Explaining MetaID: How to Build the Web3 World on Bitcoin

Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)

Author | Golem (@web3_golem)

1. Bitcoin is the best carrier for building future Web3 applications.

In the past, many views believed that due to the low network efficiency, lack of support for smart contracts, and the complexity of building applications, the Bitcoin network would not have a thriving ecosystem like Ethereum or Solana, but would continue to view Bitcoin as 'digital gold' and a global store of value. However, the birth and development of the Ordinals protocol in December 2022 made the market realize for the first time the potential of the Bitcoin ecosystem, and discovered that, different from the Ethereum or Solana network, building the Web3 ecosystem on the Bitcoin network as the carrier has unique advantages.

For example, the Bitcoin network has the highest global consensus, decentralization, and security; although the UTXO architecture is more complicated compared to traditional account systems, it provides better fund security and is naturally suitable for high-concurrency transactions; the way data is stored on the chain is simpler and more elegant compared to other blockchains.

If the birth of the Ordinals protocol is considered as the starting point of the Bitcoin ecosystem, the Bitcoin ecosystem has also celebrated its 2nd anniversary. Although overall, the Bitcoin ecosystem has shown initial prosperity, asset issuance protocols such as Ordinals, Runes, and Atomicals have gained community support and development. Secondary layer solutions such as Merlin and Fractal have added more playability and ecological applications to the mainnet assets, and Bitcoin staking narratives led by Babylon are gaining increasing recognition.

However, fundamentally, the Bitcoin ecosystem still remains in the asset issuance stage, with no substantial progress in the actual construction of the Web3 application field.

If an ecosystem wants to thrive, it cannot always stay in the stage of "creating assets" and "running a casino". The long-term narrative should focus on Web3 applications with practical utility, creating value for users rather than just PVP.

So, is it currently possible to build Web3 applications with practicality in the Bitcoin ecosystem, such as on-chain Twitter, on-chain Facebook, on-chain Amazon, and on-chain Tiktok? This is precisely the problem that MetaID, a new protocol in the Bitcoin ecosystem that has recently received much attention, aims to solve.

If Ordinals changed the public's perception that the Bitcoin network cannot develop an ecosystem, then what the MetaID protocol needs to do is to truly build the Web3 world on top of Bitcoin.

二、How does MetaID build the Bitcoin Web3 ecosystem?

The first version of the MetaID protocol was released in April 2020, and now it has developed to version v2. Prior to the release of v2, MetaID had already accumulated over 170,000 users and generated over 21 million transactions.

Simply put, MetaID is the first data unified protocol designed specifically for building Web3 applications on Bitcoin. Through the MetaID protocol, developers can build Web3 applications including decentralized social applications, games, e-commerce, etc., on the Bitcoin network, and the protocol also supports the issuance of homogenized assets MRC-20 and non-fungible assets MRC-721 closely linked to data value on Bitcoin.

As mentioned earlier, the UTXO architecture of Bitcoin and its on-chain storage capability make it a perfect foundation for building Web3 applications. The vision of MetaID is to establish a user data storage on Bitcoin, with the ability for data to be freely traded between applications and interconnected across different applications, creating a vast Web3 ecosystem. Taking social applications as an example, developers can use MetaID to build decentralized versions of Twitter/X and Telegram on Bitcoin, allowing users to seamlessly interact between these applications, such as sending direct messages from an X account to users on Telegram.

Achieve data interconnection

Unlike other Bitcoin protocols, MetaID abstracts decentralized on-chain data into a tree structure and uses 'users' as the classification method. Each MetaID is a separate category, and all data is ultimately stored on the chain in the form of a 'MetaID tree'.

Each node and leaf on the "MetaID tree" is called a PIN, which represents the smallest data unit in the MetaID protocol. Users' MetaID identities, posting or liking posts, deploying and minting assets, interacting with third-party protocols, etc., are all represented by PINs. Essentially, PINs are similar to Ordinals inscriptions, both marking specific Satoshis on Bitcoin, enabling the information above to be tokenized as NFTs and be transferable and tradable.

However, the biggest difference between PIN and Inscription is that the format of PIN is designed for building Web3, not just for being NFT or FT assets. PIN has concepts of paths, declarative modification and deletion operators, encryption on-chain operators, etc. These are the capabilities needed to build Web3 applications, which Inscription does not have.

MetaID founder Sunny Fung vividly explained the difference between the two as: PIN is the diamond of Web3 applications, while inscription is more suitable for carrying assets.

Each PIN is like a Lego brick, and different PINs can be combined to create various Web3 applications. Through this combination, not only can the workload of Web3 application development be greatly reduced, but also the data generated by each application will be connected to the user's MetaID tree in the form of PINs. This also means that other applications can combine PINs from different protocols through the MetaID tree, thereby achieving data interoperability.

Implement Bitcoin Network Expansion

Bitcoin's mainnet congestion and high fees have always been important factors hindering the development of the Bitcoin mainnet ecosystem. As a result, many teams have chosen to develop Bitcoin L2 or side chains to meet more application needs. However, the MetaID protocol takes a different approach. It believes that due to the statelessness and high concurrency of the UTXO architecture, Bitcoin side chains/L2 based on the UTXO architecture should be considered as an extension of the Bitcoin network. Together, they form a large, unified UTXO network with the Bitcoin network.

