Written by: Deep Tide TechFlow
Memes, as defined by their 'rapid dissemination characteristics', spread rapidly across various sectors of the crypto ecosystem like a wildfire: from celebrity effects, the U.S. elections, to the truth terminal and zoo meetings, every day brings a new Meme narrative to life as soon as we open our eyes (or sometimes before we even have the chance to sleep).
As BTC breaks the historical threshold of $100,000, the enthusiasm for the long bull market has been reignited, and people are beginning to notice: in an era where everything can be a Meme, Bitcoin Memes seem to have become the overlooked corner of attention.
Some may say that most Bitcoin holders' understanding seems to remain at the 'Hold' stage, but the unprecedented 'community inscription' craze in 2023 has already showcased the community's enthusiasm for participating in the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Some may argue that Bitcoin's scalability is limited and does not support smart contracts, raising concerns about how it can support the issuance of Meme assets and high-frequency PvP. Such doubts are clearly somewhat outdated, as infrastructure has become the main theme of this cycle in the Bitcoin ecosystem, with a plethora of projects aimed at realizing Bitcoin's native programmability emerging. Bbabylon has emerged, bringing staking narratives, while CKB steadily achieves scalability, making it possible for Bitcoin to support a more complex ecosystem.
So, under these preconditions, is Bitcoin Meme really the next battleground for attention?
From a market perspective, core builders of the Bitcoin ecosystem have already taken action: in addition to the Merlin Chain loudly proclaiming to become the 'core force of Bitcoin Memes', CKB, as a highly anticipated Bitcoin Layer 2 protocol and the proponent of the RGB++ concept, has also seen high expectations for the future direction of Bitcoin Memes following the launch of its ecological Meme launch platform CKB.FI.
This article aims to delve into the essence of the Meme pandemic and explore the prospects of Bitcoin Memes and the key role of RGB++ in driving Memes to become a traffic entry point in the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Getting to the heart of the matter: Why does the Meme narrative remain popular?
According to CoinGecko data, the current market value of the Meme track has exceeded $130 billion. Taking Pump.fun, a Meme issuance platform in the Solana ecosystem, as an example, in the eight months since its official launch, it has deployed over 4 million tokens and generated over $368 million in cumulative transaction fees.
Meme is on fire, and no further elaboration is needed. However, no massive market surge of hundreds of billions in value comes by chance; the underlying topic worth exploring behind the heat of Memes is: What ignites our enthusiasm when we engage with Memes?
Essentially, Memes are a category of assets, but unlike other assets, the Web2 internet culture and Web3 decentralized rebellious spirit layered onto Memes create their unique allure.
Cultural attributes: Eye-catching and novel narratives.
Infectiousness is the core of Memes, but the infectiousness of Memes does not come from grand narratives; it is more like most black humor films that focus on the underlying issues, using humor, self-deprecation, irony, and other witty, interesting, and easily digestible expressions to critique the status quo, capturing attention accurately while further stimulating users' emotional resonance.
Communication attributes: Viral dissemination based on community and social media.
The highly symbolic content form of Memes itself endows it with outstanding dissemination advantages, while community-rooted Memes naturally benefit from strong community-driven promotion, allowing Memes to spread globally at a viral pace. Compared to traditional assets, Memes are community-driven, and this decentralized dissemination method is both efficient and possesses strong penetration.
Fairness attributes: A perfect embodiment of the spirit of decentralization.
The birth of blockchain originates from people's rebellion against the centralized finance controlled by institutions. In this cycle, where VC tokens have disappointed secondary market investors time and again, the issuance and circulation of Memes rely entirely on community consensus. This decentralized characteristic makes Memes digital assets more aligned with the spirit of Web3 and is seen as an expression of community resistance against VCs.
Transaction attributes: A stimulating PvP battlefield where risks and opportunities coexist.
While the high volatility of Memes brings risks, it also offers investors enormous potential profit opportunities. In the stimulating PvP battlefield, traders' sharp market insights and decisive trading decisions are put to the test, and amidst the stirring of various wealth creation myths, countless people fantasize that they are the next protagonists of wealth stories.
By organizing the core attributes of Memes, the cultural influence, viral dissemination, decentralized spirit, and enormous potential profits behind the Meme boom become apparent. Clarifying the underlying logic of Memes breaking out of their niche provides a clearer argumentative framework for us to analyze the advantages and explore the potential of Bitcoin Memes.
The overlooked corners of attention: Why should you pay attention to Bitcoin Memes?
