Introducing Merlin Chain, a native L2 solution – Blockchain News, Opinion, TV and Careers

adminFebruary 1, 2024

January 31, 2024, New York, USA, Chainwire

This week, the much-anticipated Bitcoin L2 solution Merlin Chain launched on testnet, with mainnet expected to launch within a month.

Bitcoin’s Network Congestion Dilemma and Scaling Solutions

The evolution of Ordinals over the past year has reignited interest in the Bitcoin ecosystem after a long absence. While increasing the enjoyment of the Bitcoin ecosystem, it has also increased the depletion of network resources. Increasingly higher transaction costs and the rising price of Bitcoin itself have added to congestion on the network and discouraged new users from becoming interested in Bitcoin.

(Bitcoin daily average transaction fee $: YCharts)

The idea of developing an EVM-compatible L2 network was recognized as the idea that would deliver results first due to the simplicity of the implementation path.

Merlin Chain is also one of the EVM-compatible L2 chains being developed by Bitmap Tech (formerly Recursiverse), the team that built the BRC-420 protocol and Bitmap.game, and is highly regarded in the community due to the team’s past success.

BRC-420

The BRC-420 protocol supports combination/recursion of all file types to form more complex inscriptions. Character images, game scripts, virtual machines, AI models, etc. can be Bitcoin assets.

The core asset, Blue Box, has risen from a listing fee of $0.15 to an ATH low of $26,000, while other assets such as Mineral and This Song About NFTs are among the most actively traded assets on the OKX market. It currently has over 1000 developers and over 600 collections, and has performed exceptionally well, with prices only rising and never falling even during bear markets.

bitmap.game

Bitmap.Game is a fully on-chain, fully decentralized, fair launch Metaverse project. It is based on the Digital Matter Theory that underlies Bitcoin and is open source so it can be run or verified by any client and reflects the “client agnostic” concept of fully on-chain gaming.

During this period, Bitmap’s market capitalization increased from $3 million to $290 million ATH. With over 30,000 holders, Bitmap has surpassed Sandbox as the metaverse asset with the most holders across all blockchains.

Unlock Bitcoin’s potential through innovative magic

Merlin Chain believes that Bitcoin’s L2 is not just about being able to cheaply transfer money or hold DApps, but must further innovate to unlock Bitcoin’s potential through its underlying assets, users, and protocols.

For example, since bitmaps are a completely decentralized asset, creating games based on them allows bitmap users to enter a variety of meta-worlds at low cost. Or, for BRC-420-based DeFi protocols, how to grant bi-directional rights to NFTs and FTs. For inscription minting, learn how to mint L1 assets from L2 in a more cost-effective and flexible way. Only these “Bitcoin-based” innovations can continue to power the ecosystem rather than replicating how Ethereum works.

So far, Merlin Chain has built a strong DApp ecosystem, effectively solved liquidity problems, and is planning further expansion.

Leverage ZK-Rollup for efficient and safe expansion

Diverse ecosystems and assets mean higher throughput requirements and some safety risks. To solve this problem, Merlin Chain adopts ZK-Rollup, which can improve transaction efficiency and scalability by compressing large amounts of transaction proofs into a simple checksum.

The Merlin Chain’s sequencer node is responsible for collecting and batching transactions, generating compressed transaction data, ZK state root, and proof via zkEVM. Compressed transaction data and ZK proofs are uploaded to Bitcoin L1’s taproot via a decentralized oracle network, which makes them available to the entire network to ensure transparency and security.

Decentralized Oracle network nodes are required to stake $BTC to prevent inappropriate activity. Users can initiate challenges to ZK-Rollup based on compressed data, ZK state root, and ZK proof. If the challenge is successful, it will be rolled back to the last confirmed state and the Oracle node’s locked $BTC will be forfeited, ensuring the security and reliability of the system.

