PRIMAL (PRIMAL) news

Bitcoin Block Size War - A Civil War Without A Truce

The Bitcoin block size war has been one of the most contentious debates in the Bitcoin community over the past few years. The crux of the issue comes down to scalability - how Bitcoin should scale to handle more transactions and adoption. One faction (the ‘Big Blockers’) believes the block, which includes all transaction data, should be increased in size to allow for higher throughput. The other faction - you guessed it, the ‘Small Blockers’ - believes block size should be kept small to prioritize decentralization and security. A brief history of block sizes Back in 2010, Satoshi Nakamoto added a seemingly arbitrary block size limit of 1MB to Bitcoin. Their anonymity added yet another layer of mystery to this decision and their intent. Many speculate this was an extra insurance to ensure the Bitcoin blockchain remains permissionless and retains a low entry barrier, since participants must download all block data to join the network without a third party. The 1MB blocks soon became a major hurdle as Bitcoin rose to fame in a few years. These blocks are confirmed roughly every 10 minutes but contain only 1,500 to 3,000 transactions each. More and more transactions are queuing in the mempool and bidding for precious block space as gas fees grow higher and higher. Another voice soon emerged. The "Big Blockers" argued that increasing the block size, say to 2MB or 4MB, would allow for more transactions in each block and reduce delays. An increase in throughput will no doubt help pave the way for Bitcoin to become a global currency and payment solution - something that even Small Blockers would love to see. The opposing faction, however, argued that an increase in block size poses a risk to decentralization because larger blocks make it more difficult for small-time miners and nodes to keep up with the network. They feared a concentration of power in large mining pools if small players were priced out. Some also thought that increasing block size to solve scalability issues was like trying to suffocate a fire with wood piles. This dangerous precedence may breed lazy developers who see this as the silver bullet to every problem instead of seeking better block space usage and other scaling solutions. A lousy compromise In 2016, the Hong Kong agreement seemed a compromise enough to indicate that the two factions had finally found common ground. With Segregated Witness (SegWit) implementation, witness information was removed from the block, and data size was reduced. This agreement also included an increase in the block size to around 2MB. Big Blockers could cheer for this decision, while Small Blockers should be happy to see more efficient block space utilization. But that couldn’t be further from the case. Big Blockers deemed this increase a lousy, temporary fix that would run into another size wall very soon, while Small Blockers were firmly against increasing block size in any fashion. No consensus was reached. Developers and evangelists soon started searching for other solutions. In August 2017, the Big Blockers went ahead with a hard fork to create Bitcoin Cash (BCH), which started with an 8MB block size. Bitcoin remained with a 1MB block size but adopted the SegWit soft fork to enable more transactions. SegWit made other optimizations to increase the effective block size to between 1.6 to 2MB. A temporary peace The block size war has calmed since the BCH hard fork. However, the debate around scalability continues in both the BTC and BCH communities. BCH has increased its block size to 32MB but still has excess capacity. The Bitcoin community continues researching solutions like the Lightning Network, Liquid Network, schnorr signatures, and other optimizations to increase transaction capacity. It was also made loud and clear recently that Bitcoin is in dire need of a working scaling solution, as the emergence of Ordinal NFTs and BRC-20 tokens put these primal blocks through another brutal test. Both big and small blockers have valid arguments around balancing scalability and decentralization. There are good-faith actors on both sides wanting to see Bitcoin succeed. However, there remains disagreement over the best path forward. The block size debate is representative of the governance challenges in a decentralized protocol like Bitcoin. Ultimately, a consensus is hard to reach, and disputes may only be settled by the users - which feature they favor and which coins they value.

