Bitcoin Renaissance gives birth to the RGB protocol

Originating long ago.
Shawn: Indeed, the debate over concepts in the Bitcoin ecosystem is particularly intense and diverse, and it is rare for a big shot to come out and say “stop arguing” to calm things down. The Ethereum ecosystem may be different, as someone can come out to mediate and calm things down. These are two different styles.
Xixi: Yes, that’s why I think the Bitcoin ecosystem is very decentralized both technically and philosophically, with a lot of debate.
4. How do you view the recent significant price correction of RGB++ assets?
Shawn: The RGB++ protocol has only been in existence for two months from its release until today. In these two months, there have been 5 exchanges online in the ecosystem, projects like World3’s Bitcoin AW Autonomous World project, relatively mature IPs like Nervape, an AMM DEX similar to Uniswap is also about to be released, algorithmic stablecoins are being worked on, and various DeFi applications, creator economy applications, and social applications are also present. In other words, the RGB++ ecosystem is advancing rapidly, it just needs more time to grow.
Furthermore, I also strongly agree that a protocol and ecosystem need a wealth effect. A wealth effect attracts more teams to participate in ecosystem development. So, the big rally in April has indeed attracted many teams to join, and in the coming months of June and July, various ecosystem projects will gradually go online, bringing more attention and a new wealth effect. The price of assets and the prosperity of the ecosystem go hand in hand. Therefore, I personally have high hopes for the future, as various products and projects in the ecosystem are implemented, they will bring more funds and market attention.
5. How do you view the current RGB++ community culture?
Shawn: As I mentioned earlier, the price of assets and the prosperity of the ecosystem go hand in hand. The prosperity of the ecosystem not only refers to the projects and teams in the ecosystem but also includes culture and community, such as the clown culture, SEAL community, Nervape community, etc., that are typical in the RGB++ ecosystem. Of course, there are some speculators in these communities who come for asset speculation, which is normal, and we do not avoid this.
However, in the Bitcoin ecosystem, you will never hear discussions in any other protocol’s community about how to establish a more solid foundation for the Bitcoin AW Autonomous World, establish a worldview, or establish physical laws. These discussions are unique to the RGB++ community. For example, when designing the DOBs standard, we actually consider more about how to help creators, empower the creator economy, and assist individual designers in better engaging in derivative creation and sales. So, the RGB++ community and culture are different from other communities. Regardless of the asset, its price is always fluctuating, a community focused solely on asset speculation is doomed to be short-lived because there will never be an asset that never experiences a pullback and only goes up continuously, this does not exist. Therefore, I personally am very optimistic about the long-term development of the RGB++ ecosystem, its culture, and community.
6. How can creators participate in the RGB++ ecosystem, and what are the special gameplay features?
Shawn: This topic is vast, so I can only choose a few key points to introduce.
The RGB++ protocol has two major advantages: it provides programmability for the Bitcoin mainnet and allows assets to leap directly between the Bitcoin mainnet and CKB without the need for cross-chain bridges, achieving complete decentralization. Therefore, you can develop applications on the Bitcoin mainnet or on layer two (CKB), which is a major advantage of the RGB++ protocol.
I have been paying attention to and participating in the AW Autonomous World and have played many full-chain games for a long time. For example, in the game Pirate Nation, all assets are on-chain. This game was initially launched on the Arbitrum Nova chain and later moved to another chain (Proof of Play Apex chain). In May, you would find that due to issues with the chain, the game Pirate Nation was unusable for 5 days. At this point, as a user, we naturally wonder if our in-game assets might disappear overnight due to chain issues. As believers in blockchain, we leave our assets on the chain. Where is the strongest consensus? When we think about this issue, most people will give Bitcoin as the answer.
A few weeks ago, I participated in Space with the Bitcoin Autonomous World project World3, and during that time I asked the founder of World3 why they wanted to create an autonomous world in the Bitcoin ecosystem. He said they wanted to be a long-term project in this industry. For long-term development, resistance to censorship is necessary, and they chose Bitcoin because Ethereum has shifted from PoW to PoS and issuing assets on Ethereum could potentially lead to being blacklisted overnight by the US government. From the perspective of resistance to censorship, he felt that issuing assets on the Bitcoin mainnet was the only choice, which is why the World3 project chose to enter the Bitcoin ecosystem.
In addition to being able to issue fungible tokens, the RGB++ protocol can also issue DOBs, which can be understood as an enhanced version of NFTs. Not all NFTs on Ethereum are entirely on-chain; their images and data are mostly off-chain, initially stored on a centralized server and later evolved to be stored on Arweave or IPFS. On the other hand, the industry is also concerned about whether Ethereum validating nodes will participate in asset and transaction censorship at the request of the government. In contrast, DOBs not only allow content to be 100% stored on-chain but also allow for jumping between layer one Bitcoin and layer two CKB.
For example, the project Nervape has issued the core body of the Neuron Monkey (“Naked Monkey”) on the Bitcoin mainnet, while the various accessories and parts of the Neuron Monkey are issued on the CKB chain. If I own a Neuron Monkey that is on Bitcoin, the simplest gameplay is to leap it to CKB using RGB++, without the need for any cross-chain bridges throughout the process. This gameplay is not seen in the Ethereum ecosystem because the Ethereum ecosystem relies on various bridges, while RGB++ can directly allow assets to leap to another chain through UTXO’s isomorphic binding. CKB is a Turing-complete chain that supports smart contracts, and on CKB, we can dress up the core of the Neuron Monkey, such as giving it sunglasses, a cigar, and making it look cool. Then, I can have the dressed-up Neuron Monkey return to the Bitcoin mainnet, and the appearance of the Neuron Monkey on the Bitcoin mainnet will change accordingly, becoming the image I dressed it up as on CKB, with new data on the chain. This is the simplest application scenario.
