Uncovering the biggest meeting in the history of the Bitcoin community, what was discussed in Hong Kong?

Written by: Jaleel, BlockBeats

Written by: Jaleel, BlockBeats

Last week, the largest Bitcoin conference in Hong Kong just ended. What did everyone talk about at the conference?

Last April, also in Hong Kong, the Bitcoin Ordinals community held its first gathering. According to random interviews by BlockBeats reporters at the main event Web3 Festival, only a few attendees were familiar with the Ordinals protocol or Bitcoin NFTs. For more details, please see: This may be the first gathering of the Bitcoin Ordinals community.

In just one year, many important things have happened to Bitcoin, including the rise of the Ordinals protocol, the approval of the Bitcoin spot ETF, the warming of the Bitcoin ecosystem, and the completion of the fourth halving of Bitcoin... Compared with last year, this year's Bitcoin ecosystem gathering is obviously more lively. During these four days, BlockBeats reporters have been attending the meeting and shared their personal experiences and observations in the article.

The behind-the-scenes story of Casey's creation of a "virtual casino"

Casey Rodarmor, founder of the Ordinals protocol, was undoubtedly the busiest person during the entire meeting, and the scene was comparable to a fan meeting. There was always a large group of people surrounding him at the conference, three layers inside and three layers outside, everyone wanted to squeeze in and chat with him, this situation reminded people of the scene where Vitalik was surrounded at the past Ethereum conference.

When Casey participated in roundtable discussions and sharing sessions, the audience seats were always full.

Casey giving a speech

Many friends in the community wanted to take a photo with him, and he always agreed readily, very down-to-earth, and seemed to have learned a few standard photo poses to cooperate with everyone. Compared with Vitalik's restraint in social occasions, Casey seems more comfortable, and he looks directly into people's eyes when talking to them.

Previously, Casey joked that if "the market value of Runes ecosystem does not reach 1 billion US dollars within one month of its launch, he will be ready to commit suicide by cutting his stomach." Although the current market value has not yet reached the target, there are still a few days before Runes is officially launched for a full month, so it is not yet time for Casey to "fulfill" his joke promise, but I have not heard any community members ask Casey about this yet.

At the Ordinals Asia conference, Casey gave a very interesting sharing at the end, which contained a lot of information. During the session, he mentioned the podcast program "Hell Money" that he and Erin started about two years ago. The Chinese name is "冥券".

When Casey released this picture, the Chinese people present were all happy

At the same time, it sounds like Casey does understand some of the dissatisfaction of the Chinese community with him, such as the lack of innovation in the Runes protocol. Therefore, he also mentioned that compared to complex technologies such as Taproot Assets and RGB, he certainly respects these technologies and projects, but he is more willing to make some simple things for everyone, so there is the Runes protocol.

"Simple things are easy to succeed, and complex things are difficult to succeed", Casey said this is an important revelation for him.

For more information, please see: "Ordinals founder's speech in Hong Kong: StarCraft Casino, why not? "

At the last night's Grand Wizard Party, BlockBeats reporters finally squeezed next to Casey. Although he was reluctant to accept official interviews from the media, he was obviously happy to communicate with community members.

Left: Casey; Right: BlockBeats reporter Jaleel

I asked Casey if he knew that many friends in the Chinese community now call him C God, just like the Chinese community called Vitalik V God in the past. Casey looked me in the eye and said he knew, but he emphasized that he was just an ordinary guy like everyone else.

Domo was obviously more chill after taking off his mask

Compared to Casey, Brc20 founder Domo seemed less talkative. There were also fewer people around Domo, largely because no one knew his true appearance.

Because Domo has always maintained a high degree of anonymity, in previous public events, he always wore a hat, sunglasses and a mask. Because his facial features could not be seen, Domo was once mistaken for a Chinese.

Domo's previous conference photos were "fully armed"

Although Domo was reluctant to take photos at this conference, he no longer wore a mask and sunglasses.

According to Bitcoin ecosystem observers and players 0xSea, on the first day of the Bitcoin Asia conference, Domo walked around the venue casually, and almost no one could recognize him. He was chiller than ever before.

Domo’s photo at the conference (sixth from left), source: Jack Kong

In the communication with community friends, a topic that is often mentioned is: "After Runes, will BRC20 still have a market?" or "Will BRC20 disappear?" There are quite a lot of differences on this issue.

First, most people don’t seem to understand the specific differences between Ordinals, Runes, and BRC20. This shows that there is still a lot of education and popularization work to be done in the market.

Second, after communicating with some project founders who are developing Bitcoin Defi protocols, BlockBeats found that some of them believe that BRC20 is more suitable for DeFi assets because BRC20 has been developed for a longer time than Runes. Although the emergence of Runes has had a greater impact on the BRC20 Meme, it is expected that more Bitcoin DeFi projects and tokens with real value will appear in the future.

