Author: MIX Source: X, @MixWeb3

In the past 10 months, the Bitcoin ecosystem has completed three major Key consensus:

Asset standard consensus: OridnalsNFT & Runes runes

Consensus of this round of bull market : BTCFi will lead Bitcoin Ecological second half

Consensus of current needs: Bitcoin main network programmability needs to be improved

At this point, The Bitcoin ecological buff is full: the global attention brought by BTC is the background, Memecoins Oridinals NFT and Runes Casino are ecological endorsements, and BTCFi’s real demand for improving the efficiency of Bitcoin’s value-added is the basic market.

Of course, objectively speaking, the Bitcoin ecosystem is still in its infancy, but it is enough to support a wave of market trends with strong wealth creation effects, and it has strong certainty.

I am very sure that soon no one will say "BTC does not need an ecosystem" again.

PS: The following content is based on the rise and fall of the Bitcoin ecological project, the thinking of the core builders, and the current brewing trends that the operator @RunesCC has come into contact with. It is highly likely that There is a problem with the information cocoon room, so I welcome more solid Builders to help me add opinions in the comment area and introduce more ecologically reliable projects.

1. Narrative of this round of bull market

First of all, there is a high probability that 2025 will follow the Crypto 4-year cycle and become a big bull market. Whether it is investment or build, we need See clearly where the core narrative of this bull market is:

The top narrative, I think, is BTC and memecoins, both of which are deep in Crpyto Both levels, narrative and implementation, have been recognized and have become a new species of Crypto: built on Crypto but transcending the Crypto ecosystem. There is a high probability that it will be an asset class that can span cycles.

Why has BTC become a new species? Quoting the original text of Metrics Ventures Market Observation: "Bitcoin's asset attributes have completed a new characterization in the past six months, and new and old main funds have simultaneously completed the handover of pricing power. A platform with Bitcoin as the core asset, ETFs and U.S. stocks As a channel for capital inflows, a new fund pool that unlimitedly incorporates U.S. dollar liquidity through the ponzi model represented by US stock listed companies has been officially launched. "Simply put, regardless of the global macroeconomics or the United States. As well as U.S. stock companies, they are all in urgent need of a new reservoir of wealth and assets as a settlement tool. Therefore, in the future, Bitcoin, as the crypto asset with the strongest consensus, will be supported by both macroeconomics and traditional finance, and will usher in a stable rise beyond the cycle.

Why did Memecoins become a new species? Because Memecoins has become an attention financial system around hot topics, culture, and creativity, and is creating a new set of social movements and model operation methods, this real-world impact on Memecoins may have been greater than that of Crypto.

PS: Looking back at the first round of attacks on the Bitcoin ecosystem, the new asset issuance method of "fair casting" is probably just a superficial appearance, and the more essential logic may lie in " "The rise of the bitcoin ecosystem" is in line with the growth trends and needs of two new species, BTC and Memecoin.

Focusing on Crypto's native bull market in 2025, I think it will still start and explode around the "Bitcoin ecology aimed at revitalizing BTC liquidity":

1. BTCFi and Runes can respectively undertake the overflow capital of two new species, BTC and Memecoins.

2. As an ecological narrative, the Bitcoin ecology includes multiple hot spots: Runes, Ordinals NFT, BTC Layer2, BTCFi (Staking, BTC Stable currency, lending, etc.), with the size of Bitcoin being 2 trillion, each of the above sub-items not only has a convincing narrative, but also has good implementation effects for its head projects (to be listed later).

So, "Bitcoin Ecology" is the most ambitious narrative, the most certain value, and the most well-established narrative besides the two new species in this bull market.

As for familiar narratives such as AI, PayFi, and DePin, I think they are still inferior to the Bitcoin ecosystem, mainly because although they have extremely high narrative ceilings, they are not as valuable as There is still a long way to go in terms of verification and application implementation.

There are also narratives about the architecture, infrastructure and technical solutions of pure Crypto technology. I think dApp is the king in this bull market, and overall I am more optimistic about its implementation. As a result, these underlying technologies still need time to build and verify.

2. A consensus has been reached within the Bitcoin ecology

The general development trend of Crypto ecology is: FT/NFT issuance boom→DeFi boom→Basic Facilities boom → Layer2 boom.

