241223 Merlin Monday

This is a text playback of the Merlin Monday livestream from December 23, 2024. You can watch the original video HERE.

TL;DR

  • Gas Issue Resolution:

    • Dealing with Gas has been a common concern in Merlin Community FAQs, meme-related activities and bot campaigns.

    • Solution: Auto-airdrop gas for 5–15 transactions when withdrawing MERL to on-chain addresses (Metamask, Unisat, XVerse, etc.).

  • BTC.Fun Updates:

    • Public testing completed; next phase coming soon.

    • New Features:

      • Token creation and rewards (in stablecoins).

      • Special community group for token holders.

      • Livestreams for meme creation and updates.

    • Marketing: 10+ campaigns to incentivize creators and traders.

  • Timon Updates:

    • Stats: 2M users, No.1 trending DApp on Telegram.

    • Upcoming Campaign (Wed): Whitelist for top users, 1 free Bitcoin for yield farming.

  • The Future of BitcoinOS & Virtual Machine (BitVM):

    • BitcoinOS & VM can reduce trust reliance and boost confidence in Bitcoin apps.
  • Final Thoughts (2024 and Beyond):

    • Merlin Chain has bridged $23B with zero scaling issues, despite challenges.

    • Focus on innovation,BTCFi,Meme-related, and securing mass adoption.

Q: What's happening with Merlin Chain? What are the latest updates? Also, could you touch on BTC.Fun and what its future might look like?

Jeff: So, we’re basically preparing everything for these future dApps, and there have been a lot of updates to the apps. I don't have a script or anything; I just speak off the top of my head. But one important thing to note is that people are often unfamiliar with the concept of gas, especially in the BTC ecosystem. Whether you're from Bitcoin Layer 1 or another chain, when it comes to Merlin, you don’t need to worry about gas.

People coming from other chains might have some MERL tokens, but they still don’t understand how gas works or how they can bridge Bitcoin and use it for transactions. This has always been a pain point for everyone involved. But I believe a significant update will address this.

From now on, if you withdraw MERL tokens from an exchange to any on-chain address—whether it's a Metamask wallet, Unisat wallet, XVerse, or any other—our protocol will automatically airdrop enough gas to cover 5 to 15 transactions. You won’t have to worry about gas anymore. If you need more, you can simply go to MerlinSwap and use MERL tokens and swap BTC.

I genuinely believe this update will solve a lot of issues. It’s a permanent solution, not a short-term campaign. This will be available indefinitely unless we find that someone is trying to exploit the system or attack the network, which is unlikely.

This idea came to me after thinking long and hard about how to solve this issue. We’ve had meetings with the team about it for quite a while, and I think this airdrop system will fix the problem once and for all.

This will also be great news for BTC.Fun because many people use bots to trade—whether it’s for RushMeme, PinkPunk, UniversalX, or UXUY. Every one of these platforms has run campaigns where they offer gas for deposits of MERL within 24 hours, which has also been a pain point.

There’s a lot of manual effort involved in checking whether someone is a bot or not. This highlights the need for gas to trade, especially for memes and related activities. I believe this update will solve that problem for them as well.

As for BTC.Fun, I believe they had a public testing session earlier today, around three hours ago (Asian time). I haven’t read the full report yet, but I expect that most of the activities went well. It was an internal test with hundreds of community members, and that phase is now complete. So, you can expect this to roll out very soon—when I say "very soon," I mean it, because everything has already been tested on the mainnet.

Timon and the team at Telegram had some great news last week. They now have over 2 million users and their app has become the No.1 trending DApp on Telegram, according to Telegram's official rankings. This is a major achievement for Bitcoin-related apps and demonstrates significant traction, showing that people are genuinely interested.

Their first campaign with Party has concluded, and users will soon receive an airdrop of Party tokens. This airdrop will be much easier to claim because it will be directly deposited into your centralized exchange account. You won’t have to worry about gas fees or anything else—it will simply be deposited into your account, where you can buy, sell, or do whatever you wish.

Additionally, Timon’s team is launching a huge campaign starting this Wednesday, just two days from now. They will offer a whitelist for high-level users to access new features first. Everyone will receive one free Bitcoin to use for farming and other activities. This is a great opportunity for users who might not have enough Bitcoin for such activities.

