Who Will Be Able to Emerge from the Bulls Return Bitcoin Ecosystem

OP_CAT’s revival in this bull market will determine the direction of the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Author: Cookie
The market is eagerly awaiting Bitcoin’s breakthrough of the $70,000 mark. In the eyes of many players, if Bitcoin can break through $70,000 and stabilize near this price level, the long-awaiting bull market will officially begin.
In this optimistic sentiment, important assets in the Bitcoin ecosystem have seen an increase. The BRC-20 token $ORDI has risen by as much as 25% in the past week, and $SATS has risen by as much as 15%.
The Rune market is even more lively, with the Rune GIZMO•IMAGINARY•KITTEN, led by the new cat “Gizmo” released by Bitcoin Puppets artist @lepuppeteerfou on Twitter, rising to nearly $20 million in market value after all the minting is completed. Although @lepuppeteerfou himself denies any association with the Rune, the market enthusiasm remains unabated.
The popularity of GIZMO•IMAGINARY•KITTEN has led to the emergence of two other “golden dogs”: KODA•FLUFFINGTON, featuring the dog “Koda” as the image, founder of NodeMonkes, and POOKA•CANNOT•BE•STOPPED, featuring the dog “POOKA” believed to be the founder of OMB, zkshark. Both have quickly surpassed the $1 million market value, a difficult threshold to break in the Rune market. KODA•FLUFFINGTON reached a peak market value of nearly $4 million, while POOKA•CANNOT•BE•STOPPED reached a peak market value of nearly $3 million.
Several leading assets in the Rune market have also experienced significant increases. PUPS•WORLD•PEACE and BILLION•DOLLAR•CAT have risen by as much as 9 times since the end of September, and DOG•GO•TO•THE•MOON has risen by as much as 1 time. Just yesterday, @ord_io tweeted that an insider from Coinbase revealed that Coinbase is conducting internal security audits and regulatory compliance assessments of the Rune, but they have not independently confirmed these rumors. This inevitably leads everyone to speculate about the recent rise of the Rune.


If the bull market is about to start, what is the future of the Bitcoin ecosystem?
On the eve of a major change, should we continue to be conservative or move towards openness?
Whether OP_CAT on the Bitcoin mainnet can be revived is of great significance because for the vision of “implementing smart contracts on the Bitcoin mainnet,” the question at hand is not “can it be done,” but rather “should it be done.”
The popularity of the Ordinals protocol last year undoubtedly contributed to the opening of the Bitcoin ecosystem, but it was only a small subset of the Bitcoin consensus. As a result, BRC-20 tokens like the Rune, similar to NFTs that can be infinitely fragmented, can only be considered “inferior” compared to FT protocols on other chains in terms of user experience.


