Bitcoin ecosystem innovation迎来新机遇：RGB protocol引领技术革新

The Bitcoin ecosystem has always been an important area of technological innovation. Every technological advancement injects new vitality into it. Recently, the RGB protocol has garnered attention as a noteworthy technological innovation. Since its proposal in 2017, the RGB team has been committed to building a universal smart contract system on the foundations of Bitcoin and the Lightning Network. The recently released RGB V0.10 version client has sparked widespread discussion.

Recently, Valestin, co-founder of Cosminmart, accepted an interview with a media outlet, sharing the latest progress of the project, ecological development, and his views on the BTC ecological development, technological achievements, and future technology roadmap. Below are the main points of the interview.

Interviewer: Welcome to our show. Today we will explore the latest developments in the BTC ecosystem and RGB technology. Before we begin, Valestin, could you briefly introduce yourself and your project?

Valestin: Thank you for the invitation! Hello everyone, I am Valestin, the founder of Cosminmart, mainly responsible for resource integration, team management, and the formulation of development strategies for Cosminmart and RGB.

Cosminmart is an ecosystem based on the RGB protocol, deployed on the Lightning Network, focusing on the issuance and trading of RGB20 (fungible token issuance protocol) Tokens. Our project includes完善 RGB infrastructure, launching Bifrost, developing COSM Wallet, and the first Bitcoin AMM Dex based on smart contracts—Bitswap.

COSM Wallet is built on the Bitcoin Lightning Network, first supporting RGB protocol assets, and will form a closed loop of RGB token transactions with Bitswap. It also supports the creation, purchase, and sale of RGB21 (non-fungible token issuance protocol) NFTs. In the future, COSM Wallet will support the management of other types of Bitcoin Lightning Network assets, achieving near-zero fee real-time transfers. Currently, the wallet has launched a Chrome browser extension version and is in the public testing phase.

Bitswap will become the first truly smart contract-based AMM Dex on Bitcoin, similar to Uniswap V1 in the Ethereum ecosystem. It can create liquidity pools between RGB tokens and Bitcoin, injecting stronger liquidity into the Bitcoin ecosystem, making the issuance and trading of project tokens more convenient, and alleviating the pressure caused by liquidity issues. More technical details and documentation can be found in the Cosminmart-Bitswap GitHub repository.

Interviewer: Valestin, your enthusiasm and dedication are impressive. Although RGB has been in development for many years, its official version only went live this April, and most projects in the ecosystem are still in early testing or development stages. To determine whether the RGB protocol and its ecosystem will ultimately succeed and be truly viable, further market validation and time are needed. I would like to know what factors drove you to invest yourself so fully in this project, unafraid of challenges. What made you decide to “go all in”?

Valestin: Before founding Cosminmart, my team and I conducted a comprehensive evaluation of various scaling solutions for the Bitcoin ecosystem. The popularity of Ordinals proves that Bitcoin assets can gain widespread recognition in the market, while also indicating a lack of fresh narratives. For Bitcoin scaling solutions, whether sidechains or Layer 2, the Bitcoin ecosystem does not lack asset issuance protocols; the challenge lies in breaking through barriers related to transaction efficiency, cost scalability, and whether it supports smart contracts.

When I saw a research report on Bitcoin Lightning Network client validation, I became very interested in this direction. Currently, there are mainly two protocols in the client validation (CSV) track: RGB and Taproot Asset. From the perspective of RGB clients and smart contracts, the current code and documentation are quite complete; what is lacking is the improvement of the infrastructure. The reason I choose to fully invest in RGB is that I believe it is an almost perfect Bitcoin scaling solution and an almost perfect entrepreneurial track.

From the perspective of the RGB protocol, it may possess all the characteristics needed for future success:

1. Transactions are implemented based on the Lightning Network, theoretically reaching 40 million TPS, with nearly zero transaction fees, which can meet various payment needs in the future and support a more advanced and larger application ecosystem.

2. RGB relies on the most secure payment system on the blockchain - Bitcoin. Due to its theoretical foundation of off-chain and offline client operation, there is no need to make any modifications or forks to the mainnet, and it can support a more powerful smart contract system, theoretically possessing infinite scalability.

The CEO of a well-known stablecoin project is also a strong proponent of the RGB protocol, and I had the privilege of having some exchanges with him. They started investing in the development of the RGB ecosystem early on and directly participated in the development of the underlying code of the RGB protocol. The RGB-Lightning-Node library that our team has recently been actively optimizing and modifying is developed by them. At the end of August, they also announced that they would issue a stablecoin based on the RGB protocol.

Under the influence of these factors, the RGB protocol has shown me the potential for large-scale applications to be implemented on Bitcoin. Efficient trading assets, “fragmented operation” clients, and efficiently definable smart contracts, combined with protocols like Nostr, have made me realize that the future development space is only limited by one’s imagination.

Interviewer: RGB has shown foresight in its conception and planning, but it also faces some challenges, especially in the early stages of the ecosystem. Some important materials and social media communities have not yet been fully established and refined, such as white papers, technical documents, FAQs, etc. This may take some time to resolve. Does this pose a significant challenge for your project? How do you view and address these challenges?

Valestin: I just introduced the various technical advantages of RGB and the reasons why I chose to fully invest in RGB. However, the current issues in the RGB ecosystem are also quite obvious: after many years of development, the community is still very small, the enthusiasm is low, the infrastructure is incomplete, and it has not received attention from the mainstream market and venture capital institutions.

We are one of the earliest teams to promote RGB in the Asian region. When we first started communicating with everyone, the response was actually quite average. This could affect the fundraising, PR, and marketing efforts for startup teams, posing a real challenge. However, I don’t think this is a bad thing for us and other startup teams.