BRC-20 Tokens: A Primer

In 2009, Bitcoin pioneered the idea of decentralized digital money. Five years later, Ethereum built on Bitcoin's innovation by enabling decentralized applications and smart contracts on its blockchain. With its introduction of ERC-20 tokens in 2015, the Ethereum blockchain could host thousands of cryptocurrencies (tokens) other than ETH. And now, these tokens have landed on the Bitcoin blockchain. What are BRC-20 tokens? In January 2023, Bitcoin launched its Ordinals protocol, making it possible to attach extra data to each satoshi on the Bitcoin blockchain. This marks Bitcoin’s major leap towards a more innovative and diversified ecosystem, introducing fungible and non-fungible tokens to the primordial blockchain. Created in March 2023, the BRC-20 token standard leverages the Ordinal protocol to ‘inscribe’ tokens on satoshis and allows everyone to mint and transfer these tokens. The first ever BRC-20 token, ORDI, was soon released and thousands of other tokens followed suit. The once monotonous Bitcoin blockchain is now teeming with new opportunities. State of BRC-20 tokens This new addition to the Bitcoin ecosystem turned out to be an adrenaline shot in the meme coin sector. A month after their inception, the BRC-20 tokens fueled a major upsurge in Bitcoin’s blockchain activities, with Ordinals (ORDI), Pepe (PEPE), and MEME (MEME) leading the charge. A dazzling collection of meme coins were created and minted as people once again flock to the first-ever blockchain to sample its latest invention. The sudden boom of BRC-20 tokens is not without its downsides. With over 14,000 different BRC-20 tokens (and counting) issued, the Bitcoin network was so congested that hundreds of thousands of transactions were waiting and the gas fee was hiked up to over $30 on May 8. The ecosystem even welcomed its first Ordinal-based DEX, BisoSwap, on May 10, 2023, marking yet another step Bitcoin has taken toward Ethereum. But BRC-20 tokens are not, and probably can never be ERC-20 tokens. Bitcoin runs on the most primal blockchain and can not run smart contracts like Ethereum. Thus, BRC-20 tokens can never interact with any smart contract natively like ERC-20 tokens. The notion of inscribed satoshis is also quite a novelty, in contrast to the field-tested ERC-20 standard that has gone through several ebbs and flows of the market. Bitget, with a whopping US$10 billion in daily trading volume and more than 20 million loyal users from 100 countries, we value users and strive to give you the most intuitive experience. With that said, we have all the cool BRC-20 tokens ready. You can easily buy and trade the popular Bitcoin Inscription / BRC-20 tokens in Bitget's Market. We also proudly introduce the Inscription price page, a one-stop resource with comprehensive data and analytics, enabling you to make well-informed decisions. This feature is your personal guide to the ever-evolving landscape of digital assets. Visit Bitget Inscription Price Page! The future of BRC-20 tokens Even just an experiment, BRC-20 tokens have gathered enough hype to put most coins to shame. But in the crypto world where excitement fades faster than reality sets in, it’s what stays that matters. As of now, most BRC-20 tokens have been reduced to a fraction of a nano cent, with a few exceptions such as ORDI, the very first BRC-20 token, MEME, the hype manifested, and PEPE, one of the OG memes that finally saw light in the crypto sector. However, with crucial limitations such as not being EVM-compatible, BRC-20 tokens are inherently limited. They also consume more gas and will fight for precious block space against BTCs. We should tread with caution when considering investing in this sector and conduct thorough research before venturing in. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are for informational purposes only. This article does not constitute an endorsement of any of the products and services discussed or investment, financial, or trading advice. Qualified professionals should be consulted prior to making financial decisions.

Bitget Bites (January 20, 2023)

The global market cap is standing at US$982 billion, showing a 1.53% increase from yesterday but the 24-hour volume went down by 32.98% to US$40.37 billion. Our report on activities of the Spot Market and Futures Market are below: Spot Market Updates Bitcoin has been trading between US$21,189 and US$20,689 within the last 24 hours. As of 3:30 AM UTC, BTC price stands at US$21,102, which is a 1.54% increase compared to Ethereum's 1.96% increase. Altcoin prices are seeing green, with XRP (+3.23%) being the only altcoin in the Top 10 trading above the volume of US$1 billion. The highest price and lowest price levels of BGB in the last 24 hours were US$0.1989 and US$0.1946, respectively. The Top 3 Gainers of The Day are PRIMAL (PRIMAL), ssv.network (SSV), and Saitama (SAITAMA): 1st Place PRIMALUSDT: Up by 22% PRIMAL combines 2 massively successful concepts: STEPN-style sports + Chiliz-style fan tokens. PRIMAL is trading at a current market price of US$0.011777, having touched a high of US$0.012149 and a low of US$0.008564 in the past 24 hours. 2nd Place SSVUSDT: Up by 14.64% ssv.network is designed for building high-performance, secure, and decentralized ETH staking applications. SSV is trading at a current market price of US$21.1862, having touched a high of US$21.7214 and a low of US$16.5966 in the past 24 hours. 3rd Place SAITAMAUSDT: Up by 9.68% Saitama is a community-driven platform that wants to develop solutions to educate the next generation of investors and make crypto simple and safe for everyone. SAITAMA is trading at a current market price of US$0.002021540375, having touched a high of US$0.002025821278 and a low of US$0.001700934186 in the past 24 hours. Meanwhile, the Top 3 Losers includeAMPLUSDT (-14.13%), REDUSDT (-12.87%), and HEXUSDC (-10.47%). Futures Market Updates Future activities are cooling down, with the Open Interest (OI) of all cryptocurrencies now recorded at US$4.57 billion, equivalent to a 1.58% 24-hour decrease. The aggregated futures volume saw a 81.03% decrease to US$1.11 trillion. Bitcoin remained the most popular underlying asset for Futures traders and, obviously, the most liquid market: Bitcoin OI Dominance accounts for 68% of the total OI, now standing at US$3.11 billion, which shows a 2.88% decrease from yesterday. The daily volume of Bitcoin contracts decreased by 48.77% to US$157,616.73. Funding rate of the last cycle stands at 0.0000%. Bitcoin Long/Short Ratio reflects the market sentiment on this flagship coin, now bullish at 56.53%/43.47%. Most BTC long ETFs locked in a price increase yesterday, but that's not the case for the highly anticipated ProShares' BTCUSDT">BTCUSDT">Short Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITI), which closed the day at US$30.44 from the opening price of US$30.96. Interesting Topics The Ultimate Guide to Bitget Spot Copy Trading How Bitget Became a Dark Horse and Earns Market Share and Trust from Millions in Crypto Winter The Crypto Burrito (Volume IV): Understanding 2022’s Crypto Bankruptcy Filings Trending Events Invite Friends to Win an iPhone 14 Pro! Make a Deposit, Share $10,000 Futures Trading Bonus You trade. We cover your loss! 100,000BGB up for grabs Publish Your Strats - Share Up to 12k USDT in Bonuses! Bitget Insights Web Launch: Share Insights, Earn Rewards up to $4000 Bitget New Year Gift ⁠— Share Mega Red Packets! 31,000+ USDT! Win Big Rewards in Grid Trading Share 6000 USDT Get to Know 13 Community Reputation Roles' NFT Bitget x Jesse Promotion: Share $30,000 in Trading Bonuses! 1,000,000 BGB Benefits! Refer Friends to Win your share! Join Bitget Global Telegram Group (New), Win 5500 USDT Bitget Will List Rocket Pool (RPL) in the Innovation Zone - Share $10,000 Worth of Rewards! VIP Earn Rewards for New Year: 3x APR, Free VIP Privileges! Join Bitget Discord and Participate in the New Weekly Genghis Reward, Win BGB Anybody can be a Merchant on Bitget P2P and Earn 125$ in Weekly rewards! Bitget Elite Recruitment! Invest Like the Top Investors on Bitget Dual Investment Events and Rewards Policy for Influencers Buy Crypto with 0% Fees Through Banxa Earn $10 Bonus! Broker’s Special - 100% Rebate for Limited Time Only! Join Bitget Discord and Participate in the New Weekly Genghis Reward, Win BGB Get 3$ Free on your first P2P trade on Bitget P2P! [Bitget VIP] Free To Claim Your New Year Gifts Bitget Partners with TealStreet; Plus, Register, trade for up to $8000 bonus！ Follow Us For More Insights: Twitter | Telegram | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram

