Interpretation of Bitcoin's latest Soft Fork: What opportunities will Thunderbolt bring?

Author: 527

This is a hardcore article, but I've noticed a huge narrative quietly brewing. Many people are unaware that BTC has completed a significant soft fork called Bitcoin Thunderbolt, which means Bitcoin is introducing native programmability. Those who understand naturally know what this means, and those who don't will understand it after reading this article. Big things are coming!

1. The dilemma of lacking a native scalability solution

Bitcoin is renowned worldwide for its unparalleled security, but its limitations in scalability have prevented the value of assets on the Bitcoin chain from being fully realized. The launch of the Ordinals protocol has sparked expectations for Bitcoin's scalability potential and brought new development opportunities to the Bitcoin ecosystem. Against this backdrop, several scalability solutions have emerged, attempting to unleash the potential of on-chain assets and promote the prosperity of the on-chain ecosystem.

However, existing scaling solutions often sacrifice the native qualities of Bitcoin, introducing additional trust costs and security risks. Although these solutions have attracted a small number of users through incentive mechanisms, temporarily stimulating some market enthusiasm, as these incentives decline, these participants also lose interest and gradually dissipate. For example, the recent failure of Babylon saw over 21 million USD worth of BTC withdrawn from the protocol just 24 hours after the airdrop went live. The reason lies in the fact that Babylon's technical solution requires locking up BTC in exchange for sidechain assets, which means that the main chain Bitcoin assets cannot be used directly. This pathway weakens the appeal to native Bitcoin users, leading participants to quickly leave as soon as they receive the airdrop.

Another highly popular Bitlayer is the same, promoted as "the fastest-growing Bitcoin Layer 2", but after its crazy incentive mechanism ends, the prosperity fades, as participants care more about short-term gains rather than staying in the ecosystem for the long term. Because Bitlayer users need to convert BTC into on-chain tokens through a custodial bridge, this means a strong reliance on third-party custody and potential risks. Once it becomes unprofitable, users will quickly withdraw their BTC.

In conclusion, the facts prove that scaling solutions that deviate from the native characteristics have very limited appeal to Bitcoin users and are not a true solution.

2. Native Enhancement: The True Direction of Bitcoin's Scalability

Home is becoming more and more aware that only by making a fuss directly at the level of the Bitcoin protocol can we truly break through the bottleneck. Among them, the ideas represented by @nubit_org are attracting attention. Nubit drove Bitcoin Thunderbolt – a soft fork of Bitcoin's base layer, which directly modifies the Bitcoin protocol to provide greater transaction speed and programmability. For example, through UTXO Bundling technology, the transaction speed is 10 times faster than that of traditional Bitcoin; For example, the OP_CAT opcode is introduced to support the development of applications directly on Bitcoin to achieve native programmability; For example, Goldinals integrates standards such as BRC-20, Runes, and Ordinals to unify asset protocols; There's also BitMM that enables trustless on-chain transactions.

This scaling is "on-chain", meaning that native BTC can directly participate in smart contracts and transactions without the need for cross-chain wrapped alternatives. Nubit’s native scaling solution does not require traditional cross-chain bridges; its validation is fully completed on-chain, eliminating third-party custody risks.

3. Comparison of Path Advantages and Disadvantages

In order to help readers better understand the differences between native and non-scaling solutions, we have created a table for you to see at a glance:

Combining these, it can be found that the advantages brought by "native" are all-round: there is no intermediary in security, the trust cost is almost zero, the liquidity of Bitcoin is not wasted in asset utilization, and the ecological development resonates with the growth of Bitcoin. Of course, the challenge of native solutions is that they are difficult to implement, and often require consensus from the Bitcoin community (such as a soft fork upgrade) to land. This makes native pathways likely to be slower to advance and requires strong technical arguments and community mobilization capabilities.

4. The Importance of "Nativism" in Capturing the Value of Bitcoin

In addition to the feasibility of scaling solutions, the native aspect is also very important for promoting the value of the Bitcoin ecosystem.

1. Security Overflow Effect:

Non-native scaling schemes allow a large number of transactions and fees to occur on other chains, with only a small number of locked/unlocked transactions visible on the Bitcoin mainnet. Bitcoin itself does not benefit from these Layer 2 transactions, and in the long run, it cannot directly improve the security and value support of the mainnet. The native scaling solution allows transaction activity to occur on the Bitcoin mainnet, and each transaction brings fee income to Bitcoin miners, thereby strengthening the security budget and computing power stability of the Bitcoin network. This effect is particularly critical for Bitcoin to remain safe after future halvings with fees alone.

2. Value Attribution:

Both Babylon and Bitlayer have their own native tokens, which act as payment fees or governance. A portion of the ecological value is captured by these new tokens, diluting BTC's position as the only value carrier. For example, users of Babylon pay more attention to the price and income of BABY tokens, rather than the price of BTC itself; DeFi runs on Bitlayer, and it is the contract tokens and governance coins on its chain that may be on fire, while BTC only exists as collateral. In the long run, if Bitcoin's innovation dividends are taken away by other tokens, it will not be ideal for pure BTC investors. In the native scaling solution, all applications directly use BTC as the pricing and settlement asset. Whether it's issuing tokens, NFTs, or running decentralized applications, the underlying consumption is BTC. The demand for BTC has risen as applications have boomed, and BTC holders have benefited from this ecological growth.

Overall, "nativism" means that the value of Bitcoin itself can participate and amplify, while non-nativism means that the value may overflow. For investors who believe in the long-term value of Bitcoin, native solutions are undoubtedly more in line with their interests.

Five, the last sentence.

By comparing existing scaling solutions, the native scalability of Kuocan demonstrates its unique advantages, not only addressing the bottlenecks of Bitcoin scaling but also maintaining the security and trustless nature of Bitcoin. This tremendous innovation is nurturing a highly explosive narrative, which is worthy of further analysis and follow-up by all investors. Nubit, as the implementer of Bitcoin Thunderbolt, represents native scalability that brings a significant upgrade to Bitcoin, becoming the first Bitcoin project acknowledged by HSBC in its latest report.