Odaily Planet Daily News: With the 16th anniversary of the release of the Bitcoin white paper, Rena Shah of Trust Machines pointed out that Bitcoin is no longer just 'digital gold', but a core component of the global financial infrastructure. The Bitcoin ecosystem is reaching a critical turning point in 2024, including Layer 2 scaling, the popularity of Ordinals, and the accelerated entry of institutions. Bitcoin ETFs driven by financial giants like BlackRock have attracted over $1.5 billion in inflows, marking Bitcoin's widespread recognition by the traditional financial system. Meanwhile, Layer 2 networks such as Lightning and the sBTC protocol of Stacks have brought decentralized liquidity and stronger scalability, further integrating Bitcoin into DeFi and traditional financial systems. Innovations like BitVM and the programmable capabilities of OP_Cat are also enhancing Bitcoin's application potential, expanding its use cases in smart contracts and digital identity. Shah believes that the future direction of Bitcoin's development lies in its role as the core underlying structure of decentralized finance, and in the face of institutional capital inflows, the decentralized principles of Bitcoin still need to be upheld. (Coindesk)

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