The lack of functionality or user experience in the protocol is a problem of Bitcoin’s consensus. Because the Bitcoin consensus has not been further opened, the limitations of the Bitcoin mainnet are still numerous. Protocols like Ordinals, BRC-20, and the Rune can only find ways to achieve the goal of “issuing coins/images on the Bitcoin mainnet” within these limitations. Even so, there are still opposing forces like Bitcoin Core developer Luke Dashjr who believe that these protocols are destructive to the Bitcoin mainnet and have been resisting these innovations.
If the BIP-347 proposal “OP_CAT in Tapscript” is approved and the Bitcoin mainnet completes the soft fork, it would mean a huge change in the Bitcoin consensus, shifting from conservatism to openness, and the narrative ceiling of Bitcoin would be opened again. When I say “opened again,” it is because I believe the Rune has already achieved the narrative of “issuing coins on the Bitcoin mainnet” to the extreme, and it is difficult for newcomers to challenge its position unless there is a dimensional attack like smart contracts.
However, whether OP_CAT can be revived in this bull market is a matter of great uncertainty. Being assigned a BIP proposal does not mean the community has reached a consensus on a certain issue, but it means “the community can start debating about it.” We may not even have reached the step of considering “whether we already have enough support” and are still in the stage of “this issue needs more discussion.” Quantum Cats, one of the blue-chip NFT projects in Bitcoin, is essentially a “campaign” for the OP_CAT issue. Udi Wertheimer, like a “politician” active in Bitcoin, leads a blue-chip NFT community in shouting for the revival of OP_CAT. Udi has tried several times to have a positive debate with Luke Dashjr on Twitter Space, but Luke mostly has an attitude of “I don’t care,” which suppresses the supporting side.
If OP_CAT can successfully revive in this bull market, almost 100% of the technical narrative in the Bitcoin ecosystem will be guided by OP_CAT. Currently, the targets trying to revive OP_CAT are Quantum Cats and the CAT20 protocol on Fractal.
If not, then the Rune should continue to maintain its position as the most influential FT protocol in the Bitcoin ecosystem.
The Rune market needs to undergo more tests.
A Rune token only truly becomes an FT after it is listed on a CEX. Before listing, the nature of the Rune is not much different from an NFT, and this is reflected in its market value. It has a significant “recoil” effect – when liquidity is good, the market value will quickly rise, but when liquidity is poor, it will plummet, resulting in a cycle of low-priced sell orders that no one wants. The true market value of the Rune needs to be tested by CEX liquidity, which may be one of the reasons why the listing of Rune tokens on CEXs is very slow.
In addition to CEXs, there are also Rune swap products on the Bitcoin mainnet chain, such as Dotswap, and Magic Eden will also launch Rune swap functionality. A curious phenomenon is that Dotswap’s Rune swap product is good, but it has not attracted enough traffic, while the CAT20 protocol on Fractal has brought good attention to Dotswap. It remains to be seen whether Magic Eden can improve the on-chain liquidity of the Rune with its own traffic and excellent user experience.
In terms of the richness of token types, the Rune already has “Cult tokens” like PUPS•WORLD•PEACE, but the hot topics are still relatively scarce. Currently, they revolve around a few major NFT projects within the community or are simply based on the size of the holder community. More players are needed to create a better environment for content and even the formation of Cult tokens. This is also reflected in the fact that PUPS•WORLD•PEACE and BILLION•DOLLAR•CAT have bridged to Solana to achieve greater breakthroughs.
As for the future of BRC-20, it currently seems dim, with $ORDI, $SATS, and $PIZZA being the only three tokens in the BRC-20 ecosystem.
The blue-chip NFT lineup is relatively stable, and there is still room for exploration in terms of unique narratives.
NodeMonkes, Bitcoin Puppets, OMB (Ordinal Maxi Biz), Quantum Cats, and Pizza Ninjas have solidified their blue-chip status. In addition, Bitcoin Shrooms is a unique presence with a low total supply but a stable floor price above 1 BTC.
In terms of pure art NFTs, since generative art on Ethereum has become commonplace, Bitcoin art needs to seek breakthroughs in themes, such as concept art that combines Bitcoin’s own cultural attributes or AI art. From this perspective, the CENTS series may be the most unique art collection on Bitcoin, as it has a flavor that cannot be replicated on other chains.
CENTS is created by artist Rutherford Chang, who selected pennies minted in copper before 1982 from hundreds of thousands of pennies (in 1982, pennies were changed to zinc due to cost reasons). Besides being engraved on Bitcoin, the physical pennies were melted into a solid copper block.
Bitcoin has created a “tangled value” for CENTS:
You can’t tell whether it’s a 1 cent coin engraved on Bitcoin or a 1 satoshi coin engraved on a penny.
It artificially causes deflation in pennies and Bitcoin’s “deflation.” All the 1 cent coins in the CENTS series are old pennies made of 95% copper + 5% zinc, and they are actually a deflationary asset that is no longer being issued. At the same time, the available satoshis for engraving have also decreased by 1.
The face value of a 1 cent coin is 1 cent, but the production cost of minting a 1 cent coin exceeds 1 cent, and the value of 1 satoshi is less than 1 cent. Although these 10,000 1 cent coins have moved to a value medium that is currently lower, they reflect a higher value. Currently, the price of 1 CENTS is about $330, and the physical copper block was auctioned for $50,400 in June, while the face value of 10,000 1 cent coins is $100.
With the passage of time, the face value of a 1 cent coin may one day cease to exist, the production cost of minting a 1 cent coin may continue to change, and the value of 1 satoshi may be much higher than 1 cent.
This narrative cannot be replicated on other chains because coins on other chains do not have the ability to make people feel like they are holding a real coin or currency like Bitcoin does.
The concept of DMT is also a unique artistic narrative in Bitcoin worth paying attention to. In short, there are many types of data in the Bitcoin blockchain, such as block hash, block size, block height, and block target difficulty. DMT aims to create specific digital assets based on this data. Currently, there are no other projects based on the DMT concept that have attracted enough market attention besides Natcats, the leading project.
In conclusion, whether OP_CAT can be revived in this bull market will determine the direction of the Bitcoin ecosystem. Some directions that have not yet become market hotspots, such as the Lightning Network (Taro, RGB, CKB), and BitVM, may receive more attention if OP_CAT fails to revive.
The Bitcoin ecosystem is currently the only place in the crypto market where “technical narratives” can work. The reason is simple: Bitcoin is like an old computer with a Pentium 4 processor, and it already has enough hardware to be updated, it just depends on whether the data center administrators can reach a consensus. But reaching a consensus is extremely difficult. In addition to clashes of ideas, there are also real-world conflicts of interest.
However, no matter what, the Bitcoin ecosystem will undoubtedly be one of the important narratives of this bull market, and it will be a unique presence compared to other ecosystems.