Exclusive interview with the founder of Merlin Chain: Behind the surge of “Blue Box” and the future of Bitcoin
Written by: Rhythm BlockBeats
With the approval of the BTC ETF, the Bitcoin ecosystem is ushering in a golden age, and many people believe that this bull market will mainly break out in the Bitcoin field. We are honored to invite Jeff, an industry pioneer who is deeply involved in the Bitcoin ecosystem and the founder of Merlin Chain. Merlin Chain is a BTC Layer 2 that focuses on serving native Bitcoin users, assets and protocols. It uses ZK technology to realize the first layer of Bitcoin.SafetySexual sharing is a force that cannot be ignored in the current Bitcoin ecosystem.
The original design intention of Bitmap and BRC-420
BlockBeats: Both Bitmap.Game and BRC-420 have received very good response from the market. Can you share your original intention for creating these two projects?
Jeff: Bitmap is a completely decentralized and trustless asset we see in the market. Each inscription engraved on it represents data specific to a specific block, such as all transaction information, handling fees, and mining of Bitcoin, etc.
The asset itself is fully decentralized and can be inscribed by anyone, soCommunityVery huge. But when it was just inscribed, the market value was only US$2 million. We hope that based on this hugeCommunity, developed some applications for it and provided some practicality, so Bitmap.Game, a metaverse on Bitcoin, was launched.
The yellow dots on the map are currently online users. If you zoom in on the map, you can see each person's plot:
All pictures and content on the plot, or all visible content in our products, are on-chain data. Everyone has differentwalletAssets that can optionally be used as covers for parcels. After entering a specific land plot, you can see all the Avatars as well as the gameplay, game scenes, etc. of the room, which are also on-chain assets.
When we launched Bitmap.Game, our original intention was to build a client-agnostic, decentralized, and permission-free product that does not rely on specific servers. Because all data comes from the chain, not in our hands, even if we no longer operate, others can choose to build their own clients and continue to develop, and anyone can compete to develop similar products. We think products like this are the way forward and may be a little unique, but that's really our original intention.
And BRC-420, we call it data modularity, moduleTokenized asset agreement. That is, we can turn any data into a module andTokenTransform this module into an asset. For example, there is a DLC called Bitmap.town, which contains more than 600 metaverse game assets, such as animations, scripts, avatars, music, etc., which are packaged into a DLC and then tokenized. Once the project is released, all content will be on the chain, and users can access it themselves, build their own content based on it, and hold these tokens without relying on the team that developed the DLC.
So far, the BRC-420 asset has seen a lot of trading volume, growth, number of holders, and market capitalization. Although it was originally called the Metaverse Protocol, there is actually no necessary connection between BRC-420 and the Metaverse. We hope that in the future there will be more innovative gameplay based on decentralized product structures and fully composable asset protocols with on-chain modules.
BlockBeats: This is a bit like turning Inscription into a game card and turning Bitcoin into a game console into which players can copy games. What impact do you think these functional features will have on the development of the entire Bitcoin ecosystem?
Jeff: We are the most unique among all teams in the Bitcoin ecosystem because we do and only do things that have not appeared in other ecosystems. At first, we did a lot of things based on recursion, such as recursive graffiti and recursive on-chain forums; later we made Bitmap, a completely decentralized data package; and then launched BRC-420.
Firstly, I think any new ecosystem needs to have its own narrative. Doing Ethereum things again in the Bitcoin ecosystem, or vice versa, seems to be uninnovative. Just like after the blue box became popular, a 420 protocol appeared on every chain, with boxes of various colors. We must do something that has not appeared before and create a new narrative to allow the Bitcoin ecosystem to develop. For example, a lot of content in Ethereum is not on the chain, so we have to combine the content on the chain.
The second one is the new product model under the new narrative. Some clues of this can be seen in many products on BRC-420. For example, Mineral has created a gameplay that combines DeFi and computing power; for example, some on-chain games based on Bitmap, such as Bitmap Valley and Bitmap War, are using the BRC-420 protocol to issue assets and are product operation models based on on-chain content: First issue BRC-420 assets, and then use them to convert tokens or token airdrops, and then build products based on these assets on the second-layer network. I think the innovation of the entire product model will continue to appear along with the general trend.
