Bitcoin finally stands above $70,000.
With the continued efforts of ETFs, the total market value of Bitcoin has successfully surpassed silver and jumped to the eighth largest asset in the world. The voices of some institutions have begun to become almost crazy. The slogan "Bitcoin will exceed $100 million each" has even spread in the community, and the market sentiment is unprecedentedly hot.
However, the performance of Bitcoin far exceeding expectations also shows that the expectations of narratives such as halving and interest rate cuts are likely to have begun to be consumed in advance. Judging from on-chain activities, miners are not optimistic about the halving, and many teams are reserving cash flow for reduced income after the halving. The next step for Bitcoin will ultimately be to support the construction of the entire payment network, and the development of L2 is crucial.
In this article, Bailu Living Room will share with readers the recently popular Bitcoin second-layer protocol: CKB. Through the innovative asset issuance protocol RGB++, CKB has achieved an impressive monthly increase of more than 300%. What are the advantages ofRGB++ and why does it lead the market? The following will explain why CKB has become a model for the transformation of public chains into the second layer of Bitcoin.
Team and financing history
At the beginning of 2018, the market paid attention Focusing on the Ethereum ecosystem, CKB was officially launched as a public chain challenger. In July of the same year, CKB completed US$28 million in financing, with participation from many well-known investment institutions such as Polychain Capital, Sequoia China, Wanxiang Blockchain, and Blockchain Capital. Then on October 24, 2019, CKB completed an over-funding of $67.2 million on Coinlist. On November 16, 2019, the CKB mainnet "Lina" was launched.
CKB has a strong team and its founders have been deeply involved in the industry for many years.
-Chief Architect Jan Xie:Has long-term contribution to the development of Ethereum clients Ruby-ethereum and pyethereum, and has also worked with Vitalik Buterin, founder of Ethereum, collaborates to develop Casper consensus and sharding technology. In addition, he also founded Cryptape, a company engaged in underlying blockchain platform development and consensus algorithm research.
- Lianchuang Kevin Wang:Worked on enterprise data solutions at IBM Silicon Valley Lab, and co-founded a company for software engineers Online school Launch School. Additionally, Kevin Wang co-created Khalani, an intent-driven centralized solver infrastructure. (Khalani is a versatile “collective solver” that can be seamlessly integrated into a variety of intent-centric applications and ecosystems.)
- Lianchuang and COO Daniel Lv: Ethereum wallet imToken Lianchuang is also the former chief technology officer of crypto exchange Yunbi. In addition, Daniel Lv organized the Ruby China community for 10 years and co-founded ruby-china.org.
- CEO Terry Tai: Was a core developer of the crypto exchange Yunbi and co-creator of the technology podcast Teahour.fm.
PoW+UTXO
There is widespread concern in the community about TPS and In the context of PoS, the CKB team insists that there must be no compromise on censorship resistance and permissionlessness. Sochoose to reduce L1 performance to maintain adequate decentralization, and employ improved PoW and simple hash functions to ensure the network is secure and permissionless.
The concept of layering
The Internet passes The layered and decoupled architecture builds a relatively stable trust network, but its trust level is limited and lacks the inherent support of a self-protection protocol. CKB’s ideal crypto-economic network infrastructure should also adopt a layered and decoupled architecture. Therefore, the team decided to build a secure and scalable layered network, where Layer1 focuses on providing security and decentralization, and Layer2 leverages the security of Layer1 to provide unlimited scalability.
As Layer1, CKB stands for "Common Knowledge Base". "Common knowledge" is defined as knowledge that is common and widely known, that everyone or almost everyone knows and knows that everyone else knows it too. In the context of blockchain, "common knowledge" refers to a state that has been verified by global consensus and accepted by everyone in the network. This attribute is also why we can use cryptocurrency stored on the public chain as currency. Nervos CKB is designed to store all types of common knowledge, not just currencies. For example, it can store user-defined crypto assets, including FT, NFT, etc.
Layer2 protocol can use CKB to ensure security while providing unlimited scalability. The layered architecture proposed by CKB was later recognized by Ethereum. Ethereum gave up its previous research on execution sharding in 2019 and instead expanded its capacity with Layer2 as the core, which continues to this day.
PoW mechanism ensures decentralization
CKB firmly believes in Layer1 is the cornerstone of the crypto-economy and therefore must be a permissionless network. In contrast, PoS determines the proportion of block production based on stake weight, which leads to a conflict with the goals of decentralization and neutrality. In contrast, PoW is completely permissionless, and users only need to purchase mining machines and electricity to participate in block production. In addition, in terms of security, it is extremely difficult to forge or reconstruct a PoW chain because the computing power of each block needs to be recalculated. Therefore, the CKB team believes that although PoS is indeed better than PoW in terms of performance, if you want Layer1 to be as decentralized and secure as possible, PoW is more suitable than PoS.
