Three Tracks from a Primary Perspective: BTC, Solana, Restaking

A dreadful boredom is spreading through the crypto world like the Black Death. No one knows where it started, but before you know it, this disease is everywhere.

It’s understandable, as recent technological hotspots in the community haven’t had much worth highlighting. The only topics with any heat have been memes like Pepe, Trump, and Jenner. The last tech-focused hotspot might have been the duality of the “Pandora” coin?

The primary market has also been affected, but fortunately, innovation is still happening. Although we still haven’t seen anything truly groundbreaking from 0 to 1, there are things happening across various tracks from 1 to 10.

Let’s now take a look at what’s happening in the BTC, Solana, and Restaking tracks from 1 to 10.

I. BTC

The highly anticipated Rune hasn’t brought the expected heat. If BRC20 or Ordi was a “chaotic surprise,” Runes was a well-prepared ceremony that fell flat, at least in the short term. In the long run, protocols like Runes, Atomical, and RGB & RGB++ still have the potential to inject new vitality into BTC asset issuance.

The upgrade to BRC20 two months ago also clearly aimed to make functionalities more flexible. For example, implementing a native stablecoin based on BRC20 has become much easier.

The most noteworthy developments in the BTC ecosystem over the past two months, besides the UTXO Stack I previously wrote about, are the three projects launched by Unisat: Fractal – @fractal_bitcoin, Arch Network – @ArchNtwrk, and Quarry – @QuarryBTC.

Fractal

With a very “peculiar” design philosophy, you could essentially see it as a 100% fork of BTC, but with block time reduced to 30 seconds.

You might wonder – what’s this? Isn’t this just a BTC testnet? At least Litecoin, BCH, and BSV have their own features. This is a 99% mirror chain, what’s the point? How is security guaranteed?

Actually, there is significant value:

1. Fractal uses the same POW and SHA256 as BTC, has market value and incentives, and is much more stable (and faster at 30 seconds per block) than the BTC testnet.
2. It uses BTC mainnet’s 1/3 merged mining (mainnet miners can mine a Fractal block every 90 seconds), theoretically achieving 80-90% of BTC mainnet’s security.
3. Since it’s 100% consistent with BTC, all kinds of XXRC20 assets and infrastructure on BTC can migrate seamlessly without needing to change a line of code.
4. It can implement controversial opcodes like OP_CAT and ZK native verification OPCode faster than the BTC mainnet.
5. This allows for contract scripts based on inscriptions.
6. This makes more sense when Unisat does it than anyone else.

Arch

Unlike various “aesthetically fatigued” BTC EVM L2/sidechains, Arch brings programmability to BTC via an indexer + a decentralized Prover ZKVM. Transactions are triggered on L1, executed in Arch’s ZKVM, and the results are broadcast back to the BTC mainnet.

This feels similar to RGB++ but relies on an indexer + ZKVM instead of CKB Cell binding.

Quarry

Forms Infra by doing merged mining based on BTC, equivalent to a miner or hashrate version of “OP Stack” + “Eigen Layer.”

In short, Quarry lets you quickly launch a POW chain, merging mining with BTC miners to ensure security through BTC miners’ hashrate. The token rewards go to participating miners, similar to EigenLayer’s AVS rewards. While POS is dominant, how much share POW Appchains can capture remains to be seen.

II. Solana

The most interesting concept recently for Solana is “modularization.”

ETH follows a modular approach, while Solana has been a representative of monolithic chains. Several modular projects on Solana have emerged in the past few months, like MagicBlock – @magicblock, Sonic – @SonicSVM, Solforge, and Mantis – @mantis.

Magicblock

Magicblock focuses on Ephemeral Rollup – a “use and delete” concept, similar to what AltLayer22/23 proposed. As a full-chain game engine project, this Ephemeral Rollup might be part of their solution.

Sonic

Sonic is focused on Gaming Appchains on Solana, having recently announced their funding. Their HyperGrid Framework allows games to easily launch an SVM Appchain, similar to XAI on Arbitrum.

Solforge

Solforge aims to be a general-purpose Appchain Stack, positioning itself as an SVM version of OP Stack or Arbitrum Orbit.

Mantis

Mantis is an Intent settlement layer SVM Rollup, not limited to serving Solana, but also accommodating EVM-related OrderBook Flow.

Notable points:

1. Despite being a high-performance monolithic chain, Solana saw a single game consume 20% of the chain’s TX, prompting thoughts of modularization.
2. Toly’s attitude towards modularization has shifted from opposition to neutrality.
3. Many within Solana Foundation and developers support modularization.
4. Multicoin’s Kyle, a monolithic chain advocate, remains opposed.

The next 6-12 months will be interesting for Solana’s infrastructure, with both the modularization narrative and the upcoming FireDancer upgrade enhancing TPS and stability.

III. Restaking

Restaking has been the hottest track in the past six months.

However, many are unclear about the differences between the two leaders, Babylon and EigenLayer, warranting a detailed explanation.

Simply put, Eigen’s inherent smart contract capability allows for complex slashing mechanisms, exemplified by AVS EigenDA. Babylon, however, cannot replicate something like “BabylonDA” due to BTC’s script limitations.

Babylon’s strengths lie in its EOTS (Extractable Once Signature) and BTC timestamp protocol, unique features enabling native BTC Restaking, unlike Eigen.

Native BTC Restaking functions are limited to helping POS chains prevent Long Range Attacks and bootstrap their POS security consensus.

To develop something like an AVS on Babylon, you need “extensions” like Chakra – @ChakraChain or SatLayer – @satlayer, which provide the necessary smart contracts for complex slashing mechanisms, allowing for DA, storage, and Oracle-like AVS development.

In abstract terms: Babylon+Chakra/SatLayer = EigenLayer

Babylon’s ecosystem includes projects like Solv Protocol and Lorenzo, while EigenLayer’s complexity has led to a rich Stack of “extension packs,” like Ethos – @EthosStake for AVS Coordination/Interoperability and Aethos – @aethosnetwork for AVS Programmable Policy Layer.

With Eigen’s Stack becoming increasingly comprehensive, it’s resembling AWS, where users can customize security levels and infrastructure packages for their chains or DAPPs.

P.S. A recent FA conversation revealed that among fifty to sixty VCs, all are looking at one specific track: Ton. However, investing in Ton is significantly more challenging than ETH or Solana.