In the past, if you had one Bitcoin on a native network, you might have been hesitant to bridge it to a different chain for farming due to the high cost—it’s nearly $100,000 right now, which is a significant amount. People were reluctant to take that risk. But with this free Bitcoin, users can experiment with BTCFi without the fear of losing their investment.

I think this initiative will gradually educate the market about BTCFi. We've been talking about it for so long, yet very few people have actually tried it. As bullish as I am on BTCFi, I have to admit that not enough people have given it a shot. Bitcoin is precious, and many are hesitant to risk their holdings for DeFi yields, even if they’re as high as 10-20%.

That’s all I have on my mind right now, but there are definitely many exciting developments ahead.

Q: When you mention receiving a full Bitcoin, could you clarify what that means exactly? Some people might assume it’s worth $300,000, so how does that work in practice?

Jeff: Basically, there are four key parties involved. First, retail users like us want to participate in BTCFi but either don’t have enough Bitcoin or don’t want to risk losing it. Second, DeFi projects such as StarkNet, BeraChain, and others, while having Ethereum and stablecoins, are seeking Bitcoin liquidity and offer substantial incentives for users to bridge their Bitcoin into their ecosystems. Third, there are the whales, who hold tens of thousands of Bitcoins but don’t have the time or inclination to study different protocols, bridge, farm, or find the highest incentives. Lastly, Timon acts as the gateway for all these parties, facilitating the process. Whales can deposit their Bitcoin into the vault, which is now live and accessible for users to claim and use for farming.

The entire process is secured by Timon Guardian, which employs NPC solutions and multiple risk management protocols to ensure the safety of funds. As we all know, the loss of money can be devastating, especially for the wealthy. Timon takes this seriously and uses advanced NPC technology to guarantee the security of the entire DeFi farming process. While some in the Bitcoin community are not fond of multi-sig solutions, the NPC method is highly sophisticated and reliable.

With this setup, users retain the freedom to choose their preferred protocols. For example, they can decide which farming strategies they favor, whether they prefer one project over another, or which lending platform they want to use. Ultimately, a profit-sharing system will be implemented, allowing users to earn rewards based on their participation. The best part is, everything they farm and share is essentially "free money."

Q: Jeff, could you clarify if the goal is to accumulate points through the daily tasks, and once you reach a certain point level, you qualify to receive the one Bitcoin for staking? Is that how it works?

Jeff: The first campaign was for Party, where people were intensely farming points. In fact, they ranked 25th or 26th in revenue on Telegram because users were spending money to farm points for the initial Party campaign. The high expectations surrounding it contributed to this activity. When you enter the game and click on the diamond scratch, you’ll find two options: the golden scratch and the diamond scratch. They’ve already given away over $5200,000 in prizes. The chances of winning are relatively high, and even with a smaller stake of $10 or $45, you’ll accumulate a lot of points. Many users believe that spending $100 in the game could result in $200 to $3,000 worth of rewards from Party. This expectation has driven intense point farming during the first two-week campaign. Additionally, the top 1,000 users will receive a whitelist for the upcoming BTCFi campaign.

Q: What would I look at in terms of being able to qualify for that like yield utilizing that bitcoin? How would I research that on this app?

Jeff: Oh, it hasn’t been released yet. It’s scheduled for release on Wednesday, and it will initially be available to a whitelist of users. For the first month, the whitelist will be exclusive to the most loyal users, but after that, it will become public. The reason for this is that the first campaign involves a significant amount of Bitcoin, and they’re cautious about the risks. If 2 million users with Bitcoin join, it could create complications. So for the first month, only around 1,000 users who are truly loyal and active will have access.

Some people in the Chinese community, won a Mac, or already talking about the $1,000 limit, and we see these discussions daily.

Q: What’s the latest update on BTC.Fun? A lot of people are interested in launching their own tokens there. Could you share more details on that?

Jeff: The function is fully tested and we're just awaiting the final answer. Regarding the marketing plan, we had a meeting today with over 10 campaigns in the pipeline. These campaigns are designed to incentivize both creators and traders, so it's important to stay tuned for updates.

