How to understand the long-term logic behind the BEVM airdrop cooperation?

On April 5, Binance Web3 Wallet and Bitcoin Layer2 project BEVM launched an airdrop event. BEVM, which has not yet issued tokens, also clearly stated that 0.5% of its total token supply (10.5 million tokens) will be allocated for this airdrop.

It should be noted that even though there are many "Bitcoin L2" projects on the market, Binance has not yet reached cooperation with any project. So why can BEVM reach cooperation with Binance this time, and what kind of grass snakes and gray lines may be hidden behind it?

Binance "needs" Bitcoin L2

We only need to review the competitive landscape of CEX around the Bitcoin ecosystem since 2023, and we will understand the strategic significance of BTC L2 in the competition of CEX's Web3 wallet and other dimensions in 2024.

As we all know, OKX is undoubtedly the biggest winner in the Bitcoin ecological wave in 2023. From cooperating with UniSat Wallet to jointly build the BRC-20 industry standard, to taking the lead in supporting BRC20 inscriptions and BTC NFT transactions and staking, launching the Bitcoin ecological standard BRC20-S, inscription tools and other components, the layout is extremely rapid, and it has circled waves of market demand and user traffic in the earliest stage.

This also helped the OKX Web3 wallet, which was the first to support BRC20 inscriptions and BTC NFT transactions and pledges, to shine in 2023. It has not only become a must-have tool for many users in the industry, but even many users have begun to use the OKX Web3 wallet to replace old wallet players such as MetaMask, becoming the brightest new star in the crypto wallet track.

At the same time, as the absolute leader of exchanges, Binance is significantly behind OKX in the layout of Web3 wallets and Bitcoin ecology, resulting in a large amount of traffic around the Bitcoin ecology being seized, missing out on the potential huge market cake of the Bitcoin ecology. Therefore, since the end of last year, the construction layout of Binance's Web3 wallet and Bitcoin ecology has been accelerating, and the priority has been continuously raised.

As the advantages of rivals such as OKX continue to consolidate, for Binance, how to find a breakthrough and achieve a curve overtaking of the Bitcoin ecosystem has naturally become a core issue in 2024.

In all narratives, infrastructure projects often play the role of "water sellers", and generally become rigid needs with the continuous construction of the track. Therefore, for Binance, supporting infrastructure projects BTC L2 is a good method and strategy:

By supporting a Bitcoin L2 head player as a starting point, attracting and carrying the user traffic and community attention of the Bitcoin ecosystem, opening up the channel for market funds to flow in, and thus achieving a curve overtaking of OKX's Bitcoin ecosystem layout.

If you look at it from this perspective, Binance's cooperation with BEVM may be a touchstone. In addition, since the top exchanges often have a huge amount of Web3 resources, whether it is financial support or product windows, they can give Bitcoin L2 projects a great catalytic effect and completely release its liquidity. For example, OKX has already laid out the Bitcoin L2 project B² Network and the Bitcoin ecosystem project Bitmap Tech (formerly Recursiverse) early.

Therefore, for Binance, timely supporting its own Bitcoin L2 team is the key to long-term competition with OKX in the Bitcoin ecosystem in 2024. This will also greatly expand the size and gameplay of the entire Bitcoin L2 track, and may become one of the catalysts for a new round of market conditions.

Why BEVM?

In general, the key to the cooperation between Binance and BEVM lies in this - through BEVM, Binance will accelerate the embrace of the Bitcoin L2 ecosystem, which is in urgent need of construction, and further expand Binance's leading position in the new Bitcoin narrative, laying the foundation for a new wave of DApps, new users, and ultimately the growth of Bitcoin's ecosystem TVL.

Of course, in addition to BEVM, there are many other "Bitcoin L2" projects on the market. Why did Binance choose BEVM?

First of all, from a certain perspective, BEVM has always been regarded as a "technical veteran" of the Bitcoin ecosystem that has been tested by time and the market. What is less known is that the BEVM team was founded in 2017, and its founder Gavin participated in the research and development of the central bank's digital currency (DCEP) in 2016, and wrote the first viable CBDC Demo based on the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains.

By 2017, he had completed the underlying code of the well-known public chain Bytom from 0 to 1, and then left Bytom at the end of 2017 to create BEVM.

Among them, ChainX, a BTC L2 solution based on Polkadot launched in 2018, achieved 100,000+ BTC cross-chain and 500,000+ BTC Hash Lock, and completed a new BTC L2 solution based on Schnorr Signature and MAST Contract based on Bitcoin Taproot upgrade in 2021, becoming one of the universal standards widely adopted by many Bitcoin L2.

