(May 8, 2024, Hong Kong) — Orbiter Finance, together with OKX Web3, Zulu Network and ChainCatcher, successfully held the "BTC Layer2 Assembly in HK" at the Hong Kong Centennial Building Fringe Club. The conference attracted many well-known Bitcoin native L2 solutions to participate, including Merlin Chain, BEVM, Bitlayer, BOB, B² Network, Nubit, etc. The conference was honored to invite OKX Web3 CIO Jason Lau, Hashkey Global MD Ben El-Baz and Bitcoin independent researcher Hong Shuning to discuss the development prospects of BTC L2.

Iris, co-founder of Orbiter Finance, pointed out in her opening remarks that we are moving towards a multi-chain era, with more and more blockchains being developed and deployed. With the rise of modular blockchains, general rollups, and application chains, the number and diversity of blockchains are growing rapidly, and the need for multi-chain real-time communication and breaking down barriers to inter-chain interactions is becoming increasingly urgent, which is exactly the underlying infrastructure problem that Orbiter is committed to solving.

2023 is an important year for Ethereum Layer 2. More than 20 Ethereum Layer 2 public chains have been successfully launched, and Layer 2 expansion solutions have been widely recognized. At the same time, the fragmentation of users and liquidity brought by many second layers has gradually become prominent. As one of the best interoperability solutions for the Ethereum network, Orbiter has processed more than US$17 billion in funds and 21 million transactions through the Orbiter bridge and the upcoming Vizing. It occupies a leading position in the cross-chain Layer 2 bridging field, with more than half of the market share, and has access to more than 20 Ethereum Layer 2 solutions, including mature networks such as Arbitrum, Polygon, Optimism, zkSync Era, and quickly integrated newly launched L2 networks such as Blast, Morph, Taiko, Zircuit, Mode Network, etc., which largely solves the problem of Ethereum L2 liquidity fragmentation. As an important infrastructure of Ethereum, it provides efficient one-stop cross-chain data communication services for more than 3 million users worldwide.

The success of Ethereum Layer 2 has inspired BTC ecosystem builders, who also hope to achieve capacity expansion by building a second-layer network to unleash the potential of Bitcoin. After all, Bitcoin, as the cornerstone of the entire crypto industry, is currently only seen as a value storage tool, and the BTC network needs to further empower the ecosystem so that the concept of Bitcoin can truly land and be popularized on a large scale.

Therefore, Bitcoin's second-layer network has shown explosive growth since the end of 2023. As Merlin co-founder Jeff said, Bitcoin's second-layer network is undoubtedly one of the most important tracks in the current and future bull markets - whether considering the prosperity of the Ordinals protocol and BTC new assets, or the foreseeable market explosion in the future.

Orbiter is replicating its successful experience and advanced technology on Ethereum to the Bitcoin network, enhancing the interoperability of the BTC second-layer network with other networks and providing support for the upcoming BTC second-layer track. By connecting to Orbiter Finance, the BTC second-layer network will be able to connect to multiple blockchains in other ecosystems. Developers in the Bitcoin and EVM ecosystems can seamlessly deploy their applications to chains supported by Orbiter, and BTC ecosystem users can also easily access numerous dApps in other ecosystems through Orbiter.

Gavin, co-founder of BEVM, said: "One of our goals is to allow BTC assets to circulate on any network. We can learn from the excellent technologies and principles of other blockchains to achieve expansion for BTC, such as from EVM to BVM. We bring BTC assets to networks such as Ethereum and Solana through full-chain message information management protocols such as LayerZero and Wormhole, because all blockchain technologies are essentially prepared for Bitcoin."

Zhixi, head of BOB ecosystem growth, and Xavier, head of Nubit growth, pointed out that for ecosystem builders, improving infrastructure is the key to attracting users and maintaining stickiness, and it also helps the prosperity and development of the ecosystem. Jordan, founder of Uxuy, emphasized the importance of the healthy interaction between the underlying technology and users and developers for the vitality of the ecosystem.

Finally, Iris pointed out that Orbiter has rapidly evolved from a single bridging business to an ecological infrastructure provider. By connecting to the BTC ecosystem, Orbiter has further realized this vision. At present, the speed of generating zkp aggregate signatures of Orbiter has reached once every 16 seconds. In the future, it will provide developers with a variety of full-chain APIs, and reduce the interaction threshold of users in the multi-chain era through the AA solution, becoming a true multi-chain real-time communication layer, connecting all networks and promoting the adoption of large-scale blockchains.

As an important participant in Hong Kong's Web3 power, Orbiter Finance is committed to building and exerting the influence of blockchain in Hong Kong. As the blockchain center of Asia, Hong Kong's geographical location, financial system and technological innovation atmosphere make it an ideal base for Orbiter. Orbiter will continue to expand its technology and ecosystem in Hong Kong, promote the popularization and application of blockchain, influence more people and stimulate innovation. Orbiter believes that through its efforts and investments in Hong Kong, it will bring positive impetus to the development of global blockchain and shape a more open and innovative future.