For example, if you successfully create a token—meaning it gets minted—you'll earn significant rewards. This encourages people to launch new tokens, build communities, and establish successful projects.

As for Party, it has been performing well after two weeks. The transaction volume and trading numbers are both high, and they're currently running an LP campaign with a liquidity pool of around $1.2 million. I expect this number to double in the coming days.

There are also some exciting updates in the works. I attended their next version meeting and learned that if you hold a token in your wallet, you'll be part of a special BTC.Fun community group. This feature allows users to connect with others who own the same token, enabling discussions and the sharing of news across social media.

Additionally, they'll be introducing livestream functionality. I might even be part of the livestreams, creating new memes, interacting with people, and sharing updates on camera. This will be an engaging experience for the community, as you'll be able to see the person behind the token creation.

Overall, the first version of the platform is fully tested, and we're just waiting for the right timing to launch. I expect it to be live in 2024.

Q: That’s exciting! It sounds like launching a BRC20 on BTC.Fun and getting it fully minted out comes with significant rewards for a successful launch. Could you share more details about the rewards and how it could incentivize more token launches?

Jeff: The reward will be in stablecoins, not in MERL tokens. We want to keep it simple and avoid the need to sell the tokens. We also don't plan to reward in Bitcoin. Instead, we’ve set aside a seven-digit amount in stablecoins for the first month to reward those who create and mint new tokens.

Q: Is it gonna be tiered? You know, like, for example, if like one has like this much liquidity that comes over, then you get like a percentage of it or would it just be like everybody?

Jeff: The reward will be a percentage. For example, if you create a token that requires 20 million MERL tokens, basically you could become a millionaire after successfully launching it. People will explore different ways to launch a token and gain traction, but as long as the launch is successful, you’ll be able to earn substantial rewards without needing to do any additional work. It’s an automated process—once the token is launched successfully, the reward will be credited to your wallet. You won’t need to contact anyone; the funds will be deposited directly, and you can easily transfer them to an exchange.

Q: What is your opinion on how something like Bitcoin OS or a Bitcoin virtual machine could improve the end-user experience?

Jeff: Starting with the introduction of the BVM concept last year, it drew attention to Bitcoin, as it raised the question: If all these transactions can be verified on Bitcoin, why do we need other chains or external tools? Bitcoin is already the purest chain, and this is why people continue building around it—it represents the holy grail for developers.

Secondly, after reviewing the materials and code over the past six months, we are confident that the BVM can be realized. From every angle, it is achievable. It just requires more time, similar to how the EVM and ZK rollups took 3-5 years to develop. But it can be done.

Answering your question directly, I believe a Bitcoin Virtual Machine opens the door for people to fully trust DeFi, BTCFi, Layer 2s, and Layer 3 protocols on Bitcoin. Right now, many people still harbor doubts about the security and trustworthiness of their transactions. Even though Merlin has been bridging millions of Bitcoin since February, and billions of Bitcoin have been bridged out, it's still not trustless. We don’t want people to rely on trust alone; that burden falls on the builders.

Today, I’m still concerned about the risks of bridging projects getting hacked or encountering issues, which could undermine everyone’s confidence—not just in those specific projects but in Merlin and the broader ecosystem. A BitcoinOS or VM would provide a trustless solution, building greater confidence and offering a new narrative for users.

While I don’t think it will immediately change the user experience, it will certainly encourage more users to explore Bitcoin-based tools, BTCFi, and BTC DEX. This, in turn, will attract more small builders to the space, leading to better dApps, improved user experiences, and ultimately mass adoption.

Q: With Merlin Chain, you were working to improve the user experience, making it more familiar and accessible. However, despite this effort, we still haven't seen mass adoption—it's not just Merlin Chain, but also other projects like Stacks and Fractal. It seems like there's still a gap. So, did you guys go back to the drawing board to figure out how to drive adoption? And is BTC.Fun, along with the Telegram integration, part of this new strategy? Could you explain that a bit more?