Bitcoin ecology is in 2024. It can be said that it took one year to conduct a rapid test on Crypto’s 10-year development narrative. Ecological Builder and players reached a consensus. Less consensus:

Consensus 1: The NFT asset standard is the Ordinals protocol. Even if multi-chain NFTs are compared together, Ordinals NFT The asset is already the number one NFT asset class under Ethereum.

Consensus 2: The FT asset standard is the Runes protocol. The number of transactions related to the Runes protocol has long accounted for 60 to 70% of the Bitcoin chain, and the handling fee contribution accounts for More than 20~30%. And after more than half a year of consensus building, the stablecoin projects of the Bitcoin ecosystem and the platform coins of the BTCFi project have all chosen to issue based on the Runes standard.

Consensus 3: BTCFi is the key to the second half of the Bitcoin ecosystem

Bitcoin’s Holders, even BTC maximalists, are changing from a simple "buy BTC and hold" strategy to "under the premise of safety, hoping to find more paths to maximize asset utility.change".

Player attitude: After the wealth creation effect of asset issuance such as Ordinals, BRC20 and Runes, old users of BTC positions are beginning to be dissatisfied with the narrative of value storage ( The multiples of BTC from the halving price to the highest price in the bull market in the last four times are: 92, 29, 7.5 times, and this round has only increased a little bit), and a large number of new players were originally looking forward to BTC It can have stronger playability and new application scenarios.

Liquidity: The dormant BTC has begun to flow: for example, Babylon’s two rounds of pledges attracted 24,000+ BTC in a short period of time under restricted conditions, such as Cross Go to BTC Layer2 to earn rewards, LST projects are emerging one after another, because BTC Holders have begun to explore ways to improve the efficiency of BTC value-added.

MVP minimum viable product verification: BTCFi applications based on new Bitcoin assets such as BTC and Ordinals NFT and Runes, their needs and scenarios are being verified, such as the Bitcoin ecosystem Lending leader @LiquidiumFi's protocol revenue has exceeded 600,000 U, and @bitsmiley_labs stablecoin has also been expanding its territory in the Bitcoin ecosystem.

Financial background: This wave of ecological builders hope to revitalize BTC liquidity on the bitcoin chain, and a large part of them believe that it is possible to host funds for Bitcoin ETFs It will be very flexible, and I heard that many traditional asset management teams have also entered the Bitcoin ecosystem.

3. BTCFi development history and hot projects

BTCFi’s key areas include: staking for interest, DEX, lending and stablecoins, etc. If you want to continue to detonate hot spots, the bitcoin ecosystem There are two major bottlenecks that need to be broken through urgently, namely "transaction throughput expansion" and "improving programmability".

In terms of technical route and narrative, the first thing to become popular is actually BTC Layer2, an application chain type that focuses on BTC staking and liquidity scenarios, because of its huge TVL , so it pays more attention to security and programmability, and is supplemented by top-level endorsements, all of which are industry leaders: the old players are mainly represented by @babylonlabs_io and @SolvProtocol. They are recognized by everyone in the Bitcoin ecosystemIt has been under continuous construction before paying attention; new players, represented by @exSatNetwork, jointly promote the transformation of Bitcoin's role from "digital gold" to "ecological participant".

When the Bitcoin ecosystem became popular, with the reference of the development path of Ethereum, everyone rushed towards the development path of the public chain BTC Layer2. At that time, I felt a lot The project was launched in a hurry, and no attention was paid to first-level verification. PS: At present, some EVM-type BTC Layer2 will implement a layer of verification and strengthen their own security by changing the architecture.

Public chain BTC Layer2, @BitlayerLabs, @build_on_bob and @Stacks are gradually coming to the fore.

Bitlayer here is relatively strong in overall trading, technology and operation. It focuses on BTCFi narrative, 800 million TVL, 25W+ transactions per day, and cumulative financing of 25 million US dollars. Get a head start by investing in old money like Franklin, an American ETF institution. Technically, bitlayer has accumulated experience in BitVM and is committed to creating a native layer 2 that is equivalent to BTC security. It is said that it can achieve a layer of verification based on existing script codes and has a cost advantage that is 10 times that of competing products. I will be looking forward to it in the future. Bitlayer.

There is @ALEXLabBTC on Stacks, known as No. 1 Bitcoin DeFi. It has been doing BTCFi since 2021 and will launch ALEX V2 in the fourth quarter, aiming to aggregate many BTC Layer2 Liquidity. The stablecoin track of the Bitcoin ecosystem is a narrative with a relatively high degree of certainty, and it is also a cross-BTC Layer2 existence. For example, @bitsmiley_labs and @Satoshi_BTCFi are continuing to build, and BTC over-collateralized stablecoins are issued on multiple BTC Layer2s.

