From RGB to RGB++: CKB empowers the development of Bitcoin ecosystem asset protocols

In the past two days, a sub-ecosystem around CKB on Bitcoin has attracted a lot of attention.

This ecosystem mainly consists of three parts:

RGB++ protocol: a protocol for issuing Bitcoin assets

Nervos: Bitcoin’s Second Layer Scaling System

UTXO Stack: used to build a blockchain system based on UTXO architecture.

RGB++ is an asset issuance protocol in the Bitcoin ecosystem. It originates from the RGB protocol, but solves some problems of the RGB protocol itself in its implementation, making the protocol feasible to implement.

Nervos is an early project that originally hoped to build a layer of blockchain similar to Ethereum that can carry a wide range of applications, but its operation has not seen much improvement in recent years. It was not until the launch of the Bitcoin ecosystem that the team turned its development direction to the second-layer expansion of Bitcoin based on the isomorphic characteristics of its own UTXO.

UTXO Stack has only recently been exposed in the media. The main benefit is that it has been favored by capital including many institutions, mainly because of its "one-click chain launch" function. However, the goal of this function is definitely not to create more first-layer UTXO blockchains, but to build a second-layer expansion system that is isomorphic to Bitcoin.

On the whole, we can understand this ecosystem as follows:

Around Bitcoin, it provides a complete set of infrastructure, allowing users to issue assets (based on RGB++), build applications (based on CKB), and customize their own second-layer extensions (UTXO Stack).

In this ecological framework, UTXO Stack is a feature that I think distinguishes it from other Bitcoin ecosystems.

We all know that Ethereum already has a fairly mature “one-click chain launch” system, such as the toolkit for issuing second-layer extensions provided by Optimism - Base is implemented in this way; Arbitrum provides a toolkit for issuing third-layer extensions - such as XAI and the recently popular Degen Chain.

However, in the Bitcoin ecosystem, the current second-layer expansion systems are basically fought alone and need to be reconstructed by teams one by one. There is no "one-click chain launch" toolkit similar to the Ethereum ecosystem. In my opinion, UTXO Stack seems to be the first project in this field in the Bitcoin ecosystem.

Overall, the design of this ecological framework is technically good and innovative.

But I still want to emphasize that ecological construction is a more important link at present.

In the current market landscape, Merlin and other second-layer extensions have attracted a large number of users to participate in the system's staking through the expectation of coin issuance. Their second-layer extensions have accumulated a very impressive TVL, and there are continued actions to be expected in the future.

In addition, a large number of airdrops in the Rune ecosystem are still continuing, attracting users to continuously increase their holdings of Rune assets.

The user resources in the current Bitcoin ecosystem are very limited. As these competitors are still increasing their efforts to attract users, how the CKB ecosystem can accelerate its ecological construction and attract more users is a challenge that cannot be ignored.

I mentioned a detail about user experience in an article or communication earlier:

I once tried to buy CKB, but found that I couldn’t buy it on any exchange. So I tried to buy Wrapped CKB on Ethereum, and found that there was a wrapped token, but it was not on Ethereum. It was still not convenient to buy.

There is no harm without comparison: I bought a coin AR, which is not convenient for purchasing native tokens, but it is easy to buy its packaged token (WAR) on Ethereum.

Comparing the two, at least from this detail, CKB still has considerable room for improvement in user experience.

Therefore, the top priority of this ecosystem now is to vigorously improve the user experience and quickly attract users to participate in its ecosystem construction.