How did BEVM, which has been in the making for seven years, create a masterpiece for BTC Layer2?
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Recently, the Crypto exchange Bybit released a report stating that BTC will continue to outperform other markets in 2024, and it is expected that the results of BTC projects in this bull market will also become popular.
Indeed, the success of projects such as Ordinals and Runes on BTC shows that opportunities and innovation can drive community development. However, with the current dominance of the BTC network and its soaring popularity, challenges related to scalability and transaction efficiency have also emerged. BTC Layer2: Difficulties and Future Landscape Back to the essence of blockchain, to achieve an efficient and smooth experience of Layer 1 blockchain, not only the core decentralization and security are required, but also network scalability, throughput and low gas fees must be taken into account. However, it is currently difficult to achieve a balance between the three, which is also known as the "blockchain Blockchain Trilemma" . Therefore, a set of Layer2 solutions built on Layer1 chains are needed to improve blockchain performance. The popular BTC Layer2 is a scalability solution built on top of BTC's base layer (Layer1), which aims to solve the throughput limitations and high transfer fees of the Bitcoin network. Compared with Layer1, which focuses on the operation of underlying block technologies such as consensus mechanism, data immutability, and network incentives, Layer2 focuses more on expanding around Layer1's "application layer" and "contract layer", thereby improving the scalability of the blockchain without being limited to the Layer1 platform framework. Among them, Bitcoin is also a relatively special type in the Layer1 public chain, because it does not support smart contracts, so Bitcoin has not been able to develop a more mature ecosystem due to this limitation, and the development of Layer2 technology has brought new hope to Bitcoin . Layer2 solutions are not new concepts. Their development history can be traced back to the BTC Lightning Network proposed in 2015, which is mainly used to solve BTC payment scenarios, but it does not support smart contracts. In order to meet the requirements of efficient operation of smart contracts and higher transaction speeds, BTC side chains were born, which can transfer part of the workload of the main chain to the side chain. The subsequent explosion of the ETH ecosystem has shaped an endless stream of applications, such as Web3 games, NFTs, social applications, etc. However, it has also brought bottlenecks to the Ethereum network itself, and Ethereum is in urgent need of expansion. Therefore, some expansion solutions of Bitcoin were used to create the Raiden Network and Plasma. The Raiden Network is similar to the Lightning Network and supports all ERC20 token transactions, while Plasma is another expansion framework used to increase the network throughput of Ethereum. After that, Ethereum's Layer2 development was ahead of Bitcoin's expansion. Currently, the relatively new Ethereum Layer2 technologies are mainly Rollups, OP Rollup and Zero-Knowledge (ZK) Rollup. Because they bring higher security and performance improvements, and also allow the use of smart contracts on the expanded Layer2, Ethereum's Layer2 has finally gained wide market recognition and has developed rapidly. After the successful verification of Layer2 solutions such as Ethereum, with the BTC Taproot upgrade in 2021, which brought better solutions for BTC expansion and bridging, Ethereum's successful experience can finally be put into practice on Bitcoin. The current market trend has returned to the original intention of blockchain - the infrastructure construction of BTC Layer2. Looking at the market size of Ethereum Layer2, its financing valuation starts at about 3 billion US dollars, and its market value has reached tens of billions of US dollars. The market value (FDV) of OP, ARB, and Starknet has reached more than 10 billion US dollars, and most Layer2 total locked value (TVL) is generally more than 200 million US dollars. In addition, the current total market value of Ethereum Layer2 has reached about 100 billion US dollars, and the TVL is as high as 10 billion US dollars. According to the forecast of investment company VanEck, by 2030, the market value of Ethereum Layer2 will reach 1 trillion US dollars. In contrast, BTC Layer2 is still in its infancy. Many projects that have emerged since 2023, such as the leading Merlin chain, have attracted a lot of attention and investment, with the highest locked value of about US$3.5 billion. However, in terms of the overall market value and TVL of BTC Layer2, it is relatively low, and the market space is still huge. At present, there are nearly 100 ETH Layer2 projects, while BTC Layer2 projects have only begun to build ecosystems. However, considering Bitcoin’s leading position in the field of cryptocurrency and the importance of Layer2 technology in increasing transaction speed and reducing fees, it is foreseeable that the future story will also be very interesting. From the perspective of investors and entrepreneurs, BTC Layer2 is currently the best outlet . First of all, as a leader in the field of cryptocurrency, BTC has a huge market base and user base, which provides a good entry point for capital inflow. From a technical perspective, compared to creating a new public chain and a new set of consensus gameplay, it is more credible and practical to carry out technological innovation based