Therefore, the MetaID protocol supports cross-chain from a design perspective. In this case, users can freely choose which UTXO public chain to store their MetaID data on. They can store general Web3 application data on a lower-cost Bitcoin sidechain to save costs, while storing important MetaID assets/data on the Bitcoin mainnet.

To achieve this vision, MetaID has proposed a Bitcoin extension plan - MetaBitcoin Network. MetaBitcoin Network is a dynamic and infinitely scalable Bitcoin isomorphic network, which is based on the BTC chain and has the advantage of being based on Bitcoin's technical architecture and consensus mechanism. It can be linked to mainstream UTXO chains without inventing new technology or developing new public chains. At the same time, it can make full use of the infrastructure of other side chains to achieve more complex financial and Web3 use cases.

Any blockchain that is permissionless, UTXO-based (using the UTXO architecture and supporting traditional addresses), and uses the SHA 256 mining algorithm can join the MetaBitcoin Network. Current blockchains such as MVC, Fractal, BCH, and BSV meet these criteria.

Comparison of MetaBitcoin with other Bitcoin scaling solutions

At the same time, MetaID founder Sunny Fung stated that MetaID will not split the Bitcoin ecosystem by creating a separate L2. The MetaID protocol + MetaBitcoin Network solution can establish a permissionless, open, and capable of carrying a massive number of daily users Web3 world on Bitcoin. Therefore, in terms of classification, MetaID can be regarded as an L0 protocol in the Bitcoin ecosystem.

III. Introduction to Protocol Ecological Projects

The MetaID v2 version was launched in May this year, and now the protocol ecosystem has also begun to take shape. Next, we will briefly introduce the main ecological projects of MetaID to help readers understand the development of the MetaID protocol.

MetaSo

MetaSo is a decentralized social media network based on the MetaID protocol. Developers can deploy new Web3 social applications within 20 minutes by simply editing the configuration file. MetaSo data is sourced entirely from on-chain data of Bitcoin and its sidechains, with each node locally storing and indexing relevant data. MetaSo nodes are interconnected through P2P, without relying on any third party, making it the first truly Bitcoin-based decentralized social media network.

At the same time, the data in different MetaSo applications is interconnected and interoperable, and users can use their accounts or mnemonic phrases to log in to all Metaso-supported social applications. This means that users' data on different social platforms can be circulated and shared with each other, thereby improving data availability and connectivity.

MetaSo is initiated and operated by DAO. By operating MetaSo nodes, users can receive MetaSo token incentives. According to official website data, MetaSo is still in its early stage, with a total of 1832 users and 10810 completed transactions.

MetaLet

MetaLet is the main wallet that supports the MetaID protocol. Currently, using this wallet is required for logging into applications and managing MRC-20 assets and PIN under the MetaID protocol.

BITBuzz

BITBuzz is a Web3 decentralized social application built on the MetaID protocol, where users can post, comment, like, and perform other operations. As it is fully based on the chain, users need to pay a certain fee for posting, commenting, liking, and other operations. Currently, BITBuzz supports the Bitcoin mainnet and the Bitcoin sidechain MVC.

Show.now

show.now is a Web3 decentralized social application deployed based on MetaSo, similar in function to BITBuzz, but with a different UI. In theory, everyone can build customized Web3 decentralized social applications through MetaSo, and interconnect with data from other applications.

metaID.market

metaID.market is a trading and minting platform for MetaID protocol MRC-20 and other assets. MRC-20 has a unique ID Coins model, issued through Fair Launch, similar to Pump, but different in that it only allows followers of the token deployer to trade the token, the platform also supports trading and deployment of regular MRC-20 tokens and PIN for MetaID protocol. The largest market value of MRC 20 tokens is METAID, with a market value of 6 BTC.

Orders.Exchange

Orders.Exchange is a order book-style DEX on Bitcoin, currently supporting trading of ID Coins launched from metaID.market.

IV. Conclusion

From the above introduction and ecosystem, MetaID seems more like a decentralized social protocol or DID protocol similar to Farcaster or nostr in the Bitcoin ecosystem, but it has much more to do.

The founder of the MetaID protocol, Sunny Fung, explains the differences between them. 'MetaID has a wider range of applications. MetaID can do everything that the Farcaster protocol and nostr protocol can do, but the reverse is not true. However, the most important thing is that MetaID needs to implement Web3 on Bitcoin, which they are not.'

The MetaID protocol itself does not have project tokens, nor airdrops or incentive activities, so it initially chose to enter the ecology from the social field, which also created the impression in the market that MetaID is a decentralized social or DID protocol.

**"With social networking as the entry point, you can quickly get a large number of users, and the most important thing for a protocol like MetaID is actually the scale of users, so in the early stage, we chose to work with the MetaSo team to promote this project that best represents the characteristics of MetaID. **Sunny also gave an explanation in an interview with Odaily.

The current price of Bitcoin has exceeded $100,000, with a total market value of about $2.01 trillion. However, the total market value of the Bitcoin ecosystem is still less than $10 billion, accounting for less than 1%. This may also prove that the Bitcoin ecosystem is still in its early stages.

The future is uncertain, but MetaID may become the dark horse.