Follow the time of time metal Merlin: Rome is not built a day

Author: encrypted dog source: x,@jiamigoucn

Merlinchain, who had run 2 months, was opened on OK on April 19th.Let’s take a look that the tokens are not worth holding for a long time, and review the history of Merlin development.

This article is not technical analysis, but analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of the product from the perspective of the product market, and see what information we can get from it.

one,Is Merlin’s high popularity?

After Merlinchain was launched in February, TVL rose to nearly $ 4 billion a month, and it is still maintained at about $ 3 billion, which has completed the bottom of the entire project.

Judging from the 28 BTCLAYER2 statistics from DWF, Merlinchain has become the absolute leading project of BTC Layer2.

From the data point of view, Merlinchain has reached the level of a public chain.

From the perspective of community construction, the heat is sufficient.Before writing this article, I have burned two weeks high. I read hundreds of related articles and papers of Merlinchain in these two weeks. As KOL, I feel it intuitively. These papers are not as official as officials.Spontaneous construction, spontaneous propaganda.

For example, this great god, sort out all the articles of Merlinchain into a notion for everyone to check:

https://merlinchain.notion.site/merlin-wiki-8c634E0068794BEC77F19CB98EB

In Twitter, I saw a lot of opinion leaders of less than 10,000 powder. They wrote a lot of summary tweets in the early days of the project. I excerpted one of them:

These are just the tip of the iceberg in the past two months of the Merlinchain chain. In addition to the data and community heat, there are many ecology on the Merlinchain chain.From the perspective of these data and heat, Merlinchain’s basic disk has been created, and the token performance is seen.

We often say that Rome is not built a day, nor does Merinchain be at the beginning. Let’s take a look at how Merlinchain was released.

two,Merlin prequel

Before Merin Chain was born, 600+ inscriptions and 1000+ Bitcoin ecological developers were launched; bitmap.tech has been in the Bitcoin 1st layer of native asset Bitmap or more. It has 33500+ independent addresses and is the largest OrdinalsAsset community.

Many people are saying that Merlin is from bottom to top, that is to say, to do ecology, technology, and finally do L2.Instead of designing a public chain framework like other projects, and then slowly filling technology and narrative. One phenomenon that this causes is that the user does not know when it will issue coins, and you don’t know what to do.The project party’s various tasks were exhausted.

Before Merlin Chain came out, the project party Bitmap.tech had made many projects, such as: the earliest recursiveers, bitmap.game, BRC-420 can be said to be one of them, not only free airdrops, but also created ten times a hundred times a hundred times.Even a thousand times more opportunities, the entire ecology is continuously promoted in a plate of chess.

Therefore, the investment institution ABCDE mentioned in the article “Why do we lead bitmap.tech”: Bitmap.tech has established the largest asset community in the Bitcoin ecosystem, with 33,000 Bitmap holders, Bitmap.tech blue boxesThe market value has exceeded 200 million US dollars, second only to Cryptopunks and Bayc.These assets have rich asset reserves and user bases on the first day when Merlin Chain’s launch, and has an indispensable advantage that other Bitcoin Layer2.

In addition to ABCDE, the Merlin project party also received 24 institutions including Okxventures, ForeSight Ventures, Arkstream Capital.

Why does the BRC-420 blue box have such high market value and have been supported by so many users, and therefore bring so many institutions to participate?

Let’s take a look at the most important technology BRC, 420, as the predecessor of Merlin Chain, what kind of role in the ecology, and figured out this, and we can understand the next technical analysis of Merlin Chain.

Third, the exploration of Bitcoin L2

(1) The possibility of realization of Bitcoin ecology

As early as the initial period of BTC, expanding exploration of BTC has always existed, especially in the field of asset issuance.

With the popularization of Bitcoin, network congestion and confirmation duration have become more serious. In 2015, the Gavin Andresen and Mike Hearn of the Bitcoin Foundation announced that they would implement the BIP-101 proposal in the new version of Bitcoinxt, hoping to increase the block limit to 8MB.Bitcoincore, such as Greg Maxel, Luke JR, Pieter Wuille, holds opposition, thinking that this method will increase the threshold of running the entire node and bring an unprepared impact.

