Author | 0xSea.eth, host of the podcast Sea Talk
Have you been confused by the endless new protocols such as Ordinals / BRC-20 / Atomics / Pipe etc. that have appeared recently? Not sure what the relationship is between them?
Don't worry, let me help you sort out the timeline and the several lines implicit between them. Try to use concise language without complicated concepts. The goal is to help newcomers understand it, and even old ladies can understand it. This article does not constitute investment advice.
Chapter I: Ordinals and BRC-20, Casey and domo’s joyful world
Bitcoin’s Pandora’s Box was opened by a man named Casey Rodarmor.
In December 2022, Casey launched the Ordinals protocol. It gives each Satoshi a unique serial number and tracks them in transactions. Anyone can attach additional data through Ordinals, including text, images, videos, etc. This is determined by the permissionless nature of the blockchain/Bitcoin.
In the early days, Ordinals was far from as popular as it is today. Players mainly created NFTs on it, and the transaction volume was not large. Founder Casey’s initial positioning of it was to allow people to store something eternal and immutable on Bitcoin, the oldest chain with the strongest consensus. Therefore, for a period of time, many people will equate Ordinals with “Bitcoin NFT”.
Things changed on March 8, 2023, when an anonymous developer named domo launched BRC-20 based on the Ordinals protocol. The name reminds people of the ERC-20 token standard on Ethereum. Yes, you can simply understand that BRC-20 is an altcoin issuance protocol based on Ordinals (that is, based on Bitcoin).
Issuing altcoins on BTC? Most people's first impression is that it's magical and driving in reverse. When the first token ORDI was issued, generation tools like Unisat had not yet appeared, requiring local running of Bitcoin full nodes. Some technology developers such as ship.eth seized the opportunity and obtained chips at a very low cost.
As BRC-20 exploded out of the circle in May-June and October-November, BRC-20 transactions accounted for the majority of the Ordinals agreement, which made Casey very unhappy. He has publicly stated that the BRC-20 brought a load of garbage to the Ordinals he created. So a few days ago we saw that the Casey team publicly sent a letter asking Binance to delete Ordinals in the ORDI token introduction. He did not want the Ordinals protocol to be related to ORDI.
Conclusion 1: When it comes to issuing ORDI, Casey himself has no coins. Domo himself seems to have played 1,000 (i.e. one), but it is unknown whether there are other wallet rat positions. ORDI is rising more and more violently, and it is not clear what the two people are thinking in their hearts.
Gossip 1: During the Singapore Convention in September, a good person arranged for Casey and Domo to attend the same event. It is said that the two met and greeted each other in a friendly manner. Looking at what these two people said on Twitter, you will find that their level of involvement in the project is completely different.
Gossip 2: During the convention in Singapore, domo always wore a mask in public. The reason is not known yet.
Chapter II: A guy named Beny, intricate matryoshka doll management
After the emergence of BRC-20, there was an active developer in the community named Beny (who does not seem to have a public Twitter account). This guy is an energetic developer: he probably launched the BRC-20 printing tool in March. LooksOrdinal (no token) deployed TRAC in May, and the first Cursed Inscription-CRSD with a total amount of 21 million. In August, it launched the BRC-20 improved version of Tap Protocol targeting OrdFi, and in October it issued a support for Runes. Improved version of Pipe protocol.
You may be wondering why this guy has so many projects. Then you have to ask Beny himself. All I can say is that this guy is really energetic + has a keen sense of smell.
So what is the relationship between these projects?
1. TRAC is a BRC-20 token and the governance token of Tap Protocol;
2. Tap Protocol is an improvement to the BRC-20 protocol level. Both tokens, TAP and -TAP, are issued based on Tap Protocol and are no longer within the scope of BRC-20 (but are still based on Ordinals).
3. TAP is the governance token of the Pipe protocol.
4. The Pipe protocol is an improvement based on the Runes idea (which will be discussed later) and has been separated from the category of Ordinals.
Wonderful, what a matryoshka doll to manage!
