BTC Ecosystem Technology Progress: Overview of Programmability Expansion Solutions

The Bitcoin ecosystem is rapidly developing in terms of programmability expansion. This article will introduce several noteworthy solutions, including Fractal Bitcoin, AVM, OP_NET, BRC100, and programmable runes.

Fractal Bitcoin

Fractal is a scalable framework based on the bitcoin core client software virtualization, which improves network performance by recursively creating tree structures. It is fully compatible with BTC and 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. Its architectural design achieves efficient operation of multiple bitcoin core instances through virtualization technology, allowing for dynamic balancing of demands across different levels.

To enhance security, Fractal has introduced a joint mining mechanism and allows for a protection period to be set. It also plans to issue its own token, with 50% generated from mining, to incentivize miners to participate in network construction.

AVM (Atomicals Virtual Machine)

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

The core of AVM is to maximize the utilization of BTC's original opcode capabilities. It achieves Turing completeness through a double-stack PDA and runs in a sandbox environment, which includes an indexer, instruction parser, and global state.

This architecture makes AVM a native pioneering network for the expansion of the BTC ecosystem, almost applicable to any metadata protocol. The AVM has released a test version, and the relevant code can be viewed on GitHub.

OP_NET

OP_NET aims to introduce Ethereum-like smart contract functionality 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 and utilizes Tapscript to achieve advanced smart contract functionality. It is compatible with SegWit and Taproot and is specially designed to avoid the risk of tokens being mistakenly sent to miners.

The OP_NET ecosystem covers multiple areas such as decentralized trading, lending, and market making, including several projects like Motoswap, Stash, and Ordinal Novus.

BRC100

BRC-100 is a decentralized computing protocol built on the Ordinals theory. It adds new operations like "burn" and "mint" for brc20 tokens, enabling complex DeFi functionalities.

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 also supports increasing computing power and state transitions through extended protocols.

In the BRC-100 ecosystem, there are already projects such as inBRC, 100Swap, and 100Layer, covering functions like AMM, lending, and liquidity mining.

Programmability Runes ( Protorunes )

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

The core mechanism of Proto-Runes includes Protoburn and Protomessage. Protoburn allows the conversion of runes into a form specific to the subprotocol, while Protomessage is used to execute operation instructions within the subprotocol.

Recently, the first Protorune "QUORUM•GENESIS•PROTORUNE" has completed Protoburn, demonstrating the feasibility of this technology. The development team is working on a WASM indexer to enable on-chain governance and other features.