A Pet Rock No Longer: Bitcoin’s Innovation Awakening provides a comprehensive overview of the Bitcoin ecosystem's evolution over the last year, focusing on several key developments:
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We discuss the rise of Ordinals and Inscriptions following the SegWit and Taproot upgrades, highlighting their impact on the Bitcoin network and the creation of non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
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We cover the introduction and implications of the BRC-20 token standard, which was inspired by Ethereum's ERC-20 and aims to provide a framework for fungible tokens within the Bitcoin ecosystem. The emergence of BRC-20 has led to rapid market growth but also issues like network congestion and security vulnerabilities.
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We explore the development of Bitcoin's DeFi sector, including trading platforms, lending protocols, and other financial instruments emerging within the Bitcoin ecosystem.
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New tools and protocols like Multibit and DeepLake that aim to improve Bitcoin's utility and efficiency are covered in detail.
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The report outlines expectations for Bitcoin's short-term, mid-term, and long-term future, particularly focusing on the development of Layer 2 solutions, sidechains, a Bitcoin Virtual Machine (BVM), and Bitcoin smart contracts.
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We give detailed explanations of new protocols such as Atomicals ARC-20 and Runes, including their technological underpinnings and differences from BRC-20.
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The report also addresses the challenges facing the Bitcoin ecosystem, such as security risks, network congestion, and scalability issues.