Bitget Bites (December 9, 2022)

The global market cap is standing at US$859 billion, showing a 2.00% increase from yesterday and the 24-hour volume also went up by 0.93% to US$37.43 billion. Our report on activities of the Spot Market and Futures Market are below: Spot Market Updates Bitcoin has been trading between US$17,309.57 and US$16,799.07 within the last 24 hours. As of 3:30 AM UTC, BTC price stands at US$17,227.28, which is a 2.09% increase compared to Ethereum's 3.82% increase. Altcoin prices are seeing green. with no altcoin in the Top 10 trading above the volume of US$1 billion. The highes t price and lowest price levels of BGB in the last 24 hours were US$0.1863 and US$0.1818, respectively. The Top 3 Gainers of The Day are The T token (T), Fetch.ai (FET), and PRIMAL: 1st Place TUSDT: Up by 17.12% The T token is both a utility token for the Threshold Network and a governance token for the Threshold DAO. T is trading at a current market price of US$0.02116, having touched a high of US$0.02278 and a low of US$0.01748 in the past 24 hours. 2nd Place FETUSDT: Up by 9.85% The Fetch.ai network is an interchain protocol, based on the Cosmos-SDK, and uses a high-performance WASM-based smart contract language (CosmWasm). FET is trading at a current market price of US$0.09753, having touched a high of US$0.09869 and a low of US$0.074 in the past 24 hours. 3rd Place PRIMALUSDT: Up by 8.45% PRIMAL combines 2 massively successful concepts: STEPN-style sports + Chiliz-style fan tokens. PRIMAL is trading at a current market price of US$0.00721, having touched a high of US$0.01431 and a low of US$0.0016 in the past 24 hours. Meanwhile, the Top 3 Losers include XUSDT">WEMIXUSDT (-40.67%), REVOUSDT (-24.70%), and SKEBUSDT (-19.98%). Futures Market Updates Future activities are cooling down, with the Open Interest (OI) of all cryptocurrencies now recorded at US$4.03 billion, equivalent to a 1.36% 24-hour increase. The aggregated futures volume saw a 37.78% decrease to US$200 billion. Bitcoin remained the most popular underlying asset for Futures traders and, obviously, the most liquid market: Bitcoin OI Dominance accounts for 66% of the total OI, now standing at US$2.67 billion, which shows a 0.19% increase from yesterday. The daily volume of Bitcoin contracts increased by 6.53% to US$173,050.51. Funding rate of the last cycle stands at 0.0000%. Bitcoin Long/Short Ratio reflects the market sentiment on this flagship coin, now bullish at 57.96%/42.04%. Most BTC long ETFs locked in a price increase yesterday, but that's not the case for the highly anticipated ProShares' Short Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITI), which closed the day at US$38.84 from the opening price of US$39.77. Interesting Topics Stop Loss Levels and Take Profit Levels Explained What is DCA? Inflationary Vs. Deflationary Cryptocurrencies Follow Us For More Insights: Twitter | Telegram | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram