The Future Prospects and Development Directions of the Bitcoin Ecosystem

The current market is anticipating Bitcoin to break through the $70,000 barrier, which is seen by many participants as a sign that the bull market has officially begun. Driven by this optimism, important assets within the Bitcoin ecosystem have all seen increases. In the past week, the BRC-20 tokens $ORDI and $SATS rose by 25% and 15%, respectively.

The rune market is bustling with activity. A rune named GIZMO•IMAGINARY•KITTEN surged rapidly after its minting, reaching a market value of nearly $20 million at one point. This frenzy also boosted two other "Golden Dog" runes: KODA•FLUFFINGTON and POOKA•CANNOT•BE•STOPPED, both of which surpassed the $1 million mark in market value. The leading assets in the rune market have also seen significant increases, with PUPS•WORLD•PEACE and BILLION•DOLLAR•CAT experiencing a maximum increase of nearly 9 times since the end of September.

There are rumors that a certain trading platform is conducting an internal security audit and regulatory compliance assessment on Rune, which inevitably leads one to speculate about the recent rise of Rune.

What is the outlook for the Bitcoin ecosystem in the face of the upcoming bull market?

Bitcoin's Future: Conservative or Open?

The revival of OP_CAT on the Bitcoin mainnet is crucial. For the vision of "implementing smart contracts on the Bitcoin mainnet," the current question is not "can we?" but rather "should we?".

Last year's popularity of the Ordinals protocol contributed significantly to the openness of the Bitcoin ecosystem, but this is just the beginning. The consensus of the Ordinals protocol is only a small subset of the Bitcoin consensus, which leads to shortcomings in user experience for FT protocols on Bitcoin, such as BRC-20 and runes.

The limitations of Bitcoin consensus mean that these new protocols can only achieve limited functionality within the existing framework. Even so, some developers still believe that these innovations are a disruption to the Bitcoin mainnet.

If the BIP-347 proposal "OP_CAT in Tapscript" is passed and the soft fork is ultimately completed, it will mean a shift in Bitcoin consensus from conservative to open, and the development potential of Bitcoin will be reignited. However, there remains significant uncertainty about whether OP_CAT can be revived in this bull market. Currently, the community is still in the discussion phase and has not yet reached a consensus.

If OP_CAT is successfully revived, it will dominate the technological narrative of the Bitcoin ecosystem. Currently, Quantum Cats and the CAT20 protocol are the two main targets betting on the revival of OP_CAT. If it fails to revive, Runes may continue to maintain its position as the most influential FT protocol in the Bitcoin ecosystem.

Challenges Facing the Rune Market

Runes can only truly become FT after being listed on the trading platform. Before that, the nature of runes is similar to NFTs, with significant market value fluctuations. The true market value of runes needs to undergo liquidity verification by the trading platform.

In addition to centralized exchanges, products like Dotswap have also emerged on the Bitcoin mainnet, such as rune swap products. A certain NFT trading platform is about to launch rune swap functionality, which is expected to improve the on-chain liquidity of runes.

In terms of currency diversity, Rune already has "Cult coins" like PUPS•WORLD•PEACE, but the hot topics are still thin, requiring more participants to enrich the content and the formation of Cult coins.

In comparison, the prospects of BRC-20 seem less optimistic, currently relying mainly on the three tokens $ORDI, $SATS, and $PIZZA.

Development of the NFT Market

In the NFT space, a relatively stable blue-chip echelon has formed, including projects such as NodeMonkes, Bitcoin Puppets, OMB, Quantum Cats, and Pizza Ninjas. Bitcoin Shrooms is also a special existence, possessing an earlier inscription number and a stable high floor price.

In the field of pure art NFTs, art on Bitcoin needs to seek breakthroughs in themes, such as conceptual art or AI art that combines the cultural attributes of Bitcoin itself. The CENTS series is currently one of the most unique art projects on Bitcoin, cleverly combining physical coins with digital assets to create a unique "value entanglement."

The DMT concept is also a unique artistic narrative of Bitcoin that deserves attention. It aims to create specific digital assets based on various data within the Bitcoin blockchain. Currently, apart from Natcats, a leading project, other DMT concept projects have not attracted sufficient market attention.

Conclusion

The revival of OP_CAT in this bull market will determine the development direction of the Bitcoin ecosystem. If OP_CAT fails to revive, technologies like the Lightning Network and BitVM may receive more attention.

The Bitcoin ecosystem is currently the only field in the cryptocurrency market capable of continuously advancing the technological narrative. This stems from the fact that Bitcoin's infrastructure still has significant potential for updates, and the key lies in whether the community can reach a consensus on upgrades.

In any case, the Bitcoin ecosystem will undoubtedly become one of the important narratives of this bull market, and it will uniquely influence the development of the entire cryptocurrency market.