Cell model achieves scalability
With Bitcoin With the rise of ecology, the debate between the account model and the UTXO model has once again attracted attention. In the early days, both models were interpreted around assets, but over time, UTXO still regards assets as the core (point-to-point), while the account model has evolved to serve contracts, and users’ assets are hosted in smart contracts. and interact with it. This results in a higher security level for assets issued on the UTXO chain than for ERC-20 assets issued on Ethereum. In addition to security, the UTXO model has better privacy, the address is changed with each transaction, and it naturally supports parallel transaction processing. The most important thing is that unlike the account model, which performs calculations and verification on the chain at the same time, theUTXO model places the calculation process off-chain and only verifies it on the chain, thus simplifying the implementation of the application, which means that there is no need to Consider optimization issues on-chain.
CKB not only inherited the ideas of Bitcoin architecture, but also abstracted the UTXO model and created the Cell model, while retaining the consistency and simplicity of Bitcoin. At the same time, it has the ability to support smart contracts. Specifically, Cell abstracts the nValue field in UTXO, which represents the token value, and divides it into two fields: capacity and data. Data saves the state and can store any data. At the same time, the Cell data structure also contains two fields, LockScript and TypeScript. The former mainly reflects ownership, while the latter can customize many rich functions.
In summary, the Cell model is a more general UTXO model, allowing CKB to have smart contract functions similar to Ethereum. But unlike other smart contracts, CKB adopts an economic model for common knowledge storage, rather than an economic model designed for payments in decentralized computing.
High-level "abstraction"
The concept of "abstraction" is no stranger to encryption users. It refers to removing the specificity of the system and creating universality, so that the system can be applied to a wider range of scenarios. The development from Bitcoin to Ethereum is actually a process of abstraction. Bitcoin lacks programmability, making it difficult to build applications. Ethereum introduces virtual machines and operating environments, providing a platform for building various types of applications. Ethereum has also continued to abstract during its development process, whether it is the "account abstraction" that Vitalik mentioned many times, or the addition of precompiled "cryptographic abstraction", etc.
Just like Ethereum is an abstraction of Bitcoin, CKB is also an abstraction of Ethereum to some extent, providing more for smart contract developers the ability to perform freely.
1. Account abstraction
CKB is implemented through the Cell model Account abstraction. For example, the Nervos ecological wallet UniPass has created an identity authentication system based on email and mobile phones. Users are able to log in via email and password, similar to traditional Internet accounts. The decentralized domain name protocol .bit developed by the decentralized identity service provider d.id team also takes advantage of the characteristics of the Nervos abstract account, allowing Internet users, Ethereum users, and EOS users to directly operate applications, not just limited to CKB user.
2. Cryptographic abstraction
Cryptographic abstraction The core is an efficient virtual machine. CKB uses CKB-VM. With the characteristics of the RISC-V instruction set, CKB-VM allows developers to implement cryptographic algorithms using languages such as C and Rust. For example, the JoyID wallet built on CKB makes full use of the advantages of Nervos CKB's custom cryptography, eliminating the need for passwords and mnemonic words, and directly using biometric technologies such as fingerprints to create wallets and confirm transactions.
3. Run abstraction
CKB’s goal is to build Higher level abstraction to improve performance and throughput. As the level of abstraction increases, the Nervos network is able to move more work off-chain or onto Layer 2. For example, although XBOX is an abstract universal platform, there are still some limitations, such as the inability to change the hardware. PC allows users to replace hardware such as graphics cards, CPUs, memory and hard drives. The PC is therefore a more abstract system. The goal of CKB is to transform from XBOX to PC to meet more needs and provide more convenience to developers.
RGB Advantages, Disadvantages and Opportunities
2024 2 On March 13, CKB officially released RGB++ Litepaper, which quickly attracted widespread attention from the market.
RGB protocol is already a cliché. In 2016, Peter Todd first proposed the concepts of client-side validation and single-use-seals, which became the predecessor of RGB. The core idea of theRGB Protocol is to only invoke the Bitcoin blockchain when necessary, leveraging proof-of-work and the decentralization of the network for double-spend protection and censorship resistance. All verification of token transfers is removed from the global consensus layer, placed off-chain, and verified only by the client of the party receiving the payment.
The main characteristics of RGB are summarized as follows:
1. High confidentiality, security, scalability;
2. There is no congestion in the Bitcoin time chain, because transactions only retain what is needed Homomorphic commitment of additional storage;
3. Future upgrades without hard fork;
4. Higher censorship resistance than Bitcoin: miners cannot see the flow of assets in transactions;
5. There is no concept of block and chain.
Although the RGB protocol is excellent in design, its technical complexity has made its progress very slow for many years. The main issues include:
DA issue:Transaction information is only transmitted between the sender and the receiver. What is needed Information (such as the historical branch of the UTXO) is difficult for ordinary users to obtain. Moreover, the data stored by each client is independent of each other, resulting in the problem of data islands and the inability to view the global status of the contract.
P2P network issues: As an extended transaction of Bitcoin, RGB transactions need to rely on a P2P network for propagation. When transferring transactions between users, interactive operations are also required, and the recipient needs to provide a receipt. These rely on a P2P network that is independent of the Bitcoin network.