This concern is not unprecedented. The community believes that 8MB will not be the final solution. Once a large block is selected, it is likely that in the end, it is likely to be continuously expanded. The technical risk stack and unpredictable risks caused by unlimited capacity expansion really exist.

(2) Failure Bitcoin Bulls

The community revolves around the [What is the vision of Bitcoin?] The dispute caused the Bitcoin community to divide the community. Finally, the community began to separate the community in 2017, and the BCH was split (the back of the BCH community continued to split, and BSV was split on BCH).Essence

In addition to BCH (BSV), many other BTC divisions and coins appeared during this period. According to BitMexresearch, at least 50 new fork coins appeared within one year after BCH fork.Many people turn over in these divisions, and more people are giving birth in this division.

It can be seen from the market of various tokens from Bitcoin, and it can be seen that expansion is obviously unable to go up in the Bitcoin blockchain.

After the fork, the BTC chain has gradually introduced a series of new technical solutions under the premise of maintaining the existing block size to improve the expansion. The most important of which is Segwit (Segregated Witness isolation testimony) and Taproot.

(3) Ordinals sprout

SEGREGated Witness, as an alternative to directly increasing the size of the block, is introduced at the same time in BCH.

Segwit divides the transaction into two parts. The first part includes the sending and receiving address, the second part saves the transaction signature or witness data, removes the main block but retains the verification function.The transposition of witness data makes more transactions that can accommodate at the same size and improve throughput in another way.

Segwit is introduced in a soft split, and the adoption rate has continued to increase. By 2020, it has exceeded 60%, and by 95%by December 2023.

In November 2021, another important upgrade Taproot also officially took effect in the form of a soft fork.This upgrade is combined by BIP340, BIP341 and BIP342 in structure.Among them, the BIP340 introduces the Schnorr signature that can verify multiple transactions at the same time, replacing the oval curve digital signature algorithm (ECDSA), once again expanded the network capacity and accelerated the processing speed of batch transactions.; BIP341 realizes Merkel’s abstract grammar tree (MAST) to optimize trading data storage on the blockchain; BIP342 (or TAPScript) uses Bitcoin scripting language to adapt to Schnorr’s signature and Taproot implementation.

Segwit did not restrict the length of the verification information at first, which also caused subsequent projects to bypass the 4MB block size limit by verifying information, and laid a foreshadowing for the rise of the subsequent order.

For this approach, the community has also been controversial. Some opponents believe that SEGWIT does not set the length limit of length is a mistake. Therefore, the use of verification information to transfer data is an unfair “attack behavior.”

(4) Early exploration of Bitcoin Layer2

With the various attempts of the Bitcoin block size disputes, the practice of fork and capacity has not reached any consensus, so these roads must not be able to go.

The community began to find new solutions, that is, the “block bridge”. Later, the various L2 outbreaks on Ethereum.The method of confirmation is called “L2”.

The most mainstream routes in the early Bitcoin L2 solutions are two types of solutions: Lightning Network and SideChains.

1. Sidechains

The side chain scheme is a “Technical Thesis of the Bitcoin side Chain Plan” published by Blockstream in 2014. Until January 2018, RSK finally launched the complete function of the main network. In September of the same year, Blockstream started the LIQUIDNETWORK side chain.

The idea of the side chain is to obtain or send Bitcoin from the Bitcoin network, but the trading behavior is independent of the BTC network.In addition to RSK and Liquid Network, Stacks, ROOTSSTOCKS, DriveChain, etc. also belong to the side chain solution.In addition, developers have also explored and practiced in the direction of status channels, ROLL-Up and other directions.

This is the current technology of many Bitcoin L2 until the direction. It can be said that most Bitcoin L2 is a Bitcoin side chain.