The biggest problem with RGB currently is the lack of people and the shortage of developers. Not only is the promotion of RGB relatively limited, but the number of developers contributing to the GitHub code also reflects this point. Just by browsing the current underlying code of RGB and various technical documents, one can discover this issue. The core personnel of RGB and the development capabilities of several teams deeply involved in the RGB ecosystem are extremely top-notch, but due to the lack of manpower, many aspects have only been implemented to a workable level, but the engineering execution is quite average. This is also something our team needs to actively improve, by enhancing infrastructure and applying it in practice as soon as possible. For teams recently participating in the RGB ecosystem, this is indeed an “opportunity to pick peaches.”

Interviewer: So, is your communication with the authorities going smoothly now? Does the RGB Foundation support any content in Cosminmart?

Valestin: The communication went very smoothly, and we expressed our cooperation expectations to each other, reaching a consensus. But first, we need to do some education to avoid misunderstandings due to habitual thinking. The RGB Association - LNP/BP Association is a non-profit organization registered in Switzerland, and they have completed the underlying development of the RGB protocol. To be precise, it’s not that they support us, but rather we support them. This is quite interesting; I had in-depth discussions with them, and initially, I had some doubts and concerns. This is the first time I heard that the official hoped to receive support and funding donations from the project party. At that time, I thought it didn’t make sense because usually, it should be the official providing “grants” to the project party, rather than the project party supporting the official.

The RGB Association does not accept investments from venture capital firms, nor does it engage in commercial operations; it only accepts donations. This is related to their philosophy. The RGB officials hold an extremely idealistic philosophy: they do not accept investments from venture capital firms and commercial companies, do not engage in foundation-style commercial operations, do not issue “RGB official tokens” of the LNP/BP Association, and do not allow technology to be controlled by commercial companies. They hope to ensure the purity of technology, holding onto beautiful visions. When communicating this part of the content with a certain trading platform, they also highly recognize this philosophy.

RGB is a fully open-source technology that anyone can freely use and serve any individuals and companies that use it. As a member of the RGB development team, I also hope to see RGB technology applied more widely, as long as it does not violate its original intention and philosophy.

Interviewer: Additionally, I would like to talk about the current competitive landscape. What are your outstanding advantages compared to competitors? How is the development progress of the RGB ecosystem now?

Valestin: The competitive landscape in the RGB ecosystem is very open and friendly. Currently, there are not many teams with a certain level of recognition and mature products in the RGB ecosystem. Wallet applications serve as the entry point for the Lightning Network ecosystem. In the early stages of the current RGB and Lightning Network ecosystem, various entrepreneurial teams will actively participate in the competition for wallets, including our COSM Wallet.

In the competition of wallets, our technical team has extensive experience in wallet development. We have developed an extremely powerful RGB asset communication storage standard protocol, which will disclose all details and be open-sourced by the end of this year. Furthermore, we will improve the underlying and infrastructure of the RGB protocol, implementing the only truly smart contract-based AMM Dex on Bitcoin. We will comprehensively enhance from the protocol layer, infrastructure layer, and application layer of the RGB20 token.

When it comes to the progress of the RGB ecosystem, I have to mention DIBA-Bitmask. They will officially launch the DIBA Marketplace on November 11, enabling systematic trading of RGB21 NFT assets. Our relationship with DIBA at Cosminmart is very friendly, and the collaboration between both parties is harmonious. Even though COSM Wallet and Bitmask may have a competitive relationship, we have been actively preparing recently to support the launch of DIBA, hoping they can achieve success!

Interviewer: I really appreciate what you just said. As the initiator and founder of the project, could you share your vision for the future of Cosminmart?

Valestin: Cosminmart will focus on the trading infrastructure of the RGB20 Token, which includes not only the COSM Wallet and Bitswap but is also actively promoting cooperation with major exchanges to launch the RGB Token. The COSM Token may become the first RGB20 Token that can be traded systematically, which is a milestone for the RGB ecosystem.

For the future development of Cosminmart and the RGB ecosystem, I really hope to see more entrepreneurial teams join us in participating in the development of the RGB and Lightning Network ecosystems. Cosminmart will also provide technical, resource, and financial support to other early-stage entrepreneurial teams and welcome them to join the Cosminmart application ecosystem, just like we did with the merger of Bitswap in the early days.

The roadmap of Cosminmart is very long-term, with a long-term development plan for the RGB ecosystem and the Lightning Network. Once the Token trading is improved and implemented, we will invest in the DeFi field of RGB, such as formulating lending protocol standards. At the same time, we will also vigorously promote the development of Lightning Network applications Lapp. We hope that Cosminmart can contribute to the narrative of achieving large-scale applications on Bitcoin, helping the entire industry quickly escape the early stage of savage growth and realize more valuable applications based on blockchain technology. Blockchain started with Bitcoin and may also end with Bitcoin.

The RGB protocol is notable because it adopts a series of advanced technologies based on Bitcoin and the Lightning Network, such as one-time seal bars, client validation, and Bitcoin-based cryptographic commitments, meeting users’ demands for privacy, scalability, and programmability, without causing a fork in the Bitcoin blockchain. With the popularization of the Ordinals protocol, the Lightning Network has also ushered in new opportunities, and Bitcoin Layer 2 solutions like RGB have regained community attention. The combination of these different technologies and new ideas may spawn new possibilities, expected to further promote the development of the Bitcoin ecosystem and expand its functions and application areas. Let us continue to pay attention to the development in this field!