Virtual machine and contract language:RGB protocol virtual machines currently mainly use AluVM. As a new virtual machine, there is currently a lack of Complete development tools and practical code.
Problem of ownerless contract:RGB protocol currently does not have a complete interaction solution for ownerless contracts (public contracts). This makes multi-party interaction difficult to achieve.
The advantages and disadvantages of the RGB protocol are obvious. People who have a higher pursuit of privacy and security will tend to run the client themselves and make data backups. , but long-tail users obviously don’t have this patience (for example, most Lightning Network users will rely on third-party nodes instead of running the client themselves).
Based on this reason, Nervos CKB Lianchuang Cipher proposed a solution called RGB++, trying to publish RGB’s asset status, contract release and transaction verification, Entrust it to the CKB public chain. CKB acts as a third-party data hosting and computing platform, eliminating the need for users to run the RGB client themselves.
RGB++
RGB++ is an extended protocol based on the RGB principle , which takes advantage of the fact that the core point of RGB, UTXO, and the underlying architecture of CKB have the same origin, and combines two key points in the RGB protocol with the architecture of CKB:
- Isomorphic binding: UTXO as an RGB container can be bound and mapped to CKB Cell.
- RGB’s off-chain client verification can be converted into CKB’s on-chain public verification, and the verified data and status can be matched data and type in Cell.
Special attention should be paid to:RGB++ and RGB are two different concepts. RGB mainly uses the concept of disposable seals for expansion; while RGB++ focuses more on the possibility that other UTXO chains can serve as RGB++ clients, and its core contribution lies in the concept of isomorphic binding.
In the RGB protocol, the two most important components are UTXO for ownership identification and commitment for state management and one-time sealing. The isomorphic binding of RGB++ maps the Bitcoin UTXO to the CKB Cell one by one, uses bitcoin lock to achieve ownership synchronization, and uses the cell's data and type to achieve state maintenance.
This not only solves the above-mentioned problems faced by RGB, but also gives RGB more possibilities:
- The CKB blockchain will serve as an enhanced verification client: All RGB++ transactions will appear simultaneously on both the BTC and CKB chains. The former is compatible with RGB protocol transactions, and the latter replaces the client verification process. Users only need to check the relevant transactions on CKB to verify whether the status calculation of this RGB++ transaction is correct. There are no longer the above-mentioned DA problems and data island problems.
- Improved security and reliability: Does not rely on any trusted cross-chain bridge or multi-signature in the process of achieving synchronization mechanism, but based on the direct binding between two UTXOs. According to the security standard of Proof of Work (PoW), transactions on the Bitcoin chain cannot be reversed after 6 blocks, while on CKB, through the equivalent calculation formula, approximately 24 blocks are needed to achieve the same security guarantee. This approach ensures that assets can be safely "jumped" or moved between the two tiers.
- Transaction folding: Bitcoin UTXO is isomorphically bound to CKB Cell to achieve Turing-complete Bitcoin UTXO transactions supported by CKB Cell verification. If the programmability of CKB Cell is further utilized, multiple CKB transactions can be mapped to one Bitcoin RGB++ transaction, so that the low-speed and low-throughput Bitcoin mainnet can be expanded using a high-performance CKB chain.
- Non-interactive transfer: One problem with the original RGB protocol is that the payee must be online to complete a normal transaction , increasing the difficulty of user understanding and product complexity. RGB++ can take advantage of the Turing complete environment, place interactive behaviors in the CKB environment, and use the send-receive two-step operation to implement non-interactive transfer logic.
In general, RGB++ inherits the core idea of the RGB protocol and adopts different virtual machines and verification schemes. Users do not need to The independent RGB++ client only needs to access Bitcoin and CKB light nodes to complete all verifications independently. RGB++ also brings Turing-complete contract expansion and dozens of times performance expansion to Bitcoin. It does not use any cross-chain bridge, but uses a native client verification scheme to ensure security and censorship resistance.
From CKB’s standpoint, being compatible with more protocols in the future is the driving force for CKB’s continued development.
CKB’s future
CKB chose to follow Bitcoin The network's PoW+UTXO technology school stands on the "orthodox high ground" in technology, and thus has gained widespread attention from the community and market. The community generally believes that compared to the EVM compatibility faction, RGB ++ has inherited the legitimacy of Bitcoin UTXO, and the team is deeply involved in the Bitcoin ecosystem, whether it is the layered architecture, UTXO abstraction, or the recently proposed OTX protocol CoBuild Open Transaction. Extension and innovation of Bitcoin ideas.
However, there are also some opinions that CKB is positioned too much. From the cooperation with Huobi from 2019 to 2020, and the game direction from 2020 to 2022, no substantial progress has been made. Therefore, this shift to Layer 2 may be suspected of hype.
But no matter what, CKB has undoubtedly ignited the enthusiasm of the market. In the Bitcoin second-layer protocol where a hundred flowers bloom, market pioneers are destined to have more advantages in capital and traffic, and will be easier to break out of the tight encirclement. But Compared with most EVM competitors, whether it can attract enough developers to support the entire ecosystem still needs to wait for the subsequent performance of CKB.
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