In terms of cultural heritage, no crypto ecosystem dares to compete with Bitcoin.
As the pioneer of cryptocurrency, Bitcoin is like the Jerusalem of the crypto world. It symbolizes decentralization, freedom, and a challenge to traditional financial systems. It represents the values and beliefs of decentralization.
The 16-year journey of development has not only provided countless Meme materials but has also attracted numerous geeks, tech enthusiasts, and investors to gather and form a unique and vibrant cultural circle. Whether it’s Satoshi Nakamoto, the 5.22 Pizza Day, or Bitcoin enthusiast Trump, the dense memes of the Bitcoin ecosystem always bring a smile.
In terms of communication attributes, it is hard to find any crypto ecosystem with a global influence that can match Bitcoin.
From on-chain data, the number of Bitcoin wallet addresses has surpassed 500 million, with over 50 million wallets holding assets worth at least $1. In the traditional realm, several companies, including Tesla, Microsoft, and Starbucks, have supported Bitcoin payments, and over 60 publicly traded companies have emulated MicroStrategy's Bitcoin strategy. With Bitcoin prices continuously breaking new highs in November, the search and discussion volume about Bitcoin on mainstream social media platforms like Twitter, Weibo, and Google has surged.
The series of data showcases Bitcoin's strong appeal and widespread adoption globally, and the vast and active community undoubtedly lays a solid foundation for the broad dissemination of Bitcoin Memes.
It can be said that the Bitcoin ecosystem possesses very favorable inherent conditions for Meme development, and in fact, Bitcoin and Memes have a deep-rooted connection.
Tracing back, the veteran Meme Doge, which created a buzz in 2021, was inspired by Bitcoin. In 2013, Adobe software engineer Jackson Palmer and IBM software engineer Billy Markus built Doge based on the UTXO transaction framework, aiming to demonstrate improvements to Bitcoin and create a cryptocurrency that is easier to acquire, more practical, and more fun than Bitcoin. Today, Doge has grown into a dominant project in the Meme track.
Looking closer, the 'community inscription' craze triggered by the Bitcoin ecosystem in 2023, which emphasizes the fair issuance principle, is seen by many as an evolutionary variant of Memes. The craze not only ignited people's enthusiasm for participating in the Bitcoin ecosystem but also pushed Bitcoin to initiate large-scale ecological infrastructure, with the most well-known example being the head exchange OKX's Web3 wallet, which gained immense popularity due to its smooth inscription experience.
Furthermore, the established public chain CKB, known for its technical prowess, has keenly sensed the mismatch between Bitcoin's market enthusiasm and its lagging infrastructure. By launching the isomorphic binding RGB++ extension protocol, it has achieved Bitcoin's native scalability and programmability, and has built a series of Bitcoin ecological infrastructure products based on this extension protocol, including the JoyID encrypted wallet with Passkey management, which requires no blockchain knowledge to use; the USDI and RUSD products for Bitcoin-based programmable stablecoins, providing a value-stable bridge for BTCFi; and a series of native trading platforms like UTXOSwap, Omiga, and Dobby, which effectively addressed the liquidity issues and high transaction costs within the BTC ecosystem. This significantly enhanced user participation in the Bitcoin ecosystem experience at the time and laid a solid foundation for future Meme development.
More importantly, the key to mining in the Meme track lies in early ambush and attention during times when they are overlooked. Currently, the unnoticed Bitcoin Memes have become targets for keen Meme hunters.
Recently, Solana, as the main battlefield for Memes in this cycle, has shown signs of fatigue, with a massive influx of users leading to serious PVP internal competition and more individuals losing money and exiting. In the past month, Base Meme has emerged, with multiple blockbuster hits created by Virtuals and Clanker making early ambushers quite profitable, bringing about a clear Meme insight:
When attention has yet to converge, laying ambush early often leads to less competition and better opportunities for returns.
Currently, according to Artemis data, Base has seen a net inflow of over $750 million in on-chain funds in the past month, clearly indicating that the profit potential for ambushing Base is rapidly narrowing. Following the insight logic of 'early ambush, high returns', and looking at the Meme development experiences of Pump.fun for Solana and Virtuals for Base, as long as a sound infrastructure and launch platform are established, Bitcoin Memes, which have a deep cultural foundation but have yet to gain widespread attention, have a high probability of succeeding Base as the next main battlefield for Memes.
So, the script for the Bitcoin Meme boom is already written; who will be the one to build the infrastructure and set the stage?
