Blockchain Press Releases
HTX Ventures: Bitcoin Scripting Advances Unlock Potential for Secure and Scalable BTCFI
SINGAPORE, Sept. 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — HTX Ventures, the global investment division of HTX, today released its latest research analysing Bitcoin’s potential and challenges in the field of Bitcoin decentralized finance (BTCFI). The report, titled Exploring the BTCFI Rabbit Hole from the Perspective of Bitcoin’s Programmability, aims to help readers understand the BTCFI sector better, by exploring the evolutionary path of Bitcoin programming, delving into how Bitcoin programming can support various BTCFI applications, showcasing the current real-world BTCFI implementation scenarios, and explaining the underlying logic of BTCFI’s future growth and adoption.
HTX Ventures has been contributing to BTCFI for a long time. As stated in its 2024 Half-Year Investment Report, BTCFI is highlighted as one of HTX Ventures’ six key investment directions in 2024. Some of HTX Ventures’ portfolio companies in the BTCFI sector include Babylon, BounceBit, COREx, and more.
The new report once again shows HTX Ventures’ interest in BTCFI. It begins with the foundations of the Bitcoin contracts, which were laid fourteen years ago by Satoshi. Understanding the basics of Bitcoin programming involves several concepts, including Transaction Outputs (TXO), Unspent Transaction Output (UTXO), scriptSig, and Opcodes. “Bitcoin script programming is about programming money and enabling a specific amount of money to respond to particular input data. By designing the scriptPubKey, opcodes, and the interaction process between users, we can offer cryptographic guarantees for the key state transitions of Bitcoin contracts, ensuring the contracts’ proper execution,” the report points out.
There are some mechanisms to be used to enable the implementation of different types of transactions, including MultiSig, Timelocks, Hashlocks, Flow Control, and SIGHASH. The report explains, “the basic model of Bitcoin programming is where UTXO locking scripts specify verification conditions, unlocking scripts provide data, and opcodes in locking scripts indicate the verification program. The funds can be spent once the verification program is passed.”
There are some core limitations, however, such as only a few verification programs being available, Bitcoin scripts having no computational power, and UTXO unlocking conditions being completely independent.
Unlike the computation-based Ethereum contracts, Bitcoin contracts are verification-based, which has brought many challenges in developing BTCFI products. Despite the difficulties, “over the ten years of developing Bitcoin contracts, the ingenious use of cryptographic algorithms and signatures has significantly enhanced privacy, efficiency, and decentralization, making BTCFI products possible,” the report states, and starts introducing Bitcoin programming milestones. Innovative tools, such as the Discreet Log Contract (DLC), Partially Signed Bitcoin Transactions (PSBT), and MuSig2 bring new solutions to the problems in Bitcoin programming, driving the development of BTCFI.
The Taproot upgrade activated in November 2021 was revolutionary for the Bitcoin ecosystem, allowing Bitcoin to hold in custody large-scale smart contracts with tens of thousands of signatories while concealing all participants and maintaining the size of a single-signature transaction. This makes more complex on-chain BTCFI operations possible and significantly improves privacy and transaction efficiency.
Such technological innovations pave the way for BTCFI’s further development. Then in January 2023, Ordinals were proposed, which aimed to assign each sat a unique identifier and attribute, so as to transform it into a unique NFT. The creation and trading of Bitcoin NFTs were realized, not only expanding the uses of Bitcoin but also allowing users to directly create and trade digital assets on the Bitcoin blockchain. This led to the introduction of BRC-20, a token system for on-chain recording and off-chain processing that uses JSON data’s ordinal inscriptions to deploy token contracts, mint tokens, and transfer them.
The naissance of Ordinals and BRC-20 created trading demand and blue-chip assets for BTCFI. More importantly, they offered many BTCFI projects new ideas based on indexer programming that enhanced Bitcoin’s contract capabilities.
Bitcoin’s programmability has come a long way and made great progress, forming a thriving BTCFI ecosystem with more and more application scenarios of BTCFI arising. The report lastly lists some notable BTCFI implementations, including BTC staking provider Babylon, asset issuance platforms Unisat and Magic Eden, lending protocol Liquidium, BTCFI scaling solution Fractal Bitcoin, and more.
The emergence of BTCFI applications indicates that its market potential is becoming evident. With Bitcoin becoming more and more mainstream, the market demand for BTCFI use cases will also increase, fostering a new financial ecosystem centered around Bitcoin. “The formation of this ecosystem will propel Bitcoin further beyond the ‘digital gold’ narrative, establishing it as an indispensable decentralized financial infrastructure in the global economic system,” the report concludes.
To read the full report, please visit: https://square.htx.com/htx-ventures-exploring-the-btcfi-rabbit-hole-from-the-perspective-of-bitcoins-programmability/
About HTX Ventures
HTX Ventures, the global investment division of HTX, integrates investment, incubation, and research to identify the best and brightest teams worldwide. With more than a decade-long history as an industry pioneer, HTX Ventures excels at identifying cutting-edge technologies and emerging business models within the sector. To foster growth within the blockchain ecosystem, we provide comprehensive support to projects, including financing, resources, and strategic advice.