Through the integration of these technologies, Merlin Chain has demonstrated outstanding technical capabilities and is on track to build an efficient and secure native Bitcoin L2 solution.

Native Integration – Merlin Chain’s Bitcoin-Centric Approach

Compared to other Bitcoin L2s currently being attempted, one of the key characteristics of Merlin Chain is that it is “Bitcoin native.”

A firm believer in Bitcoin for many years, Merlin Chain is extremely committed to the development of the Bitcoin ecosystem and seeks to bring more users and assets to Bitcoin through its work rather than providing services to other ecosystems in the name of Bitcoin. I’m trying. Therefore, Merlin Chain places high value on the fundamental Bitcoin characteristics of ecosystem projects and users.

Merlin Chain supports Bitcoin-based wallets. Particle Network’s account abstraction allows users to seamlessly switch between L1 and L2 using their Bitcoin wallet. Users can experience swapping $BTC with other tokens, such as stablecoins, at any time without switching to an EVM wallet.

Additionally, Merlin Chain supports most of the major protocols in Bitcoin L1, including but not limited to BRC-20, Bitmap, BRC-420, Atomicals, SRC20, and Pipe. All inscriptions in L1 are automatically whitelisted by the Merlin Chain, allowing users to transact safely and cheaply.

Merlin Chain plans to adopt BRC-20 as its governance token as it pursues “Bitcoin Native.” This makes much more sense than Bitcoin L2, which is currently using the Ethereum standard token as its governance token. Tokens will be released through a fair launch, with a small portion being distributed to VCs and teams. You will be given a 48-month launch period that will not begin within two years, proving your team and investors. ‘Confidence in the Merlin Chain.

Bridging the Gap – Simplifying Bitcoin Adoption and Driving Growth

Another tricky problem for Bitcoin ecosystem builders is the lack of new users and new money flowing in. Ordinals’ problems continue to flare up, but the number of active addresses has not increased significantly. It’s just the same group of people working on different projects. A very fundamental reason for this is the complexity of Bitcoin. Not only does it require downloading a Bitcoin wallet, but imprinting is also not easy to understand, requiring users to spend at least two blocks of time to imprint and three blocks of time to confirm. This is complicated and time consuming.

(Daily active Bitcoin address: Glassnode)

Merlin Chain solves this problem. Currently, the Merlin Chain is connected to 40 Ethereum chains, so for users unfamiliar with Bitcoin, they can use familiar wallets like MetaMask and familiar assets like stablecoins, $ETH, $BNB, etc. Interact on the .Merlin Chain. Users don’t need to know the fundamentals of Bitcoin or what BRC-20 and Atomicals are before experiencing the fundamentals of Bitcoin in a friendly way.

To this end, Merlin Chain will integrate the first multi-chain Inscription DApp. This allows users to mint assets on different layers, including Bitcoin L1 on the Merlin Chain. All you have to do is wait one block. At the same time, a launchpad with a mechanism to value all inscriptions running on the Merlin Chain to 100,000 FDV is also available, allowing more users to easily purchase assets such as BRC-20/BRC-420/. We offer atoms/runes at very low prices. Additionally, as part of its commitment to decentralization, Merlin Chain plans to release most of its governance tokens to the community.

Users are encouraged to stay tuned for the upcoming mainnet launch. The future of Bitcoin will unfold around the Merlin Chain.

Introduction to Merlin Chain

Merlin Chain is Bitcoin Layer2 that integrates the ZK-Rollup network, decentralized oracle network, and on-chain BTC fraud prevention module. Merlin Chain is committed to making Bitcoin fun again by powering Layer1 Bitcoin native assets, protocols, and products over the Layer2 network. Merlin Chain is a subsidiary product line of Bitmap Tech, a top OG team with an overall market capitalization of over $500 million. Bitmap Tech’s BRC-420 “Blue Box” collection has become one of Ordinals’ most popular assets.

Users can follow Merlin Chain. Twitter Stay tuned for more updates.