Introduction

In May 2023, with the launch of BRC-20, the Bitcoin inscription ecosystem entered a hot trend of expansion. Among various asset issuance protocols, aside from the BRC-20 originating from the Ordinal protocol, the Stamps protocol and the SRC-20/SRC-721 ecosystem have become the most mature.

Within the Stamps ecosystem, the all-in-one trading and minting platform, OpenStamp, not only allows for the deployment, minting, and transfer of Stamps and SRC-20 assets but also provides public goods such as a transaction accelerator.

The transaction accelerator is a groundbreaking product designed with user experience in mind. OpenStamp allows users to manually set transaction fees using Child Pays for Parent (CPFP) to gain priority. This overall operates similarly to Ethereum’s MEV tools, where the highest bidder gets priority in block packaging. In practice, both sellers and buyers can set the acceleration, opening up new avenues for improving transaction efficiency.

On February 7th, OpenStamp even launched the Launchpad, which helps users discover high-quality projects, provides channels for project listings, and enhances the overall liquidity of the Stamp protocol through bidirectional market-making.

From the birth of Bitcoin to the launch of the Counterparty protocol, and now with Stamp and SRC-20, this article will outline the development and future of the Stamp ecosystem. This year, the inscription ecosystem may also enter a new stage.

A Brief History of Stamp, SRC-20 Market of The Future

After the birth of Bitcoin, various innovations on it have become a testing ground for all kinds of technology geeks.

The earliest was the concept of colored Bitcoin, which planned to use blank labels on Bitcoin scripts to represent different “colors” and differentiate Bitcoin with different colors. This was also an early experiment in tokenizing Bitcoin into NFTs.

In 2014, Robert Dermody and others put the colored coin method into practice. They wrote different data to the Bitcoin script and reconstructed meaningful text through indexing, and launched the Counterparty protocol through a peer-to-peer approach. Initiating a transaction actually inspired the later Ordinal protocol. However, it is important to note that Casey Rodarmor, the founder of Ordinal, described it as “Counterparty: Some operations require the use of new tokens rather than native Bitcoin, and not based on the UTXO mechanism.”

Later on, Mike In Space and others launched the Stamp protocol. Building on the experience of Counterparty, the Stamp protocol permanently records information on Bitcoin transactions using the UTXO model.

Further development led to the creation of the SRC-20 protocol. It is based on the Stamp protocol but with some differences. SRC-20 transactions are created directly on BTC and minting, deployment, and transfers are free of charge, only requiring payment of Bitcoin miner fees.。

In terms of transaction methods, Stamp/SRC-20 assets can not only be exchanged with Bitcoin, but can also be directly traded on OpenStamp for daily transactions. After being listed on CEX in the future, they can also be used as an exchange medium to participate in more asset interactions. OKX Wallet has already entered into a deep partnership with OpenStamp to jointly promote the growth of SRC-20 assets.

Furthermore, SRC-20 can operate as a peer-to-peer transaction that best embodies the decentralized spirit of Bitcoin. Anyone can directly trade SRC-20 assets on the Bitcoin mainnet without being subject to any node review, allowing for a continuous spirit of freedom as Stamp grows.

Unlike the implementation of BRC-20, SRC-20 is directly written in Bitcoin transactions rather than in the segregated witness area. As a result, even Bitcoin nodes cannot eliminate SRC-20 assets by eliminating segregated witness data, thus achieving permanent security.

The resistance to censorship mechanism is directly embedded in the operation mechanism of Bitcoin. Currently, the long-standing criticism of BRC-20 is that nodes can review storage records and addresses, and even refuse to package blocks. However, SRC-20 can never be rejected by any node, positioning its security in a leading position among various XRC-20 assets.

User preference is the driving force behind the growth of SRC-20 assets. Currently, there are more than 300,000 Stamps minted and claimed, with over 5000 addresses holding them. The total trading volume of Stamps has exceeded 100 million USD. Similar to ERC-20 tokens, SRC-20 also has the potential to be a universal token format in the Bitcoin ecosystem. After BTC L2 is fully deployed, it will be directly connected to various projects in the Bitcoin ecosystem and used as an omnichain asset.

SRC-20 prefers the Base64 encoding format and supports encoding images (PNG/SVG), text and other data into the Base64 format and then storing it in it. If a single block cannot be stored, it will be written to different blocks through multi-signature.

Therefore, compared to BRC-20, SRC-20 is more suitable for storing high-value legal texts, important data, and other high-value objects. Users can choose different inscriptions based on their own needs.

In terms of trading mechanism, SRC-20 also supports free splitting and combination, allowing for the trading of assets at any scale. This feature will play an important role in the interoperability and composability of assets in the future development of BTC DeFi, and has the potential to become the mainstream BTC DeFi asset trading standard.

After the technology selection is determined, a more difficult stage is the market competition.