2. Lightning Network

Lightning Network was first proposed by Joseph Poon and THADDEUSDRYJA in 2015. The core idea is to lock a part of Bitcoin in the multi -signal address, thereby establishing a separate collaboration agreement.The transactions in the Lightning Network are carried out under the chain, and the final result is confirmed by the BTC network.In March 2018, Lightning Labs announced that the Lightning Network was officially launched on the Bitcoin main network, representing the application of Strike, Taro, LightSpark, etc.

Fourth, the BRC-420 that is opened and down

The founder of Merlin Chain Jeff revealed in the interview that, in fact, the team did not think of doing Layer2 at the beginning.Too limited, many ideas cannot be realized, and the Bitmaptech team is just in all Bitcoin Layer2, the strongest native foundation: BRC-420 defines the Yuan universe and copyright standards for Bitcoin assets.

The BRC-420 was released on September 19, 2023, which was the hottest of the inscription. At that time, the price was 0.15 U each. It rose to $ 1,000 on November 15.NFT, second only to Bayc and Punks.

From a price point of view, is the BRC-420 very soil dog? Many people did not understand in the early days, thinking that it was a soil dog. Later, after understanding, I felt that his technical prospect was very high and could do a lot of things, so let’s take a look at it.The technical direction of BRC-420.

(1) Ordinal protocol

Before Ordinal, most people thought that BTC could only exist in the blockchain world as a financial attribute, because the various attempts of the previous developers ended in failure, so many people think that doing any ecology on BTC is futile, that is, that is, that is, it is also a futile.Only lightning networks and side chain technology can make small troubles, which is incomparable with ETH ecology and other smart contract platforms such as ETH ecology and other L1.

After the Ordinal protocol comes out, the concept of inscription INScripting has been completely hot for several months, allowing people to see that developing ecology on BTC is possible and exceed all smart contract platforms.It can be seen that where the community is and where the consensus is.

What is the Ordinal protocol?

To explain in one sentence, Ordinal is the inscription tool used as a network disk as a network disk, but it is only inscribed on the blockchain for everyone to see.

Just like you write “XX to a trip here” on a brick, who can see this sentence in that scenic area in the future.

The essence of Ordinal is actually very simple. It is more like a NFT protocol, but most of them are stored in IPFS or centralized servers from ETH or other public chains. The metadinal metadinal metadata is embedded in the transaction.Witness Data, like “inscription! To a specific Cong, this is also the source of the word inscription.

This is also the narrative and play of Ordinal-starting-BTC cannot be tampered with, permanently stored “network disk nature”, metadata can support text, pictures, videos and other loose properties, except for the size of 4MB (later explained to the recursive inscriptions laterAt this time, this limit is no longer there, this is the problem that bitmap.tech is solved).

(2) BRC-20, ARC-20, Rune, BRC100SRC-20

With new ways to play in the market, naturally it will not only satisfy NFT. Developers have found various methods on Ordinal, and eventually have a BRC-20.

1. BRC-201

The concept of BRC-20 is to use the characteristics of ORIDIIDINAL’s limitation of the file format to design the concept of deploying JSON FILE on Oridinal, combining the three simple “operating codes” of DEPLOY, MINT, Transfer, and achieved the use of Indexer.And transfer function.

The role of INDEXER is temporarily relatively centralized and provides basic settings for all BRC20 search on the Bitcoin chain. According to the situation of deploy, mint, transfer, to attract the number of BRC20 coins held by each person.

After the BRC-20, the Ordinal protocol has a lot of new gameplay, such as ARC-20, Rune, BRC100, etc.They are solving the deficiencies of the BRC-20, and they are written in UTXO scripts to Tokenid, output and quantity, etc., and hand over transfer to the BTC1 layer to deal with security issues.

2. SRC20

The SRC20 originated from the BTC Stamps protocol, and the REDINAL protocol is a competitive relationship; Ordinal is to store data into the isolation witness field, while BTCSTAMPS deposits data into the transaction output of BTC.