Why is RGB++ the optimal solution for Bitcoin Meme asset issuance?
As stated before, Memes are essentially a category of assets, and thus, the asset issuance method of Bitcoin becomes a prerequisite for the explosion of Bitcoin Memes.
Due to Bitcoin's extremely limited scripting language, achieving native asset issuance and assigning complex transaction rules and contracts is not an easy task. Over the past decade, solutions surrounding this issue have continuously evolved until CKB, inspired by RGB, launched the innovative RGB++ extension protocol, which combines native characteristics with flexibility, leading to the most widely accepted implementation of Bitcoin asset issuance.
Colored coins are widely regarded by the community as the earliest exploration of Bitcoin asset issuance. Although this scheme can map different real-world assets, it is limited by Bitcoin's functional constraints and cannot support Turing-complete smart contract scripts.
For a long time thereafter, most asset issuance in the Bitcoin ecosystem adopted sidechain anchoring schemes. This method, which swaps Bitcoin onto a sidechain through two-way pegs, provides sufficient flexibility, but sidechains are essentially independent chains. Even when anchored to Bitcoin, they do not directly associate with BTC, lacking native qualities and carrying security risks. As a result, they have not been widely recognized for a long time.
On October 19, 2023, the Lightning Network developer Lightning Labs announced the launch of the Taproot Assets protocol, which is regarded as a milestone event in Bitcoin asset issuance. Taproot Assets allows anyone to issue any tokens based on Bitcoin, but unfortunately, this solution does not support complex smart contracts, which imposes significant restrictions on introducing more complex gameplay for assets.
The asset issuance method represented by inscriptions, along with its variants like BRC-20, ARC-20, and Runes, has led the Bitcoin ecosystem craze under the influence of SegWit and Taproot. In simple terms, the Ordinal protocol assigns a unique identifier to each satoshi, Bitcoin's smallest unit of 21 million trillion satoshis, and writes information into each satoshi to achieve Bitcoin's native asset issuance.
However, due to the block speed and capacity limitations of Bitcoin itself, this asset issuance method still faces limitations in scalability.
At the beginning of the inscription craze in early 2023, CKB, which has shown a keen interest in the Bitcoin ecosystem, noticed the limitations caused by Bitcoin's lagging performance and non-Turing completeness. Inspired by the RGB protocol, it began designing RGB++ with the goal of achieving Bitcoin's native scalability and programmability.
The core idea of RGB is simply to place asset issuance and contract logic off-chain and bind off-chain behavior with UTXO changes on the Bitcoin chain through client verification and one-time sealing, leveraging the consensus that UTXOs record transaction events and processes. This binding relationship allows off-chain asset issuance to inherit Bitcoin's strong security.
In this process, users need to personally run clients and verify asset changes related to themselves. However, most ordinary users lack the ability to store all historical transactions, leading to the issue of data islands. Additionally, due to the limitations of the AluVM virtual machine used by RGB, it has not yet been able to support complete contract functionality.
The core idea of reconstructing RGB++ can be briefly summarized in four words: isomorphic binding.
First, the client operation and verification tasks originally handled by users are transferred to CKB. This solution, where Bitcoin serves as the main chain and CKB acts as a shadow chain, with a two-way binding between UTXO and Cell, not only inherits Bitcoin's strong security foundation but also addresses the global verifiability issues of RGB. More importantly, CKB's use of CKB-VM brings powerful smart contract capabilities, making the RGB++ protocol a cradle for incubating Bitcoin-native Memes.
In July of this year, RGB++ upgraded to RGB++ Layer, aiming to play a significant role in Bitcoin asset issuance from a more global perspective. It not only supports isomorphic binding across any blockchain built on the UTXO ledger model, including Cardano, Dogecoin, BSV, and BCH, but also supports multiple asset types including FT and NFT, making asset issuance more aligned with actual needs.
It is worth mentioning that recent news about RGB++ soon supporting Doge has attracted widespread attention. For a long time, Doge has lacked a strong on-chain ecosystem, but with the support of RGB++, Doge will upgrade from Meme Coin to Meme Chain, allowing users to issue any type of asset on Dogechain and enabling Doge users to transact in a cheaper, faster, and more seamless manner through RGB++'s seamless cross-chain Leap and Lightning Networks compatibility.
The integration of RGB++ series advantages with Doge's million user base and hundred-billion-dollar market cap will further make Doge the preferred platform for Meme projects, further enriching the Bitcoin Meme ecosystem.