This part can be roughly divided into two time periods, namely the past community dominance and the future project competition.

In 2023, community-led initiatives emerged, and with the introduction of Inscriptions and the development of waveband-style, the focus was on Free Mint and community-led Inscription protocols and assets. This led to the education of users and the accumulation of early Inscription protocol users. However, with increased homogenization, the market entered a period of stagnation.

In 2024, during the project competition, OpenStamp’s market became the most mainstream market protocol in the SRC-20 ecosystem from multiple perspectives such as wallet construction, order matching, and transaction transparency.

In terms of specific market mechanisms, the OpenStamp SRC-20 market continues to evolve. It has already supported the most mainstream Bitcoin chain inscription wallets such as Unisat and OKX Wallet. At the same time, it has innovated a new process for placing orders, matching, and finalizing transactions.

According to market predictions, the SRC-20 ecosystem or the entire inscription market will undergo tremendous changes in 2024. The era of recklessness is over, and entrepreneurs competing on project quality will become the mainstream choice. In the final analysis, although community-led projects can maintain fairness, but lacking a continuous team incentive mechanism, it is very easy to fall into the death spiral of “germination-starting-climax-decline”. The half-life of the project is very short, and users cannot be empowered for a long time after buying. In the end, it is equivalent to buying Air.

In view of this, OpenStamp has launched the first Launchpad platform for the SRC-20 ecosystem, hoping to help users filter high-quality projects. At the same time, the original intention of Bitcoin is decentralization and no admission barrier, and the Launchpad will also inherit these characteristics to ensure that no project party controls the market.

The Wealth Generation Era. Coinlist On The SRC-20 Chain

In fact, there is no conflict between community participation and project fundraising, especially in the blockchain field. Every CEX and on-chain platform has Launchpad, demonstrating its strong ability to raise funds.

In particular, Coinlist, which focuses on personal participation, has always been popular with retail investors. In terms of its ability to raise funds, it is also the only Launchpad currently exceeding $1 billion.

It is precisely because of the development trend of the Bitcoin ecosystem that OpenStamp decided to launch the Launchpad in the SRC-20 field, combining the advantages of the community and projects to jointly make the Stamp and SRC-20 ecosystem bigger and stronger, and lead the development of the Bitcoin inscription market.

The first project selected for the OpenStamp Launchpad is the blockchain game BitDragon, with support from well-established blockchain games the SandBox, and KuCoin exchange.

BitDragon is the first cross-chain game that integrates Bitcoin inscription into its own mechanism. It creatively allows users’ avatars and credentials to be forged into inscription assets and bridged to The Sandbox and BTC L2, ensuring the smoothness of the game while permanently engraving the assets on Bitcoin.

At the same time, according to the mechanism design of OpenStamp’s Launchpad, the FDV (Fully Diluted Valuation) of any listed project must be low enough, with at least 80% of the assets being directly tradable. 90% of BitDragon’s token, BitDN, will directly enter the circulation stage, of which 70% belongs to the whitelist sale portion and 20% will be publicly offered.

It can be observed that in the era of Launchpad led by OpenStamp, although projects enter the VC and project-driven stages, the openness to the community is still guaranteed. The partnership between SRC-20 and blockchain games also opens up new market space for Bitcoin assets circulation.

One direction is collaboration between BTC L2. Similar to the fragmentation of Ethereum L2 causing asset incompatibility. This issue will gradually emerge on Bitcoin as well. The mechanism of SRC-20 written on Bitcoin transactions ensures permanent storage, but It will also cause the problem of rising storage costs. How to speed up and reduce costs, as well as break down barriers between various inscriptions and L2, has become a hot topic in the industry.

SRC-20 Launchpad hopes to cultivate Bitcoin ecological projects that are suitable for the entire industry and create a one-stop navigation path across the gap. After the launch of Launchpad, the layout of OpenStamp will become more complete, forming Launchpad to cultivate and discover new projects. Stamps and SRC-20 assets have their own place in the development pattern.

Launchpad’s initial project is just the beginning. SRC-20 hopes to create a more differentiated ecological pattern. In the era of various competing protocols in Bitcoin, liquidity in the ecosystem is more important. For example, STAMP and KEVIN are two SRC-20 assets that can approach 1 BTC in 24 hours. It is crucial to cultivate more Launchpad projects to help the development of the ecosystem and build abundant liquidity.

Conclusion

The era of reckless entrepreneurship of Bitcoin is coming to an end, and various types of XRC-20 are rapidly homogenizing. If the Inscription ecosystem does not want to remain silent, it is imperative to discover truly high-quality and original projects. In this sense, OpenStamp is serving as a Pioneer Explorer.

Launchpad is only the first step. For SRC-20 to truly establish its advantages over various competitors, it also requires long-term efforts. We look forward to the Bitcoin inscription market becoming more prosperous and stronger.

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