After the popularity of BTC Layer 2 gradually dropped in the second half of the year, everyone’s attention returned to the Bitcoin main network, and they found that some BTCFi applications that continued to be built on the main network were It has blossomed, such as AMM Swap@Dotswap, the leading lending protocol Liquidium, and a layer-issued stablecoin @ShellFinance_, etc., even against Bitcoinn The well-known high gas has still gained a wave of real reputation and expectations in the ecosystem. To be honest, it has also become the biggest booster for me to be optimistic about BTCFi.

But the programmability of the Bitcoin mainnet is too limited (Bitcoin’s Discreet Log Contract (DLC), multi-signature escrow, PSBT and time locks, etc. ), Bitcoin finally jumped out of the past experience limitations of Ethereum development, and boldly helped Bitcoin by building an execution layer. The main network obtains composable smart contract capabilities: that is, regardless of expansion, only the programmability of the bitcoin main network is expanded. The REE protocols of @ArchNtwrk and @OmnityNetwork are both based on this idea.

The essence of the Bitcoin main network programmability expansion protocol is to build a Bitcoin execution layer that does not need to carry Bitcoin main network assets and always sense the actions initiated by Bitcoin main network users. For transactions, after the execution layer completes the logical calculation of the smart contract, the results are directly broadcast to the Bitcoin main network. In this way, user assets do not need to be cross-chain, and transactions are purely executed natively in Bitcoin, thus achieving a huge improvement in programmability.

As for security, Arch builds its own PoS chain, while the REE protocol is directly built on the current ICP public chain with billions of security levels. In comparison, the performance is stronger and the degree of Fully On-chain decentralization, security and trust is very high.

The consensus of expanding the programmability of the Bitcoin main network has been supported by many teams that want to develop BTCFi. With a wave of BTC Layer2 demonstrations and the Staking chain being Questioning the nesting dolls, Builder gradually realized:

1. Low-frequency operations of large amounts of funds in BTCFi, such as pledges, loans and normal trading behaviors, the current Bitcoin The mainnet can meet the needs of most scenarios. Let’s make an application!

2. If you want the Bitcoin ecosystem to thrive, you first need to make the main network solid and prosperous enough. Its Gas contribution will also be conducive to the health of the Bitcoin main network. and robust.

3. Interact directly on the Bitcoin main network, although there is gas,But compared to cross-chain operation, it is a better solution.

At the same time, there is another interesting narrative line, which is the public lightning network Fiber Network launched by the CKB team, focusing on real payment application scenarios, hoping to bring P2P It is closely integrated with programmability and aims to build an off-chain peer-to-peer financial settlement network.

4. Runes are the weather vane

Back to Runes, which I have always been very optimistic about.

For those real communities whose culture, memes or Meme issuance, the endorsement brought by the Bitcoin chain where the Runes protocol is located, and featuring fair minting The multiple issuance methods and the ability to promote interactively between Runes and Ordinals NFT make the Runes protocol the first protocol to issue PvE Memecoins.

As for the explosion of the Bitcoin ecosystem, the first place to smell it must be the Runes track. After all, when capital really begins to gather in the BTC ecosystem, Memecoins must be the benchmark.

However, unlike the Runes ecological supplementary increase in the past few days, the biggest wealth creation effect in the next round will most likely be concentrated in newly issued stocks. Meme rune, because as far as I know: with the improvement of Bitcoin's programmability, the real Bitcoin mainnet, fully decentralized, smooth experience AMM Swap is coming, and the lending experience is better and more convenient. Centralized leverage protocols are also being iterated!

The only thing missing now is a Pump.fun deployed on the first floor: In fact, I have discovered a problem long ago, which is the Runes Meme, which has a good growth trend. , cohesive, over 95% 100% Premine.

So I think Open Mint’s contribution of all gas to miners may not be suitable for all communities. We need to explore a healthier chip distribution logic, Pump.Fun’s The model can be used as a reference.

I sincerely recommend a team with experience in this area. For the internal trading part, you can use the template (pattern operation) of AMM Dex with the REE protocol.One, coupled with the distribution part, this is a very good opportunity.

To sum up, I am full of expectations for the second half of the Bitcoin ecosystem in 2025.