Introduction to the New Bitcoin Asset Issuance Protocol

Rune Alpha

The rise of Rune Alpha is mainly attributed to the recently highly discussed concept of "runes." The "rune" concept was initially proposed by Casey and was reignited due to core developer Luke's opposition to "inscriptions." The main difference between "runes" and "inscriptions" lies in their storage location: "runes" are stored in UTXO, while "inscriptions" like BRC-20 based on Ordinals are stored in the segregated witness data of Bitcoin scripts.

It is worth noting that Rune Alpha, although it claims to be "runes", is actually a new inscription protocol based on the ordinals protocol version 0.11.1, which is different from the original "rune" concept proposed by Casey. However, this conceptual difference has not affected the popularity of Rune Alpha. The first token of the protocol, $cook, had a minting cost of about a dozen dollars, and its current off-market price has risen to around 400 dollars, with a formal trading market yet to be launched.

CBRC-20

CBRC-20 is an efficient meta-protocol standard proposal for fungible tokens on Bitcoin, implemented through Ordinals. It utilizes the new metadata and metaprotocol fields introduced in ord version 0.10+, maintaining the same functional logic as the BRC-20 meta-protocol while reducing the cost of each inscription and simplifying the indexing process.

The main optimizations of CBRC-20 include:

1. Reduce entry costs: Deploying, minting, or transferring CBRC-20 tokens only requires engraving the number "0", reducing costs by about 10 times.

2. Simplified Index: All information can be directly obtained from the inscription envelope, facilitating the indexing of the CBRC-20 coin protocol status.

3. MIME Data Flexibility: Allows the use of any MIME data to deploy, mint, or transfer tokens.

4. Compatible with higher versions of Ordinals: You can utilize the new features of Ordinals 0.10 and above.

The CBRC-20 team has adopted various innovative methods to launch its tokens on trading markets, including direct listing through a specific inscription trading platform and using a browser plugin to enforce listing on the same platform. Additionally, the community has spontaneously developed a CBRC-20 token trading market and has attempted to attach the CBRC-20 tokens to the BRC-20 token trading platform, but this method carries security risks.

Recently, the founder of CBRC-20 launched the OSMOSIS experiment and deployed the first meta-meta protocol inscription $SYMM. This approach allows for the simultaneous execution of multiple meta-protocol operations, achieving a certain degree of "backdoor listing".

BTNS

Broadcast Token Naming System (BTNS) is an ecosystem built by early Bitcoin participant @jdogresorg. Its core idea is to transmit additional broadcast signals on the Bitcoin chain, using blockchain records as the data basis and ledger indexing as a means to realize the issuance of native assets token and NFTs.

BTNS-420 is a token protocol standard built on BTNS, integrating various ecological features such as asset issuance and transfer. Compared to inscriptions and runes, the assets of the BTNS ecosystem do not alter or occupy Bitcoin, aligning more closely with the development direction of the Bitcoin ecosystem. Asset minting based on broadcast forms is more open and transparent, with indexing primarily used to limit and track the total amount of assets.

The main value of BTNS lies in:

1. Achieved asset issuance based on the Bitcoin main chain without occupying the total supply of Bitcoin.

2. Provided a fairer way to acquire assets, such as airdrops, fair indexing, etc., avoiding the "first come, first served" or "high gas priority" issues.

However, due to the developers currently pausing their work, the trading market development of BTNS has not made any progress.

Summary

Rune Alpha and CBRC-20 are both asset issuance methods based on Ordinals, but CBRC-20 excels in innovation by enabling multi-protocol inscriptions to be minted simultaneously. BTNS, on the other hand, belongs to a higher-level meta-protocol, realizing asset issuance through a "broadcast" method, avoiding the occupation of Bitcoin. These new protocols provide diversified options and possibilities for the development of the Bitcoin ecosystem.