Overview of Bitcoin Asset Issuance New Protocol

Rune Alpha

The popularity of Rune Alpha mainly stems from the recent attention on the "rune" concept. This concept was initially proposed by Casey and has sparked discussion again due to BTC Core core developer Luke's opposition to "inscriptions." The key difference between "runes" and "inscriptions" lies in their storage locations: the former is stored in UTXO, while the latter exists in the segregated witness data of Bitcoin scripts.

It is worth noting that although Rune Alpha claims to be "runes", it is actually a new inscription protocol based on version 0.11.1 of the ordinals protocol, which differs from the original "rune" concept proposed by Casey according to its white paper description. Nevertheless, Rune Alpha has successfully gained widespread attention by leveraging the popularity of "runes". The minting cost of the protocol's first token $cook is about a dozen dollars, and the current over-the-counter price has surged to around 400 dollars, but a formal trading market has not yet been launched.

CBRC-20

CBRC-20 is an efficient meta-protocol standard proposal aimed at optimizing fungible tokens on Bitcoin. It leverages the new metadata and metaprotocol fields introduced in ord version 0.10+, significantly reducing the cost of each inscription while simplifying the indexing process, all while maintaining the functional logic of BRC-20.

The main advantages of CBRC-20 include:

1. Reduce recording costs: The inscription cost is reduced by about 10 times.
2. Simplified Index: All information can be obtained directly from the inscription envelope.
3. MIME Data Flexibility: Supports operations using any MIME data.
4. Compatible with higher versions of the Ordinals protocol: New features of Ordinals version 0.10 and above can be utilized.

The CBRC-20 team has adopted various innovative methods to list its tokens on trading markets, including directly launching the inscription SWAP through a certain DEX and using a browser extension to forcibly display CBRC-20 token information on a certain trading platform.

Recently, the founder of CBRC-20 launched the OSMOSIS experiment and deployed the first meta-meta protocol inscription $SYMM. This approach allows for the simultaneous execution of multiple meta-protocol operations, achieving a certain degree of "backdoor listing" effect.

BTNS

The Broadcast Token Naming System (BTNS) is an ecosystem built by one of the early Bitcoin holders and developers. Its core idea is to achieve the issuance of Bitcoin native asset tokens and NFTs by attaching broadcast signals to transactions on the Bitcoin chain, using blockchain records as the data foundation.

BTNS-420 is a comprehensive asset issuance and transfer protocol standard built on BTNS, bringing the vision of BTNS to reality. Compared to inscriptions and runes, BTNS has the following features:

1. Does not occupy Bitcoin resources, more in line with the development direction of the Bitcoin ecosystem.
2. Asset minting based on broadcasting 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. Enable the issuance of assets on the Bitcoin main chain without occupying the total amount of Bitcoin.
2. Provides a fairer way to acquire assets, such as airdrops and fair indexing, which helps alleviate network congestion issues.

However, the development work of BTNS is currently at a standstill, and the relevant trading market has not yet been launched.

Summary

Recently, the new Bitcoin protocol has shown a trend of diversified development. Rune Alpha and CBRC-20 are still based on the inscription concept, but CBRC-20 excels in innovation. BTNS represents a brand new meta-protocol idea, achieving asset issuance through broadcasting, bringing new possibilities to the Bitcoin ecosystem. The development of these protocols will inject new vitality into the Bitcoin ecosystem and is worth ongoing attention.