Thanks to the advantages of the UTXO model, RGB++ Layer can create a new paradigm for asset issuance, supporting the issuance of the same asset on multiple chains simultaneously, in varying proportions on each chain. This not only achieves coordination and unity between different chains but also provides high flexibility for asset issuers.
The RGB++ Layer is also introducing a new asset issuance model called IBO (Initial Bitcoin Offering), which supports the creation of liquidity pools directly on UTXOSwap, allowing newly issued assets to be traded with high liquidity.
In our previous article (Comparing the Four Major Bitcoin Expansion Solutions: Who Will Truly Unlock BTCFi's Trillion Market Potential?), we detailed the operational logic of the RGB++ Layer and its specific advantages in asset issuance. Interested readers can revisit it.
Through RGB++, we see a more broadly supported, natively programmable, interoperable, simpler, more efficient, and more transparent asset issuance method in the Bitcoin ecosystem, which will also serve as the foundational infrastructure for the explosion of Bitcoin Memes.
As infrastructure improves, the focus of Bitcoin Meme development begins to shift towards specific innovative gameplay.
Releasing transactional innovations: How can RGB++ empower Memes with more advanced gameplay based on BTCFi?
How can we more efficiently translate the specific advantages of RGB++ in asset issuance into more innovative gameplay and a higher quality experience?
The first key move is the launch platform.
The launch of Pump.fun in April 2024 brought Solana Memes to a climax, prompting major public chain ecosystems to react. Whether it's TRON's SunPump, BSC's Four.Meme, or Base's frequent hit Virtuals and Clanker, historical experience has repeatedly proven the crucial catalytic role of the launch platform in Meme development.
In the face of the impending explosion of Bitcoin Memes, the CKB Meme launch platform CKB.Fi, benchmarked against Pump.fun and Virtuals, is a forward-looking layout of the CKB ecosystem, aiming to become the 'Meme blockbuster manufacturing machine' of the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Rooted in the cultural heritage of Bitcoin's Meme ecosystem and possessing the advantages of RGB++ asset issuance, another highlight of CKB.Fi's Meme asset issuance lies in its deep integration with the best crypto social media platform, Twitter.
Users have two Meme issuance methods: one is to issue directly based on CKB.Fi, completing the launch in just a few simple steps; the other is to issue based on Twitter, where users can quote a specific tweet as the source of the Meme content and then fill in the token-related information based on that content. Eligible tweets will be detected and a bonding creation will be completed on CKB.FI. CKB.FI Twitter will then restore the corresponding bonding link to the author to officially complete the launch, after which tokens will be distributed through the author's Twitter followers, completing the community's cold start.
It is well-known that Twitter has become the largest hub for Meme information, and innovative Meme issuance and distribution methods based on Twitter, such as CKB.Fi, not only aid in the discovery and preservation of valuable content, bringing cultural value accumulation to Meme projects, but also integrate social gameplay, aiding in the sustainable dissemination and promotion of Meme projects.
Creator incentives are another core feature of CKB.Fi, with 6.9% allocated to token initiators and their Twitter followers. This distribution ratio effectively avoids the existence of 'mouse warehouses' while better incentivizing more people to participate in Meme creation. Furthermore, creators can use a portion of the funds to incentivize their followers, further adding a social aspect to Meme gameplay and promoting wider dissemination through Twitter's billions of users.
With a fair, low-threshold, and highly disseminable launch platform, the series of advantages of RGB++ will further introduce more complex, innovative, and value-adding gameplay for issued Meme assets.
As an asset issuance solution, under the current circumstances where most Memes ultimately go to zero, Memes issued based on RGB++ theoretically will never go to zero. This is because the CKB blockchain employs a unique value capture mechanism that requires the storage and operation of on-chain data to lock CKB tokens. This means that the issuance of RGB++ Memes will occupy a corresponding number of CKB tokens based on the size of the asset, injecting value support into Memes and distinguishing them completely from purely speculative Memes: when users still like this Meme or when it still has profit potential, the Meme will continue to exist; when users no longer like this Meme or it no longer has profit potential, users can choose to destroy the Meme to redeem the locked CKB tokens.
In terms of transaction experience, assets created based on CKB have an average block time of about 10 seconds, and the transaction fees are very low. A single CKB can typically pay for over 5000 transfer miner fees, bringing efficiency and cost optimization, addressing Bitcoin's inherent issues of long transaction times, slow efficiency, and high costs.
