Since introducing the Ordinals protocol in January 2023, the Bitcoin ecosystem has seen a new narrative chapter. The protocol based on Ordinals' BRC20 quickly went viral, popularizing the concept of inscriptions and spawning ARC20, Stamps, and a host of other innovations that have renewed interest in the growth and possibilities of the Bitcoin ecosystem.

With the bitcoin ecosystem of various protocols and application attempts continuing to emerge, the recent online new asset issuance protocol Runes (runes) protocol quickly attracted widespread attention in the market, as Ordinals protocol creator Casey's other masterpiece, Runes, whether it will replace the BRC20, the following briefly talk about a little bit of my personal opinion.

First of all, we need to understand what is Ordinals, BRC20, and Runes:

Ordinals: First proposed by its founder Casey Rodarmor in late 2012, Ordinals is a system for numbering the smallest unit of BTC - Satoshi (sats); by assigning an ordinal unique identity to the smallest unit of measurement in Bitcoin, Satoshi, and attaching additional data (images, videos, text, etc.) to Satoshi, making each Satoshi unique and thus having the properties of an NFT. This process of attaching data is called inscribing, and the part of the data that is implanted is called the inscription, whether it is in the form of tokens or other inscriptions in the form of inscribed text, images, audio, and video, etc., it can be called a Bitcoin inscription.

BRC20: An asset issuance protocol based on Ordinals that specifies, in a specific data specification format, the name of the tokens, the total number of tokens, and the number of tokens to be minted per inscription; this data is written into Satoshi to enable the deployment, minting, and transfer of tokens.

Runes: Casey Rodarmor's re-built asset issuance protocol after the release of the Ordinals scheme. Casey designed the protocol to reduce the burden that BRC20 places on Bitcoin nodes, and Casey has claimed that the Runes protocol is superior and more concise than the experimental BRC-20. The Runes protocol was designed to reduce the burden on Bitcoin nodes that BRC20 places on Bitcoin nodes.

After a brief introduction to the underlying concepts, the following article will set aside the technical details and elaborate on why individuals will be more optimistic about the BRC20 inscription only from the dimensions of decentralization, fair issuance, and community consensus.

I. Embracing Bitcoin's Decentralized Spirit

Since its birth, Bitcoin has set up the standard of decentralization, fairness, and openness. Satoshi Nakamoto created Bitcoin with the intention of building a peer-to-peer electronic currency system that does not need to be regulated by a centralized institution and in which everyone can participate equally. This philosophy has shaped Bitcoin and the entire cryptocurrency field, and the BRC20 protocol is a faithful successor to this spirit.

The most important feature of the BRC20 protocol lies in its fair issuance mechanism. Here, there is no pre-excavation, no institutional quota, no team reservation, and everyone is on the same starting line. Whether it's ordinary retail investors or project parties, they must pay the same Gas fee to participate in the casting, and if the dealer wants to dominate a specific BRC20 project, he must invest a lot of time and money to collect chips and this mechanism effectively prevents market manipulation and monopolization and ensures the fairness of the asset issuance.

On the contrary, Runes tend to give more control to project parties. Rune deployers can set restrictions on rune minting addresses and reserve a certain minting share for themselves, which makes the distribution and value of tokens largely depend on the pattern and integrity of the project parties.

Therefore, from the perspective of decentralization and fair distribution, BRC20 is closer to the original concept of Satoshi Nakamoto's establishment of Bitcoin, and it is precisely this design concept of equality for all that has allowed BRC20 to quickly attract a large number of fans.

II. Community-Driven, Fostering Consensus

Community-driven is a key factor in the rise of BRC20. Whether or not a project can gain a wide community following directly determines whether or not it can form enough consensus to unleash the power of endogenous growth. Although most of the projects have remained at the meme concept level, it is the extensive community support and promotion that has spawned countless myths of riches, which fully demonstrates the value of the power of community consensus.

Whether it's the early well-known ORDI, Sats, Rats, or the recently flourishing PUPS, WZRD, and other projects, all of them gained breakthroughs by virtue of the spontaneous formation of community publicity and participation. All of these communities were built from the bottom up, not manipulated by any single force, truly embodying the concept of decentralization and following the autonomous will of the community.