HTX Ventures currently backs over 300 projects spanning multiple blockchain sectors, with select high-quality initiatives already trading on the HTX exchange. Furthermore, as one of the most active FOF (Fund of Funds) funds, HTX Ventures invests in 30 top global funds and collaborates with leading blockchain funds such as Polychain, Dragonfly, Bankless, Gitcoin, Figment, Nomad, Animoca, and Hack VC to jointly build a blockchain ecosystem. Visit us here.
Feel free to contact us for investment and collaboration at [email protected]
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Blockchain
Mysterious Trader Makes $150,000 Profit in 3 Hours From Just $2,956: Blockchain Analysis
A new Ethereum meme coin, Pochita ($POCHITA), has made headlines after skyrocketing in value shortly after its launch. According to on-chain data, one trader turned an initial investment of $3,000 into $150,000 in under three hours, reflecting a near-5000% profit. This rapid surge has drawn comparisons to other meme coins like Bonk ($BONK), which gained significant attention in the Solana ecosystem.
Pochita launched on October 2, 2024, quickly reaching a $20 million market cap within 9 hours, despite the broader crypto market contracting by 2.9% over the past 24 hours. The meme coin sector also dipped 3.2%, now valued at $47.5 billion. Despite the falling prices, Pochita’s rapid rise suggests strong investor sentiment around meme coins remains, especially following recent Federal Reserve interest rate cuts.
Though meme coins are known for their volatility and lack of clear fundamentals, they can provide quick gains for traders. Pochita is being discussed as a potential successor to Bonk, and if it continues its growth, it could join the ranks of other top meme coins like Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, and Pepe Coin.
At the same time, other projects such as Crypto All-Stars ($STARS) are providing new avenues for meme coin holders by offering a unified staking platform where users can stake various meme coins and earn rewards. Crypto All-Stars has already raised over $1.9 million in its presale, indicating strong interest in platforms that provide utility and passive income opportunities for meme coin enthusiasts.
Source: cryptonews.com
The post Mysterious Trader Makes $150,000 Profit in 3 Hours From Just $2,956: Blockchain Analysis appeared first on HIPTHER Alerts.
Blockchain
Binance warns of crypto market risks from overvaluation, centralization
A recent Binance report highlights critical risks in the cryptocurrency market, warning of the dangers posed by inflated valuations and centralized token ownership. The report cautions that if these issues remain unaddressed, they could destabilize the long-term stability and growth of the crypto industry.
Valuation Concerns: The report emphasizes that overvaluation, particularly in newly launched tokens with low circulating supply, could lead to market bubbles and poor performance. Venture capital funds, which once aggressively invested in crypto, are now scaling back and shifting focus to sectors with more sustainable valuations. As the market becomes saturated with new tokens, the circulating supply could increase exponentially, further straining performance.
Centralization of Token Ownership: Binance also flags the risks of centralization, where large tokenholders dominate ownership. This concentration of power can result in governance issues, market manipulation, and potential crashes caused by sudden sell-offs. The report stresses the need for decentralized control and broad participation to maintain the integrity and resilience of crypto projects.
Transparency and Trust: To mitigate these risks, the report underscores the importance of transparency in fund management. A lack of clear disclosures can erode stakeholder trust and harm project sustainability. Binance notes that greater transparency, like the adoption of proof-of-reserves by platforms such as Coinbase, is crucial for fostering responsible financial management and building long-term trust in the market.
In conclusion, the report urges the crypto industry to prioritize decentralized governance and transparency to ensure sustainable growth and maintain market confidence.
Source: cointelegraph.com
The post Binance warns of crypto market risks from overvaluation, centralization appeared first on HIPTHER Alerts.
Blockchain
COPA, Unified Patents Partner to Fight Crypto Patent Trolls
The Cryptocurrency Open Patent Alliance (COPA) has teamed up with Unified Patents to launch the Blockchain Zone initiative, aimed at combating “patent trolls” in the crypto industry. Patent trolls, or non-practicing entities (NPEs), are known for exploiting patent rights through litigation rather than developing new technologies. COPA and Unified Patents aim to prevent such entities from hindering blockchain innovation by making costly and baseless patent assertions.
The initiative is designed to safeguard blockchain and related technologies from these unwarranted patent claims, fostering an environment where developers and companies can innovate freely without fear of legal threats. Key figures in the partnership, such as Paul Grewal from Coinbase and Steve Lee from Spiral, emphasize that patent trolls create significant barriers to technological progress, especially in the fast-evolving crypto space.
By aligning with over 300 companies through Unified Patents, COPA’s effort strengthens its mission to protect the blockchain community and the broader crypto-economy from the disruptive impact of NPEs, ensuring that blockchain innovation remains open and accessible.
Source: news.bitcoin.com
The post COPA, Unified Patents Partner to Fight Crypto Patent Trolls appeared first on HIPTHER Alerts.
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