on the existing Layer1 consensus mechanism. The current survival skills for Layer2 can be summarized into four mainstream models. The first is the ecological business closed-loop model, such as the multi-asset GMX derivatives created by Arbitrum, which can enable users and the community to spontaneously drive its sustainable development. The second is a narrative of brand building, such as OP Chain's one-click issuance of ETH Layer2 based on OP Stack, which has been deployed in multiple fields. The third is the technical narrative model, such as Starknet and zkSync's zk technology, which attracts users and funds through technological innovation. In addition, there is also a violent lock-up to increase TVL model, such as Blast and Merlin, which increases the total locked value by locking funds. Compared to ETH Layer2, which has already flourished in the last bull market, BTC Layer2 has only evolved in the past year. For builders and the community, the landing and expansion of BTC Layer2 is very confident due to the huge market value of BTC. From gameplay to ecology, who will be the next leader in BTC Layer2? In the current development of BTC Layer2, various schemes emerge one after another. The violent lock-up strategy introduced by Blast aims to boost community enthusiasm and user sentiment, and it has indeed shown a strong and powerful effect when the bull market comes. In addition, there are also BitVM and RGB protocols that focus on technological innovation, but such projects often need time to mature and settle, and may only truly grow and land after the next bull market cycle. Of course, many people expect BTC Layer2 to create a myth of expansion and widespread application like ETH, and there are currently many BTC Layer2 solutions that copy the Ethereum Layer2. But have you ever thought about why not use BTC's native technology to achieve Layer2 expansion? It is observed that the only representative project at present should be BEVM, which is a Layer2 that is completely based on the BTC Taproot technology combination and compatible with mainstream blockchain technology. The core of BEVM is to combine a number of Bitcoin native technologies such as the Mast contract, Schnorr signature, BTC light node network, and the most widely used virtual machine EVM during the BTC Taproot upgrade into a set of solutions to achieve decentralized BTC Layer2. In addition, BEVM adopts a brand narrative similar to OP - BEVM-Stack can achieve one-click issuance of BTC Layer2. When the BTC Layer2 ecosystem exploded, the BEVM mainnet was launched in March this year, providing one-stop services for more than 100 BTC Layer2 projects. In addition, BEVM Stack can also customize Gas and support the use of various currencies as Gas, such as BTC, Sats, etc., providing more possibilities for the development of BTC Layer2. BEVM aspires to create an ecological closed loop like Optimism, and also to create a business empire like Ethereum for the BTC ecosystem. Currently, the BEVM ecosystem has two important applications: BTC liquid staking protocol Bido and BTC stablecoin protocol Satoshi Protocol. Bido allows BTC Holders to pledge BTC on Bido to support the operation of BEVM network nodes, similar to Lido on ETH, providing more re-staking options for pledgers. On the one hand, the security of Layer2 can be maintained through the pledge model, and on the other hand, BTC pledgers can obtain Gas fees on the Layer2 platform - users who currently pledge on Bido can obtain 50% of the Gas revenue of the entire BEVM network. The Satoshi Protocol is a decentralized stablecoin of BTC. It uses the decentralized staking of the BEVM platform to generate stablecoins, which can solve the problem of BTC payment fluctuations on the Lightning Network. At the same time, it is compatible with the full-chain protocol of USDC CCTP, allowing the BTC decentralized stablecoin to circulate to any public chain VM platform like USDC.Based on BTC, how did BEVM emerge? Due to limited space, the previous article only briefly mentioned the differences between BEVM and other BTC Layer2 projects. Recently, BEVM has also attracted widespread attention from capital. In April, it announced that it had received tens of millions of dollars in financing from many well-known institutions including Bitmain, making its valuation as high as 200 million US dollars. After BEVM was launched on the mainnet, it launched an on-chain airdrop event with the Binance Web3 wallet and became the first BTC Layer2 project connected to Binance. According to its official data, 160,000 users participated in this event, which also provided generous rewards. All these eye-catching figures show that the first BTC second-layer network built on Taproot Consensus with BTC as Gas and compatible with EVM seems to have a great background and can stand out among many BTC Layer2 projects. What is so unique about BEVM? 1. Strong technical accumulation and development history Perhaps it is related to its unique technical advantages and project background. BEVM's seven years of technical accumulation and continuous development process have given a blessing in this bull market like "icing on the cake". The earliest appearance of BEVM actually started with the development of the Polkadot cross-chain project ChainX in 2017. At that time, ChainX could be called the first Substrate chain. It combined BTC decentralization with the Polkadot framework, and realized the Bitcoin rust SPV light node. From 2018 to 2020, Bitcoin SPV light nodes were integrated into Substrate's Auto + Grandpa BFT consensus, and Polkadot's governance