Among the many community-driven inscriptions, Piin is undoubtedly an outstanding representative of the BRC20 protocol's community appeal, deployed by the Pi community, which has 55 million miners, to unleash the powerful consensus energy of the Pi community and launch a grassroots social practice movement with the help of inscriptions and the unification of users from various circles. With such a solid user base, Piin has attracted widespread attention both inside and outside the community since its launch. Today, more than 30,000 global users have joined the Piin community, with more than 12,800 coin-holding addresses, and the total transaction volume ranks among the top of the inscriptions, which shows that its role as a community-led grassroots movement has begun to bear fruit.

In terms of community building, Piin's community members not only come from all over the world but also span multiple circles, reflecting a high degree of inclusiveness. Driven by its self-organized volunteer groups, Piin has been able to spread through various channels and attract newcomers, creating an active and diverse community ecology. The unique value proposition and development vision behind this Meme, which was nurtured by grassroots power, also proves the strong potential of the BRC20 agreement to carry community consensus and inspire grassroots power.

For projects like Piin, which is rooted in the grassroots and contains a unique development vision, BRC20 provides the most suitable track for it to maximize its endogenous growth momentum. So, while the future direction of tracks such as BRC20 is unpredictable, what is certain is that winning communities wins everything. This is exactly why memes are so hot - they originate from the genuine love of users and rise gradually from the underlying community.

III. Viral Spread: The Core of Memes

The core of Memes is viral communication, and the key to viral communication is simple, straightforward, and interesting. BRC20's four-character asset name has a unique advantage in this regard.

The deployment of Runes asset names has been restricted, with the top line stating that only 13 - 26 character asset names can be deployed and that asset names with 12 or fewer characters will be progressively unlocked, with the unlocking set to take place after every 17,500 blocks (roughly 120 days, i.e., four months) before shorter one-digit names can be deployed, so if you want to mint four character tokens, you will have to wait for three years. Time. Z-Z-Z-FEHU-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z", which is obscure and difficult to understand for the Chinese community who is not good at English. Which are obscure and difficult to understand for Chinese communities that do not speak English well, making it difficult to go viral.

In contrast, the BRC20 inscription's 4-character name is simple and easy to remember, but it has been deployed first, giving it a first-mover advantage. Imagine, like "Ordi (Ordi)" and "Rats (Rats)," such easy to spread the name, the public will be able to forget, but I am afraid that it will be challenging to achieve the same effect long rune names.

Meme-sized names are easy to remember and share and trigger an emotional connection, which in turn triggers a fission in social networks.

It can be said that the uniqueness of the BRC20 inscription's name design has greatly contributed to its viral spreading effect. This bottom-up meme-spreading advantage is precisely the key to BRC20's ability to quickly attract eyeballs and gather popularity.

On the contrary, the many restrictions Runes set have undoubtedly become an insurmountable natural obstacle. The lengthy name is not only challenging to memorize and spread but also difficult to trigger resonance and discussion in the community. This disadvantage will undoubtedly affect its promotion effect in the Chinese area.

Therefore, from the perspective of Meme dissemination, BRC20 Inscription undoubtedly occupies a first-mover advantage. The simple and easy-to-remember 4-character name, as well as the Meme attributes derived from it, enable it to spread quickly in the community and attract more users' attention and participation. This ability to spread virally will be a significant weapon for BRC20 in future ecological competition.

IV. First-Mover Advantage, Continuous Innovation

As the earliest asset issuance protocol in the Bitcoin ecosystem, BRC20 has achieved a clear first-mover advantage in ecological construction. As mentioned above, BRC20 has formed a thriving cluster of projects, with star projects such as Sats and Rats emerging. This network effect has laid a solid foundation for its further development.

Meanwhile, BRC20 still has huge room for upgrading on the technical level. The latest update not only supports the 5-character asset name but also supports 'self-issuance,' which means that the project side deploys a handful of hits by itself and the burning mechanism. In the short term, these several updates of BRC-20 are more conducive to the formation of hype compared with Runes; on the one hand, it facilitates the centralized issuance of the project side, and Runes has this level of competitiveness, and it also enables the old project side to come up with some deflationary plays to stimulate the performance of the market. It can be foreseen that these innovations will activate more plays, and inject a new growth impetus for BRC20.

V. Conclusion

Admittedly, Runes has made some useful technