Overview of Bitcoin Ecosystem Emerging Asset Issuance Protocol

Recently, the Bitcoin ecosystem has seen the emergence of various new asset issuance protocols, attracting widespread attention. This article will briefly introduce three representative protocols.

1. Rune Alpha

Rune Alpha has recently gained attention due to the concept of "runes". Although it claims to be "runes", it is actually a new inscription protocol based on the Ordinals protocol version 0.11.1, which differs from the original "rune" concept proposed by Casey.

The first token of Rune Alpha, $cook, has a minting cost of about a few dozen dollars, and the current off-market price has risen to around 400 dollars, with a formal trading market yet to be launched.

2. CBRC-20

CBRC-20 is an upgraded version of BRC-20, mainly implementing the following optimizations:

1. Reduce recording costs: By simplifying the inscription content, costs are reduced by about 10 times.
2. Simplified Index: All information can be directly obtained from the inscription envelope.
3. Improve the flexibility of MIME data.
4. Compatible with higher versions of the Ordinals protocol.

The CBRC-20 team has made its token available on trading markets through various innovative methods, including directly launching the inscription SWAP via RuneX and enabling trading on Unisat through a browser extension.

Recently, CBRC-20 also launched the OSMOSIS experiment and deployed the first meta-meta protocol inscription $SYMM, achieving the ability to perform multiple meta-protocol operations simultaneously.

Three, BTNS

Broadcast Token Naming System (BTNS) is an ecosystem based on the Bitcoin main chain. Its core idea is to achieve the issuance of on-chain native assets (tokens and NFTs) by attaching broadcast signals to Bitcoin transactions.

BTNS-420 is a token protocol standard built on BTNS, integrating various ecological features such as asset issuance and transfer.

Compared to inscriptions and runes, the main advantages of BTNS include:

1. Does not occupy or change Bitcoin itself, aligning more with the ecological concept of Bitcoin.
2. Asset issuance based on broadcast form is more open and transparent.
3. No potential risks, completely open source and developed based on the original characteristics of Bitcoin.

The value of BTNS is mainly reflected in:

1. Make it possible to issue assets on the Bitcoin main chain without occupying the total amount of Bitcoin.
2. Provide a fairer way to acquire assets, such as airdrops, fair indices, etc.

Currently, the development work of BTNS is temporarily at a standstill, and the trading market has not yet been launched.

Summary

Rune Alpha and CBRC-20 are both asset issuance methods based on Ordinals and belong to "Layer 2 protocols". Among them, CBRC-20 stands out more in terms of innovation, achieving simultaneous minting of multiple protocol inscriptions.

BTNS belongs to the category of meta-protocols and implements asset issuance in a "broadcast" manner, avoiding the occupation of Bitcoin itself. These three protocols each have their own characteristics, providing new possibilities for the development of the Bitcoin ecosystem.