On this basis, in May 2023, the BEVM team summarized nearly 7 years of BTC L2 entrepreneurial and practical experience, and proposed a completely decentralized Taproot-based BTC L2 solution-Taproot Consensus.

Taproot Consensus can achieve completely decentralized Bitcoin management through a BFT consensus network composed of 1000+ Bitcoin light nodes, thereby solving the problem of introducing BTC into the second-layer network in a trustless manner and ultimately achieving Bitcoin expansion.

It should be noted that the various BTC L2 solutions on the market are varied and complex. From the perspective of technical implementation, they can be roughly divided into five categories: Bitcoin side chain, UTXO+client verification, Taproot Consensus, multi-signature+EVM, and Rollp.

Except for the Bitcoin side chain and UTXO+client verification solutions with poor scalability and high entry barriers, the core gameplay of most of the so-called Bitcoin L2 is still "EVM+multi-signature cross-chain bridge", which is essentially the same as the introduction of BTC into the EVM ecosystem with ERC20 packaged tokens such as tBTC and renBTC.

Although multi-signature solves the single-point security risk, it is difficult to avoid the centralization risk. Therefore, no matter how the Bitcoin L2 project operator views the core issue of "decentralization" in the Crypto world, it is far better to make it "can't be evil" (Can't Be Evil) from the mechanism design than to believe that Bitcoin L2 will "don't be evil".

Based on Bitcoin's native technology Taproot Consensus truly achieves complete decentralization  BTC L2 , and this solution is superior to other BTC L2 projects on the market in terms of technical nativeness, degree of decentralization and feasibility. I think this is also an important reason why Binance web3 chose BEVM as the first BTC L2 project to cooperate.

It is also worth mentioning that BEVM has just completed tens of millions of dollars in financing with a valuation of 200 million US dollars. Among them, there are nearly 20 top crypto institutions such as Rocktree Capital, Waterdrip Capital, Arkstream Capital, ViaBTC Capital, MH Venture, Mapleblock, etc., which is enough to show the recognition of BEVM in the capital market. On March 28, BEVM was officially launched on the mainnet. In just one week, the mainnet has more than 600,000 user addresses. Its performance can be described as outstanding, which also confirms its market and community competitiveness in the BTC L2 track.

What will be the next step?

The wind starts from the end of the green duckweed. The logic of the market has always been a grass snake. The value discovery of all concept sectors or specific currencies has its inherent development logic.

As the first official announcement of Binance’s cooperation with Bitcoin L2, BEVM undoubtedly leaves a lot of room for imagination in the market. What will be the next step for Binance? Will BEVM be the first BTC layer2 project invested by Binance? Even more, will BEVM be the first BTC layer2 launched on Binance exchange? All this remains to be revealed.

But what is certain is that this cooperation must be just the beginning of the implementation of the "Binance Bitcoin L2 Strategy", and it is also an important attempt for Binance to build its own "Binance Bitcoin L2 Map".

In fact, judging from Binance's past style, conventional Binance Labs incubator program projects will mostly follow a fixed path: "Get investment-new coin mining/list trading pairs", and from this perspective, Binance's first airdrop cooperation with BEVM is likely to be just the beginning. Will BEVM become a portfolio of Binanace Labs next? You can look forward to it.

It is worth mentioning that Binance web3 and BEVM jointly conducted an exclusive BTC L2 airdrop event. BEVM took out 10.5 million BEVM tokens, a total of 0.5% of the total tokens, for incentives. It can be seen that the determination is great. This is also the first time that BEVM has distributed tokens to the community on a large scale. It is strongly recommended that users who can use Binance wallets can participate!

In addition, on April 10, Binance web3, which rarely launches online Twitter space, launched a Bitcoin ecosystem-themed Twitter space on its official Twitter account. The only BTC L2 project guest is BEVM, which shows that the relationship is extraordinary!

Anyway, as the most imaginative Bitcoin L2 track, just like Ethereum Layer2 such as Arbitrum and Optimism in 2021, there will definitely be several projects worth tens of billions or even hundreds of billions. Binance bets on the BTC L2 track, both because of the track ceiling and the general trend. No exchange would be stupid enough to ignore such a huge and sexy crypto blue ocean market as the Bitcoin ecosystem.

For ordinary users, identifying projects and opportunities is also the core of seizing this wave of wealth opportunities. As the first BTC L2 project to cooperate with Binance web3, BEVM must be a rare BTC L2 that deserves special attention.