The launch of the Fractal Bitcoin mainnet has ignited a heated debate within the crypto community, with critics questioning the project’s transparency and design choices. The new blockchain has been described as a clone of Bitcoin Core v24.0.1, incorporating code from both Bitcoin Cash and Namecoin, which has led many to wonder whether Fractal Bitcoin is simply a modified copy of Bitcoin Core.
Fractal Bitcoin: A Bitcoin Core Clone with Tweaks
Fractal Bitcoin introduces a mix of standard Proof-of-Work (PoW) and merge-mined blocks, with a target block time of 30 seconds and continuous difficulty adjustment—features borrowed from other blockchain projects. The network has a maximum supply of 210 million coins, an initial block reward of 25 coins per block, and a halving cycle every 2.1 million blocks. Additionally, the OP_CAT opcode has been activated on the network.
The blockchain is designed with a multi-layer architecture to address congestion issues while maintaining the integrity of Bitcoin’s PoW protocol. Developed by the Unisat wallet team, Fractal Bitcoin functions as a sidechain with a unique merged mining mechanism called "Cadence mining." This method allows Bitcoin miners to participate in the Fractal Network every three blocks, optimizing resource usage while maintaining the security of the Bitcoin mainnet.
Premine Controversy Clouds the Launch
One of the most contentious aspects of the Fractal Bitcoin launch is its hefty 50% premine, which accounts for half of the fully diluted supply of the network’s coins. This premine is immediately spendable, meaning that the founders received as much cryptocurrency on day one as miners will be able to generate over the course of two years—equivalent to an entire halving cycle.
This has led to widespread criticism, with many industry observers labeling Fractal Bitcoin as just another "shitfork" that lacks meaningful innovation. Critics have pointed out that while the project's litepaper promises ambitious goals related to "virtualization" and "recursive scaling in layers," the actual implementation falls short, with little evidence of these claims being realized.
Fractal Bitcoin’s Market Position and Future Goals
Despite the controversies, Fractal Bitcoin aims to position itself as the ideal platform for applications requiring high throughput, such as BRC20 tokens, Ordinals, and NFTs. The network’s development team hopes to disrupt the Bitcoin ecosystem by offering solutions to scalability challenges, but questions about the project’s originality and premine continue to dominate discussions.
This launch comes at a time when the broader crypto market is experiencing a sell-off, with Bitcoin’s price facing pressure. As of press time, Bitcoin is trading at $54,816, with a market cap of $1.082 trillion, following a dip after recent U.S. jobs data.
While Fractal Bitcoin seeks to carve out a niche in the blockchain space, its long-term success remains uncertain, with the project's premine and reliance on copied code casting a shadow over its ambitions.
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