There is a picture on the Internet that can intuitively describe this passage:

Because the SRC-20 does not have the possibility of being isolated and witnessed, it is favored and sought after by more developers in the West. It feels like a weapon used to compete with the Oriental BRC20 system, but its casting costs are higher.

(3) BRC-420

The BRC-420 is the “BTC Yuan Universe Agreement” launched by the Bitmap.tech team. Unlike the previous asset issuance protocols, the BRC420 is more inclined to the application level and more complicated.

Jeff, the founder of Bitmap.tech, once said: the team does and only do what we do and only do things that have not appeared in other ecology.The earliest we did a lot of things based on recursion, such as recursive graffiti and recursive chain on the forum; later we made Bitmap, a completely decentralized data packet; then the BRC-420.

According to ABCDE’s related papers, the BRC420 brings three interesting things:

1. Recursive inscription -type assets, BRC420 defines a more complex asset format by recursively, combining multiple inscriptions into a complex inscription by combining multiple inscriptions.Game image, game DLC, HTMI script, music, videos, etc. … eventually realized “modularity on the chain”.

2. The tax on the chain, because there is a recursive modular asset called each other, so it is small to a character image or pet, so large that the entire game script, virtual machine and even AI models can be combined into chain assets. At this time, it is reasonable to be reasonable.The automatic execution of the tax system can well encourage the developer’s ecology, so that more valuable modules are available on the chain.For example, a very hot all -chain game, if a burst combat system, card drawing system, blind box system, etc. can be used as a separate module inscription culture, the original author can also get taxable income when calling by other games.

3. Bitmap, Bitmap is a very “cool” and very hard -core thing. It can understand it as a BTC -based Sandbox land, but it is much more native to the SANDBOX.Because every-the .bitmap inscription is a mapping every block on the Bitcoin. The number increases with the block synchronization. There are more than 810,000 Bitmap, an increase of 50,000 per year.Holder’s independent address is more than 20,000, second only to ORDI and SATS.

The BRC420 does not have Bitmap, but it is the largest booster behind Bitmap. It also monopolizes the traffic of more than 95%of the Bitmap browser. More than a hundred teams have issued assets in the BRC420.Determined application protocol.

Such a noticeable achievement is inseparable from the decisions of Jeff, the founder of Bitmap.tech. Jeff believes that any new ecology needs to have its own narrative.All seem to be innovative.Just like the blue box is hot, a 420 protocol appears on each chain, with various colors of boxes.We must do things that have not appeared before and create new narratives to allow Bitcoin ecological development.For example, many contents of Ethereum do not chain, then we must combine the content on the chain.

In this way, I need to make a summary of the BRC-420:

summary

After the Ordinal protocol comes out, because its metadata supports text, pictures, videos, JSON FILE and other properties, it makes developing an ecosystem in Bitcoin a possibility.ARC-20, Rune, BRC100, SRC-20 are also solving the problem of deployment, which will bring great idleness to the development of Bitcoinl2;

BRC-420 was originally launched by Bitmap.tech as the “BTC Yuan Universe Agreement”. Due to its “recursive inscriptions” and “currency conversion”, it can be recubled together by multiple inscriptions assets and combined into a complexTherefore, the inscription can carry the diverse types of assets far beyond the BRC20, as small as a character image or pet, so large that the entire game script, virtual machine and even AI models can be combined into Bitcoin chain assets for developers to purchaseOr pay the version tax.

Due to the recursive characteristics of the BRC-420, it attracted more than 1,000 project parties to issue its own BRC-420 project on it, which eventually made the BRC-420 a project platform.effect.

5. The smooth launch of the Merlin Chain chain

(1) The disruptiveness of the BRC-420

As mentioned earlier, the BRC-420 solves many problems that have not been solved on the Ordinal. The BRC-420 can combine all the content on the blockchain through the recursive inscription. This is a technical breakthrough.Content, including but not limited to game images, game DLC, HTMI scripts, music, videos, etc.