More importantly, CKB is Turing complete, which not only means that CKB can design more complex condition executions and business logic for Meme gameplay, allowing Bitcoin Memes to explore deeper gameplay possibilities, but also that CKB itself possesses the ability to build a rich ecosystem. The CKB ecosystem includes modules such as wallets, DEX, DID, stablecoin protocols, GameFi, and SocialFi, and is continuously expanding through active ecological collaborations, meaning that Meme assets can also participate as revenue-generating tools, such as Meme staking, Meme lending, building on-chain identity systems for Memes, and social interactions, thus integrating more deeply and closely with other segments of the ecosystem to help holders earn more revenue.
Beyond better experiences and richer ecological gameplay, unlike the isolated development of various public chain Meme ecosystems today, the asset issuance and trading supported by RGB++ exhibit strong aggregation and interoperability.
Thanks to the UTXO model, RGB++ not only supports asset issuance across all UTXO model blockchains but also allows issuers to issue the same asset across multiple chains in varying proportions based on their specific business needs. Furthermore, through the RGB++ Layer's seamless cross-chain interaction (Leap) across multiple chains without cross-chain bridges, assets on one UTXO chain can easily cross to another UTXO chain.
In this way, RGB++ brings a unified asset issuance standard to all UTXO model blockchains, making asset issuance and management more intuitive and flexible, while asset trading becomes safer and seamless. Users, funds, and liquidity from multiple chains, including Cardano, Dogecoin, BSV, BCH, and DogeChain, can be further integrated, enriching the ecological scenarios for Memes, expanding the user base, and deepening liquidity.
Currently, CKB.Fi is nearing completion of its development of the product btc.finance, which expands the existing Meme issuance mechanism to BTC based on RGB++. It will also develop an issuance platform on DogeChain through RGB++, releasing Meme economic potential on the most widely recognized Meme (BTC) and Meme Chain (DogeChain).
Another very intuitive case of deep integration of Memes and ecology is Fiber Network:
As an L2 network based on CKB, Fiber Network aims to achieve programmability expansion in the Bitcoin ecosystem. Its initial functions are similar to the Lightning Network, aiming to become a high-performance, low-cost microtransaction payment network, while also exhibiting greater flexibility and higher efficiency in liquidity management.
The birth of Fiber Network is not aimed at replacing the Lightning Network, but rather at enriching the possibilities of the Bitcoin ecosystem in collaboration with it: unlike the Lightning Network, which focuses on the single currency of BTC, Fiber Network can support all assets issued based on the RGB++ protocol.
Fiber Network, with its UTXO technical isomorphism to the Lightning Network, inherently possesses cross-chain atomic swap capabilities. This combination of 'Bitcoin-level security + Ethereum-level functionality + Lightning Network-level speed' will not only pave the way for the large-scale adoption of the Lightning Network but also introduce infinite imaginings for the development of BTCFi. As an important traffic entry point and asset category in the Bitcoin ecosystem, Memes are bound to derive more innovative gameplay in richer BTCFi scenarios.
Conclusion
Talk is cheap; in fact, the Meme within the CKB ecosystem has already shown signs of rising.
At the end of November, the leading asset in the RGB++ ecosystem, Seal, exhibited a remarkable increase of 430% within seven days, sparking extensive discussions about the potential of the Bitcoin Meme ecosystem. It is reported that Seal will become one of the first RGB++ assets supported by Fiber Network, allowing Seal holders to participate in decentralized liquidity lending and other Lightning-based BTCFi, leading the next development direction for Bitcoin's native financial services.
Additionally, the CKB Meme launch platform CKB.Fi is also developing Pump.fun-like products based on BTC and DOGE, enriching asset trading gameplay while optimizing Meme asset issuance, which has sparked concentrated discussions within the community.
Since the inscription craze, the curtain of the Bitcoin ecosystem has already been raised for some time, and Memes are seen as an important traffic entry point for more incremental users entering the Bitcoin ecosystem. From the perspective of Meme characteristics, whether from historical origins, cultural attributes, or ecological potential, the development of Bitcoin ecosystem Memes has great prospects. The emergence of RGB++ further resolves the difficulties faced by Bitcoin Memes in asset issuance and trading, providing solutions that are both native and programmable.
As CKB continues to refine its product matrix around RGB++ and the ongoing iteration of the Meme launch platform CKB.Fi, will the next breakout Meme blockbuster be born within the Bitcoin ecosystem?
The Meme cycle continues; we welcome you to stay tuned.