module was used by BTC SPV light nodes. At that time, ChainX had achieved more than 100,000 BTC cross-chains, but the industry's hot spots and narratives had not yet focused on BTC, and ChainX did not achieve the expected development. In 2021, the BTC network has undergone the biggest upgrade since Segregated Witness (SegWit) in 2017 - Taproot. The main features of this update are the introduction of the Schnorr signature algorithm + MAST contract + the latest BTC script technology, each of which increases the privacy, scalability and composability of the blockchain. BEVM sensed the future of the BTC ecosystem, successfully registered and obtained the patent for BTC Taproot around 2022 , and shaped BEVM's Taproot Consensus Layer2 technology through native Taproot technology. By this time, BEVM has laid a solid technical foundation for BTC's scalability and decentralization. Since 2023, with the outbreak of BTC protocols such as Ordinals and Inscriptions, BEVM has seen the opportunities and needs of the BTC ecosystem and officially promoted it under the BEVM brand. Currently, its mainnet has been launched, providing services for 100+ BTC ecological projects. 2. Innovation of Taproot Consensus Taproot Consensus technology seems to be an underlying technology created by the BEVM project , and currently only they are using it. This is a set of technologies based on the Substrate framework, which integrates the three major BTC native Taproot technologies: Schnorr signature, MAST contract and SPV light node network. Specifically, the Schnorr signature provides a more efficient and private Bitcoin signature algorithm, which can expand the number of Bitcoin multi-signature addresses to 1,000 and achieve decentralization of multi-signature addresses; the MAST contract implements multi-signature management through coding, which can improve network security and privacy; and the SPV light node allows users to verify payments more conveniently. Therefore, Taproot Consensus not only helps improve the scalability and privacy of BTC, but the BEVM network can also ensure the security of on-chain transaction assets. In addition, BEVM also has a unique positioning in technological innovation, such as combining the privacy communication protocol Signal. 3. BEVM Stack: A one-stop solution As a new technology stack service, BEVM Stack provides a one-stop solution for the deployment of BTC Layer2. By integrating innovative languages such as EVM, WASM, Cario, and Move, BEVM Stack enables BTC to be linked to various blockchain technologies, bringing a safer and more efficient solution to the BTC ecosystem. As mentioned in the BEVM white paper: BEVM Stack aims to deploy BTC Layer2 for developers and projects in an easy and low-cost manner, so that more projects can fully enjoy the security of the Bitcoin network consensus and the convenience of EVM deployment applications. In addition, BEVM Stack can also integrate multi-chain blockchain technologies such as Zkstark scalability, XCMP, and full-chain message protocols such as LayerZero and Wormhole, realizing the seamless connection between BTC and other blockchain technologies. The launch of this one-click solution is exactly the same as OP Stack, and BEVM will mainly promote its Taproot solution to lay the foundation for the subsequent widespread application and construction of BTC. 4. Make BTC a “full-chain asset” BEVM technology provides a new solution for the decentralized asset full-chain circulation of BTC. Through the transfer of BEVM, BTC can achieve full-chain circulation to any blockchain innovation platform. Currently, BEVM has been able to achieve low-cost and fast BTC cross-chain through its ecological application OmniBTC. It supports many underlying protocols such as LayerZero, Connext and other cross-chains. BEVM can integrate various full-chain aggregation liquidity protocols, as well as the full-chain interoperability message protocol using LayerZero and Wormhole at the bottom, providing users with a wider range of asset application scenarios. Although the technical logic behind it seems complicated, BEVM allows users to understand that they only need to use BTC as Gas to complete any interoperability experience with major innovative chains, such as ETH, SUI, Starknet, OP, BSC, etc. Analogous to the World Wide Web on the Internet, users only need to enter a domain name to access any network connected to www. All chains are interconnected, and all blockchain technologies and BTC, a decentralized currency, are integrated. Looking at the development history of BTC Layer2, many projects have demonstrated extremely rich technical details and unique market observations, but the author believes that the emergence of Merlin and BEVM is just the beginning. Going back to the original intention of Crypto, looking back at BTC, the first and most famous cryptocurrency, has completely changed the landscape of traditional finance since its launch in 2009. With the first approval of BTC ETFs by the US SEC last year and Hong Kong's approval of BTC ETFs last month, terms such as decentralization, DeFi, GameFi, and cross-chain have become less niche. As developers and the broader community continue to innovate and adopt new solutions, BTC Layer2 solutions will play a key role in creating explosive applications in the future. We are standing at the cusp of a new era, like a ship setting sail. With the advancement of technology and the excitement of the community, we will witness more innovations and breakthroughs in BTC and Crypto in the future.
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