However, there are also quite a few community members and projects that directly stated that BRC20 is about to be eliminated because Runes is optimized based on BRC-20 and saves a lot of gas fees.

Capital also favors Bitcoin

There were also many VC capitals participating in this Hong Kong conference, including some from traditional VCs and family offices, who were also extremely concerned about the investment opportunities in the blockchain industry, especially Bitcoin.

The event of Waterdrop Capital was undoubtedly the most lively VC event. Before the party started, 20 to 30 friends had gathered outside the venue waiting to enter. Because the venue had strict restrictions on the number of people, even Casey had to queue downstairs for a long time without going upstairs.

According to incomplete statistics, most of the projects invested by Waterdrop Capital in the Bitcoin ecosystem are very well-known, including Merlin, Bevm, B2, Bison Labs, CKB, DLC.link, OmniBOLT, Map Protocol, NostrAssets, UXUY, Unisat, Lumoz, Nubit, Ordz Games, BitSmiley, Satoshi Protocol, etc. It can be said that Waterdrop Capital is currently the most active domestic VC in investing in the Bitcoin ecosystem.

In fact, when BlockBeats interviewed Waterdrip Capital co-founder and managing partner Dashan last year, Dashan said that he was very optimistic about the Crypto market in 2024, so they launched two digital asset funds with China Pacific Insurance Investment Management (Hong Kong) Co., Ltd. at that time. Related reading: "Dialogue with Waterdrip Capital CEO: Hong Kong compliance is very attractive"

Ordinals NFT community is the favorite place for foreigners

If Bitcoin Asia is more like a good place for business cooperation, then Ordinals Asia is definitely a good place to make friends and have fun.

In this Bitcoin gathering, the most degen is the Ordinals NFT community, especially Pizza Ninjas, Taproot Wizards and Blob.

More relevant readings about the three NFT communities are as follows: "Pizza Ninjas: Potential Bitcoin NFT New Blue Chip with Consensus between China and Foreign Countries", "4MB Graffiti Raised US$7.5 Million, Why Capital is Interested in Bitcoin's "Wizard Culture"? 》《Interpretation of the Recently Popular Blob Army: BTC NFT Full of Artistic Attributes》

The thick beard of Pizza Ninjas founder TO earned him the nickname "The Bearded Man". Many friends even think that he looks a little similar to Twitter founder Jack Dorsey.

Left: BlockBeats reporter Cookie; Right: Pizza Ninjas founder TO

TO was wearing bright orange Ninja Pizza-themed clothes on the yacht, which attracted a lot of attention. Some people in the community jokingly called him the "Da Ji" of the Ordinals circle. The Ninja Pizza community chartered a yacht, and more than 40 holders participated. The reason why more holders could not participate was that the yacht could not accommodate them, so TO held a separate dinner for the remaining 20 holders the next night.

The event party hosted by the great wizard Taproot Wizards was on the last day of Ordinals Asia. People in wizard costumes crowded the scene, and there was a swimming pool for everyone to take a bath.

Taproot Wizards team member Tyler Whittle

After communicating with some English Ordinals players, BlockBeats reporters found that they also said that the way the Great Wizard took a bath to get a white ticket was a bit "PUA". It seems that we Chinese are not the only ones who cannot appreciate the charm of taking a bath.

At the venue, BlockBeats reporters also "caught" Taproot Wizards team member Tyler Whittle. Facing this problem, he said that in fact, the team also knows that there is a gap between Chinese and foreign cultures, so they will find ways to strengthen communication with the Chinese community.

Left: Taproot Wizards team member Tyler Whittle; Right: BlockBeats reporter Jaleel

Personally experiencing the Wizard’s live experience, I can really feel the cohesion of the Wizard community very deeply. It is very shocking. The proportion of foreign community members from all over the world is unusually high. Artists, developers and other people of various identities also came. Everyone had a lot of fun.

As for the Blob holders’ gathering, it was also crowded. The food provided at the venue was the most special in the venue. They were all authentic Hong Kong local food.

After Blob used 33 BTC to bid for the epic rare satoshi of Bitcoin’s fourth halving and issued epic runes, it is one of the runes with the best community atmosphere at present. The recursive rune concept submitted by Blob will also be a narrative worth looking forward to in the future.

Blob's two founders: Eloc, the contributor of the Ordinals protocol code, and Ordinals OG artist Nuro were both on site to paint for everyone, including T-shirts and masks. Nuro was very quiet when he was creating, which was a bit contrasting.

Blob founder nuro

BlockBeats and the Blob team also talked about many details during the project's advancement, including that the team initially wanted to issue it in the form of Free Mint, but at the suggestion of Dr. Golden Dog, the Blob team finally decided to airdrop directly.

During the airdrop, the team was also participating in the NFTNYC2024 event, so Eloc and Nuro ran around New York, art exhibitions, VIP backstage lounges, Times Square, etc., while turning on their mobile phone hotspots to engrave Blob and airdrop it to the community.