If the Neuron Monkey is combined with projects like World3’s Bitcoin Autonomous World, it will produce even richer gameplay. These two projects have recently cooperated to refine their products, hoping to provide users with richer gameplay and attract more users. So I think DOBs are very attractive to creators.
Additionally, what is very attractive to creators is CKB’s intrinsic value storage feature. If you deploy a smart contract on the CKB chain that occupies 50,000 bytes, you would need to lock up 50,000 CKB to store that contract. If you issue an NFT or DOB, and its image data is 10,000 bytes in size, you would need to lock up 10,000 CKB to store that data. If you write a poem that is 500 bytes long, you would need to spend 500 CKB to store it. Only truly valuable creations will make people willing to spend so many CKB tokens to store them.
If one day the holders of related assets, who may not be the original authors, find that they do not like an NFT or DOB, they can destroy it and retrieve the 10,000 CKB it occupied. If they think a poem they wrote is terrible and should not exist, they can destroy it and retrieve the 500 CKB it occupied. Gradually, the CKB chain will truly achieve value storage, with creation and destruction, because things without value will be destroyed, and people will retrieve the CKB they occupied. This is a fascinating aspect of CKB.
The RGB++ protocol actually integrates various features of CKB. In my opinion, it is very friendly to creators and is very suitable for the technical architecture of the Bitcoin Autonomous World. Other protocols may only be able to issue tokens and cannot do other things, but RGB++ has many gameplay options, and various applications are emerging in the ecosystem, allowing you, as the holder of related assets, to utilize your assets. This is where I find RGB++ to be the most imaginative.
7. The position of the RGB++ protocol in the Bitcoin ecosystem
Shawn: On one hand, RGB++ is an asset issuance protocol on the first layer of Bitcoin, and on the other hand, because CKB provides stronger programmability, RGB++ can provide more possibilities for various projects in the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Last year, when assets were issued on the first layer of Bitcoin, there was always an emphasis on fair launch and community fair participation, which actually demotivated many teams from participating and created a certain ceiling. This is why this year the first layer of Bitcoin has experienced stagnation because it needs new ways to emerge, and it needs the capability to provide various possibilities for teams. This is why my expectation for the RGB++ protocol is that it can grow to become a de facto standard for projects to issue assets on the first layer of Bitcoin.
Another feature of RGB++ is the ability to conduct cross-chain transactions between the first and second layers without the need for cross-chain bridges. This feature can bring more possibilities to projects like AW and games because these projects also want to issue assets on the Bitcoin mainnet. For their applications, RGB++ is likely to eventually become a de facto standard.
8. Views of Eastern and Western communities and VCs on the Bitcoin ecosystem
Shawn: Since the second half of last year, the second layer of Bitcoin has been driven more by Asian capital and Asian teams. In April of this year, I listened to some podcast episodes, and many VCs in the West, while verbally expressing doubts about the second layer of Bitcoin, were actually taking action by investing in new projects. My understanding is that over the past year and a half, there has indeed been a divergence between Eastern and Western capital, but as the Bitcoin ecosystem develops, the asset pool in this space is becoming fuller, funding amounts are increasing, and by the end of the year or next year, we will no longer see the divergence between Eastern and Western capital because this divergence will eventually be overcome by the asset pool, and everyone will integrate, no longer emphasizing what Asian capital is doing versus what European and American capital is doing, and it is very likely that everyone is doing the same thing. This is my view on the second layer of Bitcoin.
For the protocols on the first layer of Bitcoin, almost all the protocols previously were not proposed by Chinese people, and the fact that Cipher was able to propose the RGB++ protocol and develop it to its current state actually far exceeded my previous expectations. In the West, there are many professionals who quickly grasp the technical features of the RGB++ protocol and its future potential, which is why Bitcoin Magazine, as an institution in the Bitcoin theory field, also invested in the Cipher team. In the process of promoting the RGB++ protocol, from various perspectives, things have actually been much better than I expected, and some concerns that I had before have not materialized, which is quite miraculous.
Xixi: Did Bitcoin Magazine invest in UTXO?
Shawn: They invested in the UTXO Stack project, which is the scaling solution for the RGB++ protocol. For the entire ecosystem, there are several levels: at the bottom is the RGB++ protocol, and above that is the scaling solution. While the current solution (using only the CKB blockchain) may have acceptable performance and costs, if the number of users increases by an order of magnitude, a scaling solution like UTXO Stack will be needed. UTXO Stack is expected to be released in the third quarter of this year, and this project has also garnered favor from many top capitals, which actually indicates that these capitals are bullish on the RGB++ protocol. Otherwise, why invest in the scaling solution of this protocol? If they were not optimistic, there would be no need for scaling, right?
Xixi: Yes, this in itself is also a form of affirmation.
9. Hoping for more creators and those interested in RGB++ technology to join in building
Shawn: In the recent period, I have been involved in the RGB++ protocol and its ecosystem development, combined with my personal experience and some reflections, I actually hope that more creators and more teams can understand the RGB++ protocol and participate in this ecosystem.
RGB++ has only been online for two months, but its ecosystem development has progressed rapidly. The projects mentioned earlier, such as Nervape and World3, have demonstrated some features of RGB++, but to further explore richer gameplay, more teams need to get involved, so I welcome everyone to the RGB++ ecosystem.