Bitcoin Ecosystem Outlook: Bull Run Approaches, Who Will Lead the Next Wave?

The market is filled with anticipation for Bitcoin to break through the $70,000 barrier. Many investors believe that if Bitcoin can break through and stabilize at this price point, the long-awaited bull run will officially begin.

Under this optimistic sentiment, important assets in the Bitcoin ecosystem generally rose. In the past week, $ORDI reached a maximum increase of 25%, and $SATS reached a maximum increase of 15%.

The rune market is becoming more lively. After the minting of the new cat "Gizmo", represented by the rune GIZMO•IMAGINARY•KITTEN, it surged all the way up, with a market cap peaking at nearly $20 million. Although the creator himself denies any connection to the rune, the market enthusiasm remains unabated.

The popularity of GIZMO•IMAGINARY•KITTEN has sparked two other "Golden Dog" runes: KODA•FLUFFINGTON and POOKA•CANNOT•BE•STOPPED. Both quickly surpassed a market value of 1 million dollars, with KODA•FLUFFINGTON reaching nearly 4 million dollars at its peak, and POOKA•CANNOT•BE•STOPPED reaching nearly 3 million dollars at its peak.

Several leading assets in the Rune market have also surged significantly. PUPS•WORLD•PEACE and BILLION•DOLLAR•CAT have increased nearly 9 times since the end of September, while DOG•GO•TO•THE•MOON has doubled at its peak. Recently, there have been rumors that a certain trading platform is conducting internal security audits and compliance assessments on Rune, which has led to speculation about the recent surge in Rune's price.

If a bull run is about to begin, what is the outlook for the Bitcoin ecosystem?

On the Eve of Great Change: Continue Conservatively or Move Towards Openness?

The revival of OP_CAT on the Bitcoin mainnet is of great significance. Regarding the vision of "implementing smart contracts on the Bitcoin mainnet," the question we now face is not whether it can be done, but whether it should be done.

The popularity of the Ordinals protocol has made an important contribution to the open direction of the Bitcoin ecosystem, but it has only opened a small gap. The consensus of the Ordinals protocol is just a small subset of the Bitcoin consensus, which results in the BRC-20, runes, and other FT protocols on Bitcoin still having shortcomings in user experience compared to other chains.

The limitations of Bitcoin consensus lead to these protocols only being able to achieve the goal of "issuing coins/images on the Bitcoin mainnet" under limited conditions. Even so, there are still developers who believe that these protocols undermine the Bitcoin mainnet and have been resisting these innovations.

If the BIP-347 proposal "OP_CAT in Tapscript" is passed and the soft fork is ultimately completed, it means that the Bitcoin consensus will undergo a major change, shifting from conservative to open, and the narrative ceiling of Bitcoin will be reopened.

However, whether OP_CAT can be resurrected in this bull run remains highly uncertain. The distribution of the BIP proposal does not mean that the community has reached a consensus, but rather indicates that "the community can start discussing this issue." It may currently still be in the stage of "requiring more discussion."

If OP_CAT can successfully revive in this bull run, the technical narrative of the Bitcoin ecosystem will almost certainly be led by OP_CAT. Currently, the main attempts to bet on the revival of OP_CAT come from Quantum Cats and the CAT20 protocol on Fractal.

If it cannot be revived, then the rune may continue to hold the status of the most influential FT protocol in the Bitcoin ecosystem.

The Rune Market Faces More Challenges

Runes only truly become FT after being listed on a centralized exchange. Before listing, the nature of runes is not much different from that of NFTs, and their market value is highly volatile. When liquidity is good, the market value rises rapidly; conversely, it can lead to a dead cycle where no one cares.

The real market value of Rune needs to undergo liquidity verification from centralized exchanges, which may be one of the reasons for the slow listing progress of Rune coins on exchanges.

In addition to centralized exchanges, there are also Rune Swap products on the Bitcoin mainnet, such as Dotswap. A certain NFT trading platform is also about to launch Rune Swap features. Interestingly, although Dotswap has a good product, it has not gained enough traffic; instead, CAT20 on Fractal has brought attention to Dotswap.

In terms of currency diversity, Rune has a "Cult coin" similar to PUPS•WORLD•PEACE, but the trending topics are still relatively thin, mainly revolving around a few large NFT projects or generated based on the size of the holder groups. More participants are needed to improve the content ecosystem. PUPS•WORLD•PEACE and BILLION•DOLLAR•CAT bridging to Solana in search of greater breakthroughs also reflects this.

In contrast, the prospects for BRC-20 seem somewhat dim, with $ORDI, $SATS, and $PIZZA being almost all that BRC-20 has at the moment.

The NFT blue-chip tier is stabilizing, and the uniqueness of the narrative still needs to be explored.

NodeMonkes, Bitcoin Puppets, OMB, Quantum Cats, and Pizza Ninjas have secured their positions as blue-chip projects. In addition, Bitcoin Shrooms is a special case, with a low total supply and a stable floor price of over 1 BTC, despite its inscription number being relatively high.

In the field of pure art NFTs, the art on Bitcoin needs to seek breakthroughs in themes, such as conceptual art or AI art that combines the cultural attributes of Bitcoin. From this perspective, CENTS may be the most unique art series currently on Bitcoin, with its uniqueness lying in "the difficulty of replicating this style on other chains."

The artist behind CENTS selects copper pennies from a large number of penny coins minted in 1982 or earlier, not only engraving them onto Bitcoin but also melting the physical pennies into solid copper blocks. This practice creates a "tangle of value": it is both the 1 cent engraved on Bitcoin and the 1 Satoshi engraved on the penny; it artificially creates deflation for the penny and "deflation" for Bitcoin; the price of 1 CENTS is far higher than its nominal value, reflecting a greater value.

Such narratives are difficult to replicate on other chains, as the coins on other chains are hard to associate with physical coins or currency.

The DMT concept is also a unique artistic narrative of Bitcoin worth paying attention to. It is based on various data in the Bitcoin blockchain to create specific digital assets. Currently, aside from Natcats, the DMT concept project has not yet garnered enough market attention.

Conclusion

Whether OP_CAT can be resurrected in this bull run will determine the development direction of the Bitcoin ecosystem. Some directions that are currently not market hotspots, such as the Lightning Network (Taro, RGB, CKB), BitVM, etc., may gain more attention in the event that OP_CAT fails to resurrect.

The Bitcoin ecosystem is currently the only area in the crypto market that can successfully run the "technological narrative." This stems from the fact that Bitcoin is like a computer still equipped with an old processor, and there is enough hardware available for an upgrade; the key lies in whether the "data center administrators" can reach a consensus. However, forming a consensus is difficult, as it involves not only clashes of ideas but also entanglements of real-world interests.

Regardless, the Bitcoin ecosystem will undoubtedly become one of the important narratives of this bull run, standing out uniquely among various ecosystems.