BTC Ecosystem Technology Progress: From Fractal to Programmability Rune

Since the beginning of 2024, the BTC ecosystem has made significant progress on the technical level, especially in the area of programmability expansion solutions. This article will introduce several highly regarded projects, including Fractal Bitcoin, AVM, OP_NET, BRC100, and programmable runes.

Fractal

Fractal is a scalable framework based on Bitcoin Core client software virtualization. It improves the performance of the entire network by recursively creating a tree structure, where each layer of the blockchain enhances overall performance. Fractal is fully compatible with Bitcoin and its infrastructure, but activates the op_cat operator, allowing for more logic to be implemented.

Fractal is developed by the Unisat team and is expected to launch its mainnet in September 2024. Its tokenomics includes 50% generated from mining, 15% for the ecosystem, 5% for early investor presale, 20% allocated to advisors and core contributors, and 10% for establishing partnerships and liquidity.

In terms of architecture design, Fractal encapsulates the bitcoin core client into a deployable and runnable blockchain software package (BCSP), recursively anchored on the Bitcoin mainnet. It makes some modifications to the bitcoin core, such as shortening block confirmation times and increasing block sizes to improve performance.

Fractal enhances security through joint mining, setting specific block height protections, and other methods. It also supports cross-chain asset transfers and plans to support assets like BTC and BRC-20 as wrapped assets on the network.

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 double-stack PDA, running in a sandbox that includes an indexer, instruction parser, and global state. Its instruction set contains the complete BTC opcodes, allowing developers to program using the functionalities of BTC that are not yet activated.

As a framework, AVM is almost applicable to any metadata protocol, requiring only minor adjustments to the indexer under the virtual machine. It has released a beta version, and the related code can be viewed on GitHub.

OP_NET

OP_NET aims to introduce Ethereum-like smart contract functionality to the Bitcoin network. It provides a complete, compact, and user-friendly development library, primarily written in AssemblyScript.

OP_NET retains the block consensus and data availability of Bitcoin by executing complex calculations on Bitcoin blocks through the virtual machine (OP_VM). It supports multiple programming languages and enables advanced smart contract features using Tapscript.

When interacting on the OP_NET network, users need to pay additional transaction fees. To expand the use of BTC in DeFi applications, OP_NET provides a Proof of Authority system that allows BTC to be wrapped as WBTC.

The OP_NET ecosystem encompasses various fields such as decentralized trading, lending, market making, liquidity provision, and cross-chain bridges, including projects like Motoswap, Stash, and Ordinal Novus.

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.

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 supports enhancing computational capabilities and state transitions through extended protocols, and all BRC-100 extended protocols are mutually compatible.

In the BRC-100 ecosystem, there are projects such as inBRC, 100Swap, and 100Layer, which provide functionalities like market and indexers, AMM exchanges, and liquidity protocols.

Programmability rune ( Protorunes )

Programmable runes are an extension layer of runes, allowing the creation of programmable assets with runes. Among them, the Proto-Runes Protocol is an important project that provides a framework for programmable runes.

The Proto-Runes Protocol introduces the Protoburn mechanism, allowing runes to be converted into representations used by sub-protocols. Protomessage is used to execute operation instructions within the sub-protocol.

Recently, the first Protorune "QUORUM•GENESIS•PROTORUNE" has successfully completed the Protoburn. It is intended to serve as a public forum for the Protorune standard and can provide governance features for project tokens.

These technological advancements bring more possibilities to the BTC ecosystem, paving the way for the future development of the Bitcoin network, from scalability to smart contract capabilities.