What is special is that all 21 million TAP in total are currently in the hands of Beny, with 0 in circulation; the first token on the Tap Protocol - TAP - is circulating in the market. The next thing is that the project party will use TAP for financing and governance, and will airdrop part of it to TRAC, -TAP and PIPE holders. The specific proportion is still uncertain. (Note: PIPE is the first token of the Pipe protocol)
About Tap Protocol, if you are interested, you can read the introduction written by the author before:
https://twitter.com/_0xSea_/status/1689560490907680768
As for the other two projects Looksordinal and -CRSD: the former is a pure tool without tokens; the latter because the ord development team has not yet completed all negative inscription types, the index for -CRSD is not complete yet and cannot be traded at present.
Conclusion 2: A team has launched a troika and matryoshka-style binding. This gameplay is considered unique in the current L1 arena.
Chapter III: Half a year of sharpening the sword, protocol rookie Atomics suddenly showed its edge
About 3 months after Ordinals was released, another anonymous developer noticed it. After some thought and research, he decided Ordinals had some shortcomings.
Then he got to work, and after 6–7 months of hard work over the last month, Atomics Protocol was launched in September. In the early morning of September 21, someone issued ATOM, the first token on the Atomics protocol, and it was mined within about 5 hours. ATOM needs to be mined through the computer CPU, and the local environment needs to be installed and configured. Compared with the BRC-20 method of directly pulling gas, it has a more technical threshold (more geek), and to a certain extent, it is also fairer.
At the bottom level, Atomics Protocol has several important differences compared to Ordinals:
1. Atomics is minted and spread based on BTC's UTXO, 1 token = 1 sat, which is more consistent with Bitcoin technology and does not bring additional burden to the BTC network. It is superior in terms of "legitimacy" of the technology and is more In line with BTC Maxi’s fundamentalist technical aesthetic;
2. In comparison, Ordinals is "doing nothing" and does not have a currency issuance protocol (hence the later BRC-20). However, when the Atomics protocol was launched, the ARC-20 token standard was already defined. and many more use cases.
With the community's in-depth study of the Atomics protocol, everyone discovered that its long development time, the determination of the founder, and the many scenarios and features it considered made it a very complete protocol that was well prepared, so it gradually became popular with the community. Respect vigorously!
It is worth mentioning that after watching several interviews with the anonymous founder of Atomics, developer ship.eth lamented: This person talks too much like the young Steve Jobs. I feel the same way, the speech is very rational and eloquent, and the favorability level is +1. At that time, Vitalik believed that Bitcoin had many limitations, and his proposal to improve Bitcoin was rejected, so he and several other friends created Ethereum, which is somewhat similar to the birth story of Atomics Protocol.
If you are interested, you can watch the interview with the founder:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfj1QOge11Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS4xCNFWO-I
Conclusion 3: Atomics has been developed for half a year and is attracting attention as a strong competitor to Ordinals. The ecosystem is still in its early stages, and more builders are pouring in.
Chapter IV: Unconvinced Casey brings the menacing Runes with him
As mentioned above, Casey has always disliked the BRC-20, thinking that it brought too many garbage inscriptions and polluted the holy Ordinals. Less than a week after the release of Atomics, on September 26, Casey sent out a tweet saying that he had a terrible new idea to create a homogeneous token protocol based on Bitcoin called Runes (Rune Protocol).
Like Atomiclas (the hero sees the same thing), the important improvement of Runes compared to BRC-20 is based on UTXO technology. Casey believes that creating a good homogeneous token protocol for Bitcoin may bring significant transaction fee income, more developers and users to Bitcoin.
Shortly after the release of Runes-related documents, Comrade Beny saw this opportunity and launched the Pipe protocol based on the ideas of Runes, which is related to Chapter II above.
As for Casey, he is still busy with the upgrade of the Ordinals protocol and some small bugs that appear from time to time, which takes up part of his energy. The official launch time of Runes is still uncertain. I believe this will be the next protocol that will attract much attention in the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Summary 4: As the founder of the most popular Ordinals protocol, Casey will receive enthusiastic attention from the market once Runes is launched.
For the above-mentioned protocols and highly related tokens, I have compiled a simple mind map to help you understand the dependence and competition relationship.
Finally, in the past six months, new "protocols" on Bitcoin have emerged one after another. My energy and ability are limited, so I cannot mention them all. Please forgive me.