In the past, many Ethereum’s content was not chain. All content of Bitcoin, whether it is game content or application script, or social assets, all these contents are open to the inscription.

The BRC-420 uses the combined availability of the content of the chain to modify the open source of the content on the content, and finally realize the asset-based to pave the technical path for Bitcoin Layer2.

(2) From the perspective of the product line, the launch of Merin Chain is from bottom to top

Before Bitmap.tech was ready to do Bitcoin Layer2, the project party had made Layer1 ecology such as recursiveers, Bitmap.game, BRC-420, etc., which can be said to be one.It has been put in the first layer of Bitcoin’s native assets of Bitmap 90% or more. It has 33500+ independent addresses and is the largest Ordinals asset community.

It can be said that the new narrative of Bitmap.tech from assets to projects has already a solid foundation in the basic disk in the Bitcoin system.

In the process, the community has a considerable assets, and the community hopes that the project can develop positive, so they all build this asset. Unlike traditional blockchain projects, the project party has an idea first, and then they distributeToken, make products to attract more users.

Bitmap.tech founder Jeff once said in the interview: After the Ordinal protocol came out, although the market was hot for a long time, there was a problem with the assets on Btcoin Layer1.In the end, if it does not rise, everyone will go to the next asset to play new, and everyone will always be busy, but they will not make money.

Most of those assets with fast and high market value are things that were three months ago, and it is difficult to produce new assets now.One is because the narrative is not fresh, and the other is because the application scenarios are too limited, and the third is because the financial liquidity and leverage are too weak.Therefore, in order to make this ecosystem more prosperous, the environment of the virtual machine to achieve these functions is currently just needed.

Therefore, after Bitmap.tech is very mature in all aspects, Merlinchain is released, and the community and the previous ecology are absorbed together to do bigger things.

(3) From a macro perspective, Bitcoin Layer2 is a trillion track

Bitcoin’s funds have reached the scale, and the Bitcoin Layer2 market has not yet been activated.

It can be compared-when the market value of Ethereum below is 2,300 billion, the total value of the ERC-20 token is also at $ 23 trillion.BTC is a trillion US dollar market, but the total market value of BRC’s tokens is less than 10 billion US dollars. This one tens of billions of dollars to $ 1 trillion has 99 times the space in the middle.It can’t be filled during a period of time, but this is a potential market, and no one can ignore it.

Most of the projects of Bitcoin Layer2 have just begun, and no real leader has appeared. From the perspective of TVL, Merlin Chain is likely to become the leader of Bitcoin Layer2. If Bitcoin Layer2 is activated because of one or two head projects, this market potentialIt is much more money than more than ten twenty ethereum L2.

As the founder of Bitmap.tech Jeff said: Bitcoin L2 may play these two characters, one is to make these past unused finances, and the second is how these native innovation on Bitcoin can do more.good.

According to statistics, there are now more than 30+ Bitcoinl2, which are divided into several categories such as side chain ROLLUP and data availability.

For Merlin, what is different from other Bitcoinl2? Please see the next issue of “Merlin Technical Analysis”

Data storage:

https://link.Medium.com/cmmwrfrtib

References:

“ABCDE: The Past, Now and Future of Bitcoin Ecology”: https://www.theblockbeats.info/news/4937
“Dialogue Merlin Chain founder Jeff: Why do retail investors feel uncomfortable because they feel cut off by institutions”: https://www.chaincatcher.com/article/2115067
“ABCDE: Why do we receive bitmap.tech”: https://www.chaincatcher.com/article/21134888
“The founder of Merlin Chain:” The Future of Blue Box “and the Future of Bitcoin”: https://www.techflowpost.com/article/detail 16182.html
“Interpretation of the Blue Box Team’s BTCL2 Project Merlin Chain”: https://www.odaily.news/post/5192755
“How does MERIN CHAIN unite all the people of all passers -by? Inner growth password”: https://www.theblockbeats.info/news/51989