract layer on Bitcoin. The initial version was launched in 2021. It is also one of the earliest Layer2 projects in the Bitcoin ecosystem. Stacks opened the Nakamoto testnet to the public on March 26. Previously, Stacks co-founder Muneeb Ali said that the Stacks Nakamoto upgrade will be launched between April 15 and 29. The bootstrap contract required for the Nakamoto upgrade is ready.

B² Network – Mainnet Launch

B² Network is a Layer 2 solution on Bitcoin. It mainly uses zero-knowledge proof verification commitments to submit to the Bitcoin network, allowing challengers to initiate fraud proof challenges to achieve the purpose of using the strong consensus of the Bitcoin network to ensure the security of B² Network. It is reported that the B² mainnet will be launched in April.

BounceBit – Mainnet Launch

BounceBit is a DeFi solution designed for the Bitcoin ecosystem, powered by AUCTION and based on BTCB. The solution adopts an asset-centric strategy, with BTCB as the core asset, a BEP 2/BEP 20 asset pegged 1:1 to Bitcoin and locked on the Bitcoin blockchain. BounceBit plans to launch the mainnet on April 23 and conduct an airdrop in May, while opening BounceBit points redemption and asset withdrawal functions.

Summarize

With the approval of Bitcoin ETF, traditional financial capital began to pour into Bitcoin. In addition, with the maturity of Layer2 technology, many project parties began to migrate to the Bitcoin ecosystem, thereby unlocking more application scenarios for Bitcoin. Driven by the influx of capital and technological innovation, the Bitcoin ecosystem has shown a sustained strong trend, and its ecological development is also in full swing. This is different from the sector rotation in the previous bull market. The development of the Bitcoin ecosystem in this round of bull market has shown great sustainability, and its ecological concept is also worthy of continued attention.