Bitcoin use case showed “explosive growth”[Consensus 2023]| coindesk JAPAN

Bitcoin ecosystem firm Trust Machines said in a report that Q1 2023 will see “explosive growth in Bitcoin (BTC) use cases.”

The report identifies Bitcoin NFTs, Bitcoin Name Service (BNS) and Stacks, the Bitcoin smart contract platform powering much of the company’s ecosystem, as key use cases driving new growth and adoption. ” is given.

Web3 development has expanded exponentially based on other chains, including the Ethereum blockchain, but development on the Bitcoin blockchain has lagged behind.

But that’s about to change as new use cases and technologies emerge, said Trust Machines CEO and Stacks co-founder Muneeb Ali on Thursday at Consensus 2023. He spoke at a session titled “Building on Top of Bitcoin (for Real).”

“What I am most looking forward to is the resurgence of developer culture. Bitcoin is fun again because it has become a place to develop again. It is the best thing that can happen.”

Limited to payments

The Bitcoin blockchain has historically been limited to payments. Even his creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, denied any non-financial uses. However, a new technology is emerging that will use Bitcoin as a Layer 1 foundation for evolving to Web3.

Bitcoin NFT made headlines in January this year with the launch of the “Ordinals” protocol. Ordinals is a unique “digital art” that can be held and transferred on the Bitcoin network by adding arbitrary content such as text and images called “inscription” to Satoshi (or sats), the smallest unit of Bitcoin. to create

According to Trust Machines research, over 1 million inscriptions, or Bitcoin NFTs, have already been created.

And sister platform BTC.us has seen a 400% increase in BNS registrations since 2022. With BTC.us, users can register an address, which is usually represented by a string, as a domain name using “.btc” and use it for things like sending and receiving bitcoins.

Trust Machines attributes the increase in registrations to the launch of Ordinals and decentralized social media Nostr, which is backed by Jack Dorsey.

Making Bitcoin Programmable

Stacks, a layer-2 blockchain co-founded by Munib Ali, is currently powering most applications within the Trust Machines ecosystem. According to a report by blockchain analytics firm Messari, Stacks’ average daily active users and addresses “increase by 76% and 42%, respectively, in the fourth quarter of 2022.” .

Late last year, Stacks released a white paper showing how to make the Bitcoin blockchain fully programmable with a new crypto asset called Stacks bitcoin (sBTC).

“Bitcoin NFTs have been booming in recent months, but more development is needed to fully unlock Bitcoin’s decentralized finance use cases,” said Messari, with sBTC being the biggest effort to do so. continues.

Stacks has now launched a testnet for sBTC and is targeting a mainnet launch later this year.

｜Translation: coindesk JAPAN
｜Editing: Takayuki Masuda
｜Image: Consensus 2023/CoinDesk
｜Original: Bitcoin Use Cases Are Seeing ‘Explosive Growth,’ Trust Machines Says