From RGB to RGB++: CKB empowers the development of Bitcoin ecosystem asset protocols

Author: Daoshuo Blockchain

In the past two days, a sub-ecosystem around CKB on Bitcoin has attracted a lot of attention.

This ecosystem is mainly composed of three parts:

RGB++ protocol: a protocol for issuing Bitcoin assets

Nervos: Bitcoin's second-layer expansion system

UTXO Stack: used to build a blockchain system based on the UTXO architecture.

RGB++ is an asset issuance protocol in the Bitcoin ecosystem. It originated from the RGB protocol, but it solved some of the problems of the RGB protocol itself in implementation, allowing the protocol to be implemented.

Nervos is an early project that originally hoped to build a layer of blockchain similar to Ethereum that carries a wide range of applications, but its operation has not seen much improvement in recent years. After the Bitcoin ecosystem was launched, the team turned its development direction to the second-layer extension of Bitcoin based on the isomorphic characteristics of its own UTXO.

UTXO Stack has only recently been exposed in the media. The main benefit is that it has been favored by capital, including many institutions, mainly because of its "one-click chain launch" function. But the goal of this function is definitely not to create more first-layer UTXO blockchains, but to build a second-layer extension system isomorphic to Bitcoin.

Overall, we can understand this ecosystem like this:

Around Bitcoin, it provides a complete set of infrastructure, allowing users to issue assets (based on RGB++), build applications (based on CKB), and customize their own second-layer extensions (UTXO Stack).

In this ecological framework, UTXO Stack is a feature that I think is different from other Bitcoin ecosystems.

We all know that Ethereum already has a fairly mature "one-click chain launch" system, such as the toolkit for issuing second-layer extensions provided by Optimism---Base is implemented in this way; Arbitrum provides a toolkit for issuing third-layer extensions---such as XAI and the recently popular Degen Chain.

However, in the Bitcoin ecosystem, the current second-layer extension systems are basically single-handedly fought, and they have to be reconstructed by teams one by one. There is no "one-click chain launch" toolkit similar to the Ethereum ecosystem. In my opinion, UTXO Stack seems to be the first project in this field in the Bitcoin ecosystem.

Overall, the design of this ecological framework is technically good and innovative.

But I still want to emphasize that ecological construction is a more important link at the moment.

In the current market structure, Merlin and other second-layer extensions have attracted a large number of users to participate in the system's pledge through the expectation of issuing coins. Their second-layer extensions have accumulated quite amazing TVL, and there are still continuous and expected actions in the future.

In addition, a large number of airdrops in the rune ecosystem are still continuing, and are still attracting users to continuously increase their holdings of rune assets.

At present, the user resources in the Bitcoin ecosystem are very limited. With these competitors still increasing their efforts to attract users, how can the CKB ecosystem accelerate its ecological construction and attract more users is a challenge that cannot be ignored.

I mentioned a detail about user experience in an earlier article or communication:

I tried to buy CKB, but found that I could not buy it on any exchange on this coin; so I tried to buy CKB wrapped on Ethereum (Wrapped CKB), and found that there was a wrapped token, but it was not on Ethereum, and it was still inconvenient to buy.

No comparison, no harm: I bought a coin AR, which is also not convenient for buying native tokens, but it is easy to buy its wrapped token (WAR) on Ethereum.

Comparing the two, at least from this detail, CKB still has considerable room for improvement in user experience.

Therefore, the top priority of this ecosystem now is to vigorously improve the user experience and quickly attract users to participate in its ecosystem construction.