Jeff: I think this is a fundamental issue with Web3. In Web2, if you had an idea that you believed would be popular in the future, you could bring together a group of people who shared your vision and build it step by step. For the first three years, I worked with two companies without achieving product-market fit, but no one panicked because we knew it was the future. We were seeing growth, new users every day, and steadily building towards something bigger.

In Web3, however, things work in cycles. From 2020 to 2023, we experienced a bull run, followed by a bear market, and during these cycles, certain trends gained massive attention—DeFi summer in 2020, NFTs, GameFi, and Metaverse in 2021. Everyone started building around those narratives. While I’m glad we had several narratives back then, this time it feels like there are fewer.

Building successful projects in this space is more about catching the right narrative at the right time. In the past, there were various verticals like NFTs, Metaverse, DeFi, and even forking Compound, and these saw significant success. But today, if you try to build something around GameFi, it will likely fail. Even teams that were hugely successful in the last cycle with a game like "Axie Infinity" or "StepN" saw their new projects fail this time around.

It’s not that teams are trying to create bad products; it’s that they are trying to catch the wrong narratives. Right now, the trend is more around memes and AI-based memes. If you want to succeed, you need to focus on something that’s trending, like memes, but ensure that it’s unique and different. The market is flooded with copycat ideas, so you have to stand out with a unique mechanism or narrative.

For us, while building a Metaverse on Bitcoin is not impossible, it’s very difficult given the current situation. That’s why we’re focusing on memes. Memes are what people are paying attention to right now, and if you do it well, you can ensure you’re among the top players in that space.

Before BTC memes, no one really cared about it. But after the launch of BTC account, we hope that users from other ecosystems will recognize the unique narrative behind BTC memes. This isn’t just about creating memes; it’s about building something secure on layer 1 with a strong narrative. For example, the recursive arts project was a great idea. If someone builds a project around recursive arts and it becomes successful, it could attract users from other ecosystems who have never seen art on-chain.

If we succeed with BTC.Fun, and someone builds a project around recursive arts that becomes successful, it could be a huge success for the entire Bitcoin ecosystem. This is why we believe in focusing on the right narratives, driving massive adoption, and achieving what we’re setting out to do.

Q: Is it possible to incorporate something like recursive art into a meme token, or integrate functionality within it that adds value or utility?

Jeff: That's why we always focus on Bitcoin-native narratives. We want to do something similar to Base or other chains that are progressing in that direction. As I mentioned earlier, you don’t realize how much pressure Bitcoin Layer 1 is under because it doesn’t allow the launch of ERC-20 tokens. So, if we don’t have enough Runes to launch on BTC.Fun, I guess they might eventually open the gate for ERC-20 tokens. To be honest, launching tokens is a challenge on Bitcoin Layer 1. With BTC.Fun, you have to wait for 6 blocks to get confirmation, then 2-3 more blocks to bridge to another chain, and finally launch. After about 10 blocks, most people have already gone to sleep and forgotten about it.

Q: But any final words for the audience, I guess, maybe to, you know, look forward to Merlin Chain for this next year?

Jeff: Looking back, we didn’t expect all of this. If we had a show around this time last year, I don’t think anyone would have anticipated what has happened with Merlin and the ecosystem this year. It’s been an exciting year full of challenges we hadn’t faced before. Right now, we’ve bridged $23 billion with zero scaling issues, but we’ve also had to deal with a lot of attacks. I can’t even describe how many attempts we’ve had. Even today, someone hacked into my friend's account to try and get to me. These aren't random hacks—they’re targeted. They hacked my friend's account, then reached out to me, trying to compromise my system.

Despite that, it’s been a great year, and we’ve had a lot of fun. As for next year, if we look back at our expectations from last year, I think it’s safe to say that the growth of certain projects, like Runes, didn’t meet the expectations we set. While this year has been good, it hasn’t been as massive as we anticipated for certain ecosystems and projects.

But I think next year, if we’re still around and still within this ecosystem, we’ll see more innovation. We should be united and focus on doing something different. All the unsuccessful projects are gone, and only a few have survived. For those of us who are still here—whether you’re a retail user, trader, builder, miner, or influencer—we’re the survivors. We need to come together and try new things, create something impactful, and prove all those who doubted Bitcoin and the ecosystem wrong. That’s my message for the future.

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