Left: BlockBeats reporter Jaleel; Right: Blob founder nuror

Bitcoin Layer 2 will still be the main narrative

At the main venue of the Bitcoin Asia conference, the first thing that caught my eye when I entered the Bitcoin Asia booth was the booth of Unisat and its invested projects.

In addition, the most common booths were the Bitcoin Layer 2 project booths. Many friends who attended the conference felt that there were really many Bitcoin Layer 2 projects. The current status of the Bitcoin ecosystem is that there are many Layer 2 chains and few applications, which is somewhat opposite to the current status of the Ethereum ecosystem.

It seems that BTC Layer2 will still be an important narrative for a long time to come. In the short term, those who can stand out are those with good "fathers", and in the long term, only those with real user needs.

In private conversations with many BTC Layer2 project teams, they would actually say very frankly, "We are not strictly a second layer, but more out of the need for market promotion." After all, no one in the market can have a definitive and final definition of Bitcoin's second layer.

It took Ethereum seven years to reach its current level of expansion. At present, it is impossible for Bitcoin's second layer to achieve similar expansion quickly in just one or two years. There will be a lot of trial and error and failure in the middle.

Solana and Bitcoin, 1+1 is greater than 2

Since Runes went online in April, more than a dozen trading platforms, including Unisat and OKX Web3 wallet, have supported Runes market transactions on the first day. Although Magic Eden started a little later and did not start trading until April 22, it quickly surpassed other platforms and became the leader with the best depth in the Runes market.

The rapid growth of Runes is mainly due to the huge liquidity and market base it has established on Solana. In addition, Magic Eden has its own wallet, which can attract users from both Bitcoin and Solana ecosystems and help them achieve seamless transactions between the two platforms.

In addition to Magic Eden, BlockBeats reporters also talked to several other projects at the venue that promote the interoperability between Solana and Bitcoin, such as Zeus, THORSwap and Cube.Exchange.

At the Bitcoin Devcon conference on May 8, Justin, the founder of the Zeus network, shared his idea of Solana as the second layer network (L2) of Bitcoin in his speech. He criticized some projects for using Bitcoin only as "gas", believing that doing so did not fully tap the true value and potential of Bitcoin.

Justin said that Solana was chosen as Bitcoin's L2 because of Solana's high performance, low cost and its strong user and developer community. So he detailed how the Zeus network uses the "slot" version to connect to the Bitcoin mainnet to form a 1.5-layer solution, which not only improves the performance of Bitcoin applications, but also broadens its scalability.

Zeus founder Justin

As a cross-chain DEX aggregator based on THORChain, THORSwap is characterized by the ability to complete token swaps between multiple chains with minimal slippage. According to THORSwap spokesperson Paper, the most recent large transaction record was 114.7545 $WBTC (worth 7.4M USD) exchanged for 114.0027 BTC, with a slippage of only 0.05%, and extremely low transaction friction.

Although Solana has not been integrated yet, THORSwap will launch two Solana cross-chain solutions this year. The supported Chainflip (another cross-chain protocol that supports native bitcoin) will integrate Solana in 2 months. The expected specific time given by THORChain core developers is Q3-Q4 this year, and all will be transactions between native BTC and SOL, not wrapped tokens.

Thus, through THORSwap, it will be possible to achieve seamless conversion of liquidity between Solana and BTC on the chain. THORSwap spokesperson Paper revealed to BlockBeats that it is very complicated to implement native and non-custodial Swap transactions between Solana and BTC. As the main DEX interface of THORChain, THORSwap is also a cross-chain aggregator that supports two major cross-chain transaction protocols, Chainflip and Maya Protocol, and integrates more transaction liquidity and route solutions. . Because THORChain's process of integrating new chains is very rigorous, involving the vote of developers and all node operators, it failed to pass Solana's integration before. In contrast, Avax and BSC passed the vote after comprehensive consideration because they are technically similar to ETH and have ideal market capitalization, transaction volume, and user volume.

Paper personally believes that the current increase in Solana's market value and trading volume means that THORChain must also spend more time integrating Solana. As a member of the DEX interface, Paper said that of course he hopes to integrate Solana and Bitcoin transactions as soon as possible. This is also the reason why THORSwap chose to cooperate with Chainflip and use it as a backend cross-chain provider, because Chainflip is expected to support the exchange between BTC and SOL earlier.

Bartosz, the founder of Cube.Exchange, has been developing on Solana before. After Runes went online, they implemented the function of buying Runes with USDC or selling Runes to obtain USDC. In his view, Bitcoin and Solana are very complementary in terms of account model, communication level and developer community.

Bartosz believes that the cooperation between the two very different communities of Bitcoin and Solana will make the market stronger. Introducing the decentralized spirit of Bitcoin into Solana is undoubtedly beneficial, and introducing popular products on Solana into the Bitcoin ecosystem will also bring huge synergy effects.

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