Overview of BTC Ecosystem Programmability Expansion Plans

The Bitcoin ecosystem has made significant progress in the area of programmability expansion, emerging with various innovative solutions. This article will introduce several notable BTC programmability expansion solutions.

Fractal

Fractal is a scalable framework based on the bitcoin core client software virtualization, which improves network performance by recursively creating a tree structure. It is fully compatible with BTC 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. It has its own token, with 50% generated from mining, 15% for the ecosystem, 5% for early investor presale, 20% for advisors and core contributors, and 10% for establishing partnerships and liquidity.

Fractal encapsulates the bitcoin core client into a deployable blockchain package (BCSP) through virtualization technology, and recursively anchors it on the Bitcoin mainnet. It has modified the bitcoin core to shorten the block confirmation time and increase the block size.

Fractal activates the op_cat operator, providing exploration space for BTC scaling solutions. It also builds an asset cross-chain transfer interface, supporting seamless asset transfers between different layers.

Fractal enhances security through mechanisms such as joint mining. The newly created virtual instance chain will go through an initial vulnerability period during the startup phase, requiring protective measures to be put in place.

AVM

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

AVM achieves Turing completeness through a dual-stack PDA. It operates in a sandbox that includes an indexer, instruction parser, and global state to facilitate the processing and state synchronization of smart contracts.

The AVM instruction set includes the complete BTC opcode, allowing programming with BTC functionalities that are not yet launched on the mainnet. It is an architecture suitable for various metadata protocols, requiring only minor adjustments to the indexer.

OP_NET

OP_NET aims to introduce Ethereum-like smart contract functionalities to the Bitcoin network. It retains Bitcoin's block consensus and data availability, executing complex computations on Bitcoin blocks through the virtual machine (OP_VM).

OP_NET supports multiple programming languages, utilizing Tapscript to enable advanced smart contract functionality. The smart contract code is compressed and written into BTC transactions, generating a UTXO address that is regarded as a contract address.

OP_NET is compatible with SegWit and Taproot, and its token design is not tied to UTXO, avoiding the risk of mistakenly sending tokens to miners. Its ecosystem covers multiple areas including decentralized trading, lending, market making, and more.

BRC100

BRC-100 is a decentralized computing protocol built on the Ordinals theory. It achieves complex defi operations by adding new operations such as "burn" and "mint" to brc20, recording the token balances and statuses held by different addresses in the indexer.

BRC-100 provides operations such as mint2/mint3 and burn2/burn3, allowing tokens to be converted between the UTXO model and the state machine model. It can also be functionally extended through extension protocols, with all BRC-100 extension protocols being mutually compatible.

In the BRC-100 ecosystem, there are already projects like inBRC, 100Swap, and 100Layer, covering multiple aspects such as markets, exchanges, and liquidity protocols.

Programmability Runes ( Protorunes )

Programmable runes are an extension layer of runes that allows for the creation of programmable assets with runes. The Proto-Runes Protocol is the main project among them, providing a framework for programmable runes.

The Proto-Runes Protocol converts runes into a form usable by sub-protocols through the Protoburn mechanism. Protomessage is used to execute operational instructions within the sub-protocol. The entire protocol processes Runestone features and sub-protocol messages through an indexer.

Recently, the first Protorune(QUORUM•GENESIS•PROTORUNE) has successfully completed Protoburn, laying the foundation for future development.