Yes, now we are turning back to once again explore the ‘virgin territory’ of the Web3 world for BTC.
Over the past decade, BTC has evolved from a novel internet protocol to becoming the value storage layer of the emerging internet. New finance and digital assets are anchored in such decentralized currency protocols and standards, making it the ‘gold’ of the new world.”
And with the emergence of the smart contract ecosystem, led by Ethereum, many ideas mentioned by Satoshi Nakamoto in the Bitcoin whitepaper gradually diverged from BTC, eventually leaving only as a symbol of value and faith. Bitcoin, once a pioneer and sacred ground, paradoxically became an undeveloped “virgin land.”
As Bitcoin establishes its legitimacy as a global store of value, it continues to move forward, aiming to build a fairer economic system on this sound asset foundation — something that developers and enthusiasts have always been advancing. However, the temporal limitations in the design of Bitcoin Layer1 make it unable to handle more transactions. Therefore, we need to explore additional solutions for its scalability and the establishment of a large-scale decentralized application ecosystem.
Protocol Wars
The current stable internet is a product of the protocol and standards battle, and this kind of warfare is now replaying on Bitcoin.
Around 2015, after years of intense debates and even a soft fork, the community and developers cautiously acknowledged that a layered scaling solution could maintain the decentralization of Bitcoin while offering improved scalability. This conclusion was reached after a series of experiments, successes, and failures with various protocols and standards.
Apart from the earlier Liquid Network, followed by later implementations like Stacks and the RGB protocol, each played a distinct role in the scaling of Bitcoin, serving as carriers for its functional expansion.
Today, with the rise of Inscription and the popularity of BRC-20, attention is shifting beyond Bitcoin as a store of value. In this ongoing “war,” the Ordinals protocol and BRC-20 present exciting possibilities. However, this enthusiasm has also sparked more controversies. Based on the Ordinals protocol and BRC-20, Inscription is seen by some as introducing a significant amount of junk data into the Bitcoin network, with some even considering it a vulnerability.
BL2: Building a New Platform for Bitcoin Scaling Innovation
For now, let’s not delve into whether inscription, BRC-20 will become a milestone in the disputed history of Bitcoin development and be buried. We appreciate their pioneering efforts in Bitcoin scaling, and new history requires bold experimentation. However, they currently lack a suitable space.
And this is exactly what BL2 aims to do.
BL2 is a sustainable BTC Layer2 platform initiated by a group of BTC core developers and early members. Unlike solutions such as the Lightning Network, which focus on improving the financial transaction and payment speed of the Bitcoin network, BL2 aims to use BTC as a secure foundation to establish a dApp and smart contract platform. Developers and enthusiasts can leverage Bitcoin’s stable, secure, and robust settlement and consensus layers to create a more diverse range of BTC applications, enabling BTC assets to realize greater value in various scenarios.
By establishing an independent Bitcoin block header verification and consensus framework, BL2 maintains Bitcoin network security while avoiding congestion issues caused by smart contracts on the main network. For emerging entities like inscriptions and BRC-20, BL2 signifies a more inclusive environment where they can explore and experiment to the fullest extent. Of course, BL2 offers lower costs and faster transaction processing speeds.
This will be the most open BTC Layer2 platform composed of engineers, designers, and enthusiasts from around the world. If it were you, what would you build here?