The last one is composability, which I think isBlockchainThe biggest productivity innovation, but rarely mentioned in ecosystems such as Ethereum. I believe you also know the term DeFi Lego. The essence of DeFi is the composability between different Lego. From Uniswap to liquidity mining, to Compound, to Curve, etc., smartcontractThe explosion of innovation in the entire industry comes from composability. What Bitcoin can solve is the composability of content. For example, if you make a game with 20 modules, I can quickly make a new game based on 15 of the modules without having to reinvent the wheel. I feel that we have captured the most unique innovation in the Bitcoin ecosystem, rather than replaying the gameplay of Ethereum.
Jeff’s Bitcoin Eco-Entrepreneurship Path
BlockBeats: It can be seen from your speech that you are very knowledgeable about Bitcoin and the entire Crypto industry. Before the current explosion of the Bitcoin ecosystem, had you ever considered starting a business in other ecosystems?
Jeff: Starting Bitmap Tech this time is actually my first time starting a business in Web3. I have always started a business in Web2 before. i always believeBlockchainspirit, the reason why I didn’t choose to be inBlockchainEntrepreneurship in the field is because there is no entry point that can really improve productivity.
As users of the Internet generation, we all deeply feel that the Internet has improved productivity. We can participate in meetings through video, obtain more information on the Internet, and many people can see the world that only a few people could see before, etc. wait. Therefore, I think productivity innovation is a core key point.
Before, whether it was ICO in 2017 or DeFi in 2020, I had not found an entry point that I liked, so I have been focusing on Web2 entrepreneurship. In fact, my last company was also involved in the metaverse field, with approximately 40 million to 45 million users worldwide.
This time I chose to start a business in Bitcoin, which is actually a coincidence. When we decided to take a look at Web3 again, we happened to coincide with the rise of the Ordinals ecosystem. I feel very lucky.
Secondly, the market trend has gradually returned to the encryption culture of the earliest Bitcoin, which rekindled my original intention to start a Web3 business. In my opinion, the Ethereum ecosystem is too institutional, with too many established rules, too many clear ways to play, and a high degree of centralization. For example, you need to follow Buterin to start a business, follow the Ethereum Foundation to start a business, and then find VCs,exchangeetc. This kind of gameplay makes me feel that I have lost the original intention of encryption.
The concept of complete on-chain advocated by Ordinals coincides with my belief in permissionless composability and my own philosophy, so I chose to start a business in the Bitcoin ecosystem during this wave.
BlockBeats: It can be seen that you are a firm believer in Bitcoin. Can you share how you came into contact with Bitcoin? Why are you so convinced now of Bitcoin’s future?
Jeff: I actually came into contact with Bitcoin very early. In 2012, I took investment from a VC and founded my first company in China. This investment institution also happened to invest in Coinbase and Ripple. At that time, I myself was an early scholar in computer science. Later, I turned to political science and sociology when I went to the United States for high school and undergraduate studies. The combination of these backgrounds made me full of faith when I came into contact with Bitcoin.
At that time, many programmers were not familiar with Bitcoin.Xiaobai NavigationI believe that the technology is very backward; while many liberal arts students feel that it is too unfamiliar and have no big feelings. But after I saw the Bitcoin white paper for the first time, I jumped into it without hesitation. Therefore, I am very good friends with the first batch of people who came into contact with Bitcoin in China. At that time, we discussed the purchase method together, and later we also did transactions together. There is no specific reason why I believe in Bitcoin, it is just a belief.
I think Bitcoin and Ordinals are very similar, they are both anti-fragile and have no weaknesses. Even if the price drops to a very low level, even if no one likes it, it will always exist and will not be eliminated or killed by a file. This was my favorite at the time. Because the world is very fragile, and various countries and regions have various problems that require such anti-fragile things. So since more than ten years ago, I have had great faith in Bitcoin, and last year I also started to believe in the Ordinals ecosystem.
BlockBeats: I feel like you are a very punk person. Has this belief in the Bitcoin ecosystem affected your project positioning and development direction?
Jeff: First, we hope to find the most unique innovation in the Bitcoin ecosystem and never follow the old path of Ethereum. As entrepreneurs, we are eager to challenge uncertainty, which can stimulate the motivation for innovation. If you follow the same old path that others have already walked, you will lack freshness.
Second, our belief in ecology is also our belief in people. When we started building the Ordinals product, around May or June of last year, almost all of Ordinals' assets were reduced to zero. The entire Bitcoin ecosystem and Ordinals have been ridiculed and looked down upon by the outside world. When I am outside, almost no one around me knows that I am doing Ordinals, because once I say it, many people will think it is a scam or a game played by children.
