jakiro
After experiencing a new round of market fluctuations, with the rebound of Bitcoin prices, the panic in the entire market weakened a lot.
With the repeated collapses of altcoins, from the questioning of “Does there still be a cow?” to the voices of various professional investors leaving the market, the past month or two has been a shady haze for the crypto market outside of Bitcoin.of.
But no matter how panicked the market sentiment is, when asked which track the market is most optimistic about next, the “Bitcoin Ecology” is still the most popular.
Especially recently, the number of Bitcoins that have been bought in large positions in institutions, the number of ETFs holdings has continued to increase, and the development of Bitcoin ecosystems such as Stacks and Fractal Bitcoin is in full swing, which is very motivated to drive a new round of market conditions.
01Institutional positions and ETFs
As a major Bitcoin holder on Wall Street, MicroStrategy is buying and buying again recently.
According to the latest SEC documents, MicroStrategy has purchased 18,300 Bitcoins in the past month, with a total investment of about US$1.11 billion, with an average price of about US$60,655.Currently, MicroStrategy holds 244,800 Bitcoin shares, accounting for 1% of the total issuance of Bitcoin.
After three years, MicroStrategy spent 1.1 billion to buy Bitcoin again, which is undoubtedly a heart-warming agent for the crypto market, which has just shown some signs of recovery.
Although the market has looked shaky over the past few months and the “bull market is no longer” Fud voices are everywhere, the SEC disclosed the second quarter of 2024 13F document,As Bitcoin price falls, American institutions are increasing their positions in Bitcoin ETFs against the market:
According to data from Bitwise’s chief investment officer Matt, the number of institutions holding Bitcoin ETFs increased from 965 to 1,100 in the second quarter, and more than 130 institutions purchased Bitcoin ETFs for the first time in the second quarter.Moreover, the total share of Bitcoin ETFs held by these institutions has also increased from 18.74% to 21.15%.
Therefore, despite the severe market fluctuations and even when the trend is not very clear, these institutions were not scared away, but continued to increase their positions and buy.It can be imagined that if it is a bull market, the institutions entering Bitcoin ETFs and the amount of purchases will be more considerable.
Judging from the trend chart of the number of Bitcoins held since the issuance of Bitcoin ETFs, this data has generally maintained a continuous upward trend in the past nine months. Even during the period of violent fluctuations in the crypto market, the number of coins held by the entire Bitcoin ETF will not change.big.
Therefore, despite the market fluctuations, Bitcoin’s fear and greed index once entered the extreme panic range, and major American institutional investors are still continuing to test the waters and buy.
Figure of the change in the number of Bitcoins held by Bitcoin ETFs, Source: Dune
02Fractal Bitcoin
Fractal Bitcoin (Fractal Bitcoin) is one of the most eye-catching projects on the market recently. In addition to the quite generous Airdrop attracting a lot of attention,In just a few days after Fractal Bitcoin was launched, its computing power has exceeded 241EH, reaching 38.1% of Bitcoin’s computing power, which shows its popularity.
A list of Fractal Bitcoin prices and computing power, source: UniSat Explorer, September 16, 2024
Fractal Bitcoin was launched by the Unisat team. As a team that has been deeply rooted in the Bitcoin ecosystem and has received investment from top institutions such as BN, it is expected that it will gain such popularity after its launch.
Fractal Bitcoin is also Bitcoin’s Layer2, known as “the only native Bitcoin expansion solution at present.”It mainly focuses on stronger compatibility with Bitcoin and shared security. Without changing the original code of Bitcoin, it can increase transaction speed and increase transaction confirmation time to 30 seconds, which is at least 10 minutes from the main Bitcoin network.TPS is more than 20 times higher.
Regarding the difference between Fractal Bitcoin and other Layer2 and side chains,To quote its founder, “If other L2 and side chains have built another highway, then Fractal can build countless highways parallel to the Bitcoin main network. Each road can be to expand the Bitcoin mainThe Internet can also expand another way.”
Of course, there are many solutions for Bitcoin expansion. The ultimate goal is to not only share the security of Bitcoin to the greatest extent, but also greatly improve TPS. Just like the goal Fractal Bitcoin wants to achieve, but at present, there is almost no real thing.Deadly landed.
Since the Bitcoin ecosystem has become popular, the Layer2 track has been crowded with players from all walks of life. In addition to the original old Layer2 such as Stacks and RSK,There are also the transformed RGB++, as well as a number of new Layer2s such as BEVM and Merlin, which are very lively.
However, who can truly carry the banner of Layer2 in the Bitcoin ecosystem, bring DeFi, GameFi, NFT, etc. into the Bitcoin ecosystem, and at the same time introduce a large amount of sleepy Bitcoin into the entire pool of crypto liquidity. At present, it is still necessary toFurther observation and verification.
03Stacks Nakamoto upgrade
As the most well-known Layer2 in the Bitcoin ecosystem, Stacks ushered in the Nakamoto upgrade on August 28.
For Stacks, this upgrade is of great significance, with four main points:
1) STX production cuts by half:After the Nakamoto upgrade, Stacks’ output will be from 1,000 STX rewards per bitcoin block to 500 STX, and the inflation pressure on STX is greatly reduced.
2) TPS improvements above 60 times:Through this hard fork, Stacks’ block production and Bitcoin’s block time are decoupled, and the block confirmation time is reduced from the original 10 minutes to 10 seconds, and the TPS is increased by more than 60 times.
3) Better security:After Nakamoto upgraded, the new consensus mechanism writes the historical data of the Stacks chain into the Bitcoin block. Without changing the Bitcoin block data, it is impossible to tamper with the Stacks block data, which further enhances the security of the Stacks chain.
4) Decentralized anchor coins sBTC are launched:SBTC will be launched about a month after the upgrade. This is the first fully decentralized Bitcoin anchor coin. It does not require permission and open participation, and is more attractive to the Bitcoin giant whale.
With the official completion of the Stacks Nakamoto upgrade, Bitcoin’s Layer2 battle will become more intense.After all, the security of Stacks main chain has withstood the test of the market for a considerable period of time, and the security has been greatly improved after the upgrade, and the TPS optimization range is also very large.
In addition, Stacks itself has high recognition in Europe and the United States, and is also the first SEC-compliant Token project. Its current ecological development level is also the best among the Layer2. It already has a certain first-mover advantage. It is obviously the Bitcoin Layer2 competition.A complete heavyweight player.
04summary
Of course, in addition to these, the Bitcoin ecosystem has many other new actions recently.For example, in late August, the Babylon main network was launched to pledge, and the pledge limit of 1,000 BTC was reached in just three hours. Airdrop expects that with Babylon’s luxurious financing background, the market attention is quite good.As well as the recent issuance of several OP_CAT protocols in the Bitcoin ecosystem, it is also a scene of full swing.
In any case, compared with the sluggishness or even the extinction of other ecology, the wealth-making effect and enthusiasm of the Bitcoin ecology are visible. After the inscriptions and runes are extinguished one after another, there is continuous innovation and vitality, and a large amount of resources and funds are entering.Worth looking forward to.
