Bitcoin Old Miners Reflect on the Mining Journey and Look Forward to the BTC Layer 2 Ecosystem

Recently, at a Web3 themed event held in Hong Kong, a seasoned Bitcoin miner shared his experiences from the early days of mining and provided insights into the BTC Layer 2 ecosystem and AI trends.

This miner reflected on his experiences from GPU mining, the birth of ASICs, to the establishment of China's first mining pool. He stated that over the past decade, the cryptocurrency industry has gone through many ups and downs, from the initial Bitcoin halving and the Mt. Gox incident, to the smart contract innovations brought by the Ethereum ICO, followed by the DeFi Summer and the NFT boom, and finally to the recent prosperous development of the Bitcoin ecosystem.

He believes that the launch of the Bitcoin ETF in January 2024 marks the official debut of Bitcoin as a mature financial asset. At this current point in time, the core issues of the blockchain industry have become largely clear, and the industry is set to experience massive growth, with the potential for widespread adoption of blockchain technology in the next one or two cycles.

Reflecting on the bear market from the end of 2014 to 2015, this Miner shared the opportunity for the rise of institutional and professional Mining. At that time, the price of Bitcoin fell sharply, and Miners had to optimize electricity costs, relocating from mining farms in favorable cities to regions with more competitive electricity prices. They sought cheap electricity resources along the Dadu River, prompting the global computing power to begin to scale and centralize.

When discussing the challenges faced by miners going abroad, this miner admitted that overseas mining faces numerous issues, including legal frameworks, tax planning, mining site operations, and fluctuations in electricity costs. Many miners found the U.S. market to be less than ideal and turned to explore South America and Africa, but encountered issues related to political stability and safety. Currently, new overseas players, especially the involvement of some sovereign funds, have further compressed the industry's profit margins.

Regarding the recent hot BTC Layer 2 projects, this Miner believes they result from the long-term congestion of the Bitcoin mainnet and the overflow of demand. Combined with the development of EVM side modular blockchain technology, a batch of projects attempting to build Layer 2 networks on the Bitcoin ecosystem has emerged. He pointed out that the core difference between Bitcoin and EVM lies in the limited support for smart contracts, and in the short term, it is necessary to bridge solutions to map Bitcoin assets onto Layer 2 networks or EVM.

In terms of layout in the AI field, this Miner stated that AI technology has significantly improved individual work efficiency. At the company level, they are exploring the possibility of integrating AI Agents with blockchain. He envisions that in the future, AI Bots may deploy smart contracts on-chain and engage in interactions and transactions, while humans will be responsible for setting rules and managing risk control. Based on this vision, they are developing a standard API to achieve large-scale application of AI technology in the blockchain field.

The miner revealed that the prototype of their company's related product is expected to be launched in the second half of this year.