However, in that case, we found that Ordinals has 5 to 10 Twitter Spaces every night, including English and Chinese, where a group of developers gather together to keep warm and think of new things. In fact, the pressure to learn at that time was much greater than it is now. New protocols, new standards, and new innovations appeared every day. I could feel the vitality of the entire ecosystem. Everyone's belief and investment in this matter was very high. This made me feel the purity of an industry in its early days, as well as the dedication and belief of the users and developers surrounding this ecosystem.
Therefore, whether it is the Layer 2 we are working on or new products in the future, they will all revolve around these users and assets. We sincerely hope to build in this ecosystem for a long time, and at the same time participate as users for a long time, and truly become part of these local communities, including local assets. Compared with many other projects that choose to quickly introduce Ethereum’s assets and mechanisms, we prefer to build and innovate natively around past users and assets.
BTC L2 Development status and Merlin Chain’s innovation approach
BlockBeats: Can you share why you decided to create Merlin Chain?
Jeff: Three or four months ago, I often discussed with others that it was difficult and impossible to play on Bitcoin Layer 1. You will find that all users are buying new assets. The previous asset has just finished trading and has stopped rising. Everyone has gone to the next asset to buy new ones. I have been busy all the time, but I don’t know what I am busy with.
Most of the assets that have risen rapidly and have high market values are from three months ago, and it is now difficult to generate new assets. One is because the narrative is not new, the other is because the application scenarios are too limited, and the third is because financial liquidity and leverage are too weak. Therefore, in order to make this ecosystem more prosperous, it is currently necessary to use a virtual machine environment to implement these functions.
Therefore, Bitcoin's Layer 2 is actual user demand, not imaginary demand. In addition, there is also a demand for capital. Since there is no way to invest in Layer 1, it is all Fair Launch, so investors will choose to invest in Layer 2.
The reason why we want to do Layer 2 is actually for our community, users, and what we want to do. For example, in the past six months, some people have always asked us why we don't make games based on Bitmap or P2E. This is actually because to do these things requires a virtual machine, which cannot be achieved on Layer 1. All users and the ecosystem are calling for this demand, so we decided three months ago to build a truly Bitcoin Native expansion plan.
BlockBeats: Merlin Chain and Others L2 What are the differences/advantages?
Jeff: The biggest feature is that we want to serve the native users of Bitcoin first, and explore native innovations with native users and native assets. We feel that if even the basic market cannot be well served and only serves Ethereum users from the beginning, most of whom are Ethereum users and their assets are ETH and USDT, then this chain can hardly be called the Layer 2 of Bitcoin. Although such chains are still called Bitcoin Layer 2.
Based on this, we collaborated with Particle three months ago to create a Bitcoinwalletplan. Whether you use Unisat or OKX, any Bitcoin wallet can seamlessly switch between layer one and layer two. This matter has added a lot of construction time and cost, but we feel that this must be done to serve Bitcoin users well.
The second feature is to serve Bitcoin assets, that is, ORDI, SATS, RATS, etc. At present, most of the so-called Bitcoin Layer 2 have assets from Ethereum or even BNB Chain. We feel that we must let Bitcoin assets and communities use it first, so that we can have the opportunity to further explore what kind of innovations ARC-20 and BRC-420 can have. Instead of using Ethereum and USDT to innovate, that is not innovation.
The third thing is actually a matter of course, which is to embrace the innovation native to Bitcoin. Only by putting Bitcoin's real users, protocols, builders, project parties, and Bitcoin's native assets into a virtual machine can we expect innovation. If it were all about Ethereum, there would be no innovation in Bitcoin.
At present, the total market value of Bitcoin-related assets is only about US$4 billion. Compared with the market value of Bitcoin, there is still a long way to go. We need to embrace these assets and users, and then explore model innovation with them.
The first Launchpad we are going to launch is the People's Launchpad made by Particle, which will follow the BRC-20 protocol and bring some innovations in the issuance of Bitcoin's native assets.
Technically, we feel that EVM compatible is not an innovation, everyone is EVM compatible. Our innovation is to build our own cross-chain bridge, so we can cross-chain any assets we want to cross-chain, such as Bitmap and BRC-420 , ARC-420, currently has no other chain support except ours. The other is that we built ZK Rollup to further compress the size of ZK proof and build an inheritance bitBinanceComprehensive DA Layer, these will be displayed in our GitBook. But in fact, many teams are exploring this direction with us. Things that have not yet been launched can hardly be said to be our own technological innovation.
