After experiencing a new round of market turbulence, as the price of Bitcoin rebounded, the panic in the entire market weakened a lot.

With the repeated collapse of altcoins, from the questioning of "Are there still any altcoins?" to the voices of various professional investors leaving the market, the past one or two months have been full of gloom for the crypto market other than Bitcoin. of.

But no matter how panicked the market sentiment is, when asked which track the market is most optimistic about in the future, "Bitcoin Ecosystem" still has the highest voice.

Especially recently, institutions have purchased large positions in Bitcoin, the number of Bitcoin holdings in ETFs has continued to increase, and the development of Bitcoin ecosystems such as Stacks and Fractal Bitcoin is in full swing, which has the potential to drive a new round of market conditions.

Institutional positions and ETFs

As a major Bitcoin holder on Wall Street, MicroStrategy has been buying and selling again recently.

According to the latest SEC filings, MicroStrategy purchased 18,300 Bitcoins in the past month or so, investing a total of approximately US$1.11 billion, with an average price of approximately US$60,655. MicroStrategy currently holds a total of 244,800 Bitcoins, accounting for 1% of the total Bitcoin issuance.

After three years, MicroStrategy once again spent 1.1 billion to purchase Bitcoin, which is undoubtedly a shot in the arm for the crypto market that has just shown signs of recovery.

Although the market has looked shaky in the past few months, and Fud's voice that "the bull market is no longer" has been heard everywhere, the 13F documents for the second quarter of 2024 disclosed by the SEC show that when the price of Bitcoin falls, American institutions are bucking the trend. Add a position to Bitcoin ETF:

According to data from Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt, the number of institutions holding Bitcoin ETF positions increased from 965 to 1,100 in the second quarter. More than 130 institutions purchased Bitcoin ETFs for the first time in the second quarter, and the total number of Bitcoin ETFs held by these institutions was The volume proportion also increased from 18.74% to 21.15%.

Therefore, despite the violent market fluctuations, even when the trend is not clear, these institutions have not been scared away, but continue to increase their positions. It is conceivable that if it is a bull market, the number of institutions entering the Bitcoin ETF and the amount of purchases will be even greater.

Judging from the trend chart of the number of Bitcoins held by the Bitcoin ETF since its issuance, in the past nine months, this data has generally maintained a continuous upward trend. Even during the period of violent fluctuations in the crypto market, the number of Bitcoin ETF holdings has not changed. big.

Therefore, despite the market fluctuations, Bitcoin's fear and greed index once entered the extreme panic range, and large American institutional investors continued to test the waters and buy.

Changes in the number of Bitcoins held by Bitcoin ETFs

Fractal Bitcoin

Fractal Bitcoin can be said to be one of the most eye-catching projects on the market recently. In addition to the quite generous Airdrop attracting a lot of attention, Fractal Bitcoin has been online for only a few days, and its total computing power has exceeded 241EH, reaching the total computing power of Bitcoin. 38.1%, its popularity is evident.

Fractal Bitcoin price and computing power at a glance

Fractal Bitcoin was launched by the Unisat team. As a team that is deeply involved in the Bitcoin ecosystem and has received investment from top institutions such as BN, it is expected to gain such popularity after its launch.

Fractal Bitcoin is also the Layer 2 of Bitcoin. It is known as "the only native Bitcoin expansion solution currently". It focuses on stronger compatibility with Bitcoin and shared security. It improves transaction speed without changing the original code of Bitcoin. , increasing the transaction confirmation time to 30 seconds, which increases TPS by more than 20 times compared to at least 10 minutes on the Bitcoin main network.

Regarding the difference between Fractal Bitcoin and other Layer 2 and side chains, its founder is quoted as saying, “If other L2 and side chains build another highway, then Fractal can build countless highways parallel to the Bitcoin main network. Highway. Each road can be to expand the Bitcoin main network, or it can be to expand another road."

Of course, there are many plans for Bitcoin expansion. The ultimate goal must be to share the security of Bitcoin to the greatest extent and greatly improve TPS, just like the goal that Fractal Bitcoin aims to achieve, but currently there are almost no real solutions. Landed.

Since the Bitcoin ecology exploded, the Layer 2 track has been crowded with players from all walks of life. In addition to the original Layer 2 such as Stacks and RSK, there are also the transformed RGB++, as well as new Layer 2 such as BEVM and Merlin. It can be said that it is not lively.

However, who can really take up the banner of Layer 2 of the Bitcoin ecosystem, bring DeFi, GameFi, NFT, etc. into the Bitcoin ecosystem, and at the same time introduce a huge amount of dormant Bitcoins into the entire crypto liquidity pool? It is still unclear at present. Further observation and verification are required.

Stacks Nakamoto Upgrade

As the most well-known Layer 2 in the Bitcoin ecosystem, Stacks ushered in the Nakamoto upgrade on August 28.

For Stacks, this upgrade is of great significance, mainly for four points:

1) STX output halved: After the Nakamoto upgrade, Stacks’ output will change from 1,000 STX rewards per Bitcoin block to 500 STX, and the inflationary pressure on STX will be greatly reduced.

2) More than 60 times TPS improvement: Through this hard fork, Stacks’ block production and Bitcoin’s block time are decoupled. The block confirmation time is reduced from more than 10 minutes to 10 seconds, and TPS is increased by more than 60 times. .

3) Better security: After the Nakamoto upgrade, the new consensus mechanism writes the historical data of the Stacks chain into the Bitcoin block. Without changing the Bitcoin block data, the Stacks block data cannot be tampered with, allowing The security of Stacks chain is further enhanced.

4) The decentralized anchor currency sBTC is online: sBTC will be online about one month after the upgrade. This is the first completely decentralized Bitcoin anchor currency. It does not require permission and is open to participation. It is more important for Bitcoin whales. Attractive.

With the Stacks Nakamoto upgrade officially completed, Bitcoin’s Layer 2 battle will become even more intense. After all, the security of the Stacks main chain has withstood the test of the market for a long time, and after the upgrade, the security has been greatly improved, and the TPS optimization has also been greatly improved.

In addition, Stacks itself is highly recognized in Europe and the United States and is the first SEC-compliant Token project. The current ecological development level is also the best among all Layer 2 players. It already has a certain first-mover advantage. It is obviously Bitcoin Layer 2 competition for hegemony. A solid heavyweight player.

summary

Of course, in addition to these, there have been many other new actions in the Bitcoin ecosystem recently. For example, in late August, the Babylon main network was launched and staking was launched. In just three hours, the staking limit of 1,000 BTC was reached. Airdrop is expected to add Babylon has a luxurious financing background and good market attention. And the recent innovation of several OP_CAT protocols in the Bitcoin ecosystem is also in full swing.

In any case, compared to the lackluster or even flameout of other ecosystems, the wealth creation effect and enthusiasm of the Bitcoin ecosystem can be seen. After the inscriptions and runes have been extinguished one after another, there has continued to be innovative and dynamic, and a large amount of resources and funds have entered. Indeed, Worth the wait.

This article is reproduced with permission from: Shenchao TechFlow

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