In terms of ecology, we have People's Launchpad, Mineral, Bitmap War, and MOBOX games. We hope to serve more of this existing Bitcoin ecological product, because these communities are active and easy to start, gain traffic and revenue.
Jeff talks about Merlin Chain and the future prospects of the Bitcoin ecosystem
BlockBeats: How will the launch method of Merlin Chain be different from other projects?
Jeff: Bitcoin's first-level assets have a characteristic: the more holders there are, the more inscriptions there will be, the higher the cost will be, and everyone's expectations of return on capital will also be higher, making it difficult for asset prices to rise. , this is like an impossible triangle, which has led to the current stagnation of Bitcoin assets.
People's Launchpad will follow a similar issuance method to Bitcoin, but it can reduce costs, increase the number of holders, and make the entire issuance process more interesting. All tokens issued on it will be launched with a valuation of $100,000. You may have high expectations for Merlin Chain, thinking it should have a market value of hundreds of millions or even billions, but we will still take a certain share and launch it fairly on the People's Launchpad with a valuation of US$100,000.
I think this will be a distribution method that emphasizes community, fairness, and fun, and at the same time allows users to obtain assets at a lower cost.
BlockBeats: Will there be any new news about Merlin Chain in the near future? What does the future roadmap look like?
Jeff: A token pledge reward plan will be announced in early February, allowing early users to provide liquidity at zero cost and receive token rewards at the same time. Our mainnet advance network will also be launched in early February, and products such as People's Launchpad, iZUMi Finance's MerlinSwap, and Bitmap War will be launched at the same time.
In the first half of the year, we will do some developer ecological activities to bring in more builders, because we don’t want to put Ethereum’s DApp Just move in and play with the same model, so we have invested in and incubated many native projects and used Bitcoin methods to make Dapps. One of the products can receive any token on the second layer and be used to engrave the assets on the first layer. , similar to cross-chain proxy playing, very native to Bitcoin.
We will launch two phases of developer incentive plans this year to allow more people to build in a Bitcoin-native way to achieve more users, better liquidity, and more innovative products.
BlockBeats: Many people are saying that this bull market will mainly occur in Bitcoin. What do you think? Can you share your expectations for the development of the Bitcoin ecosystem?
Jeff: I agree very much. Ethereum's assets already have too many ways to earn interest, including DeFi, Lending, PoS's own yield, etc., but Ethereum's market value is still less than one-third of Bitcoin.
Bitcoin’s market capitalization accounts for the entirecryptocurrencyAbove 50% in the field, if the interest-earning function appears, the returns on financial derivatives and liquidity that this volume of funds can bring are something that other ecosystems cannot achieve no matter how innovative they are. Therefore, I think the interest-earning demand for Bitcoin assets alone is enough to trigger a bull market.
There is also a lot of room for imagination for new assets on Bitcoin. During the bull market, the total market value of ERC-20 coins was actually similar to the market value of ETH itself, but the current market value of Bitcoin assets is still one-hundredth of Bitcoin. The process of striving from 2% to 100%, that is to say, the process of all Bitcoin assets increasing 200 times, I think it can be called a bull market. Such a 200x gap would have a great impact on the entire crypto market, and there are currently no similar opportunities in other markets.
BlockBeats: What role do you think Merlin Chain will play in the development of the Bitcoin ecosystem? How will it empower Bitcoin projects and assets?
Jeff: Merlin Chain will help assets such as BRC-20, BRC-420, and Bitmap circulate better on the second layer, be issued better, and gain more leverage. We hope to accompany these native assets in exploring opportunities and new innovative methods, and help them go from a market value of 0.5% to 100%.
When the ecosystem has a certain degree of liquidity, and transaction volume, users, and DeFi infrastructure gradually mature, Bitcoin holders and even whales will have the opportunity to use Bitcoin as a single asset to earn interest, thereby amplifying liquidity. By serving native assets and native users, and increasing transaction volume, we can reversely attract Bitcoin OGs to put their money in for interest-earning financial management, and achieve a positive cycle. This is what Merlin Chain wants to do.
The article comes from the Internet:Exclusive interview with the founder of Merlin Chain: Behind the surge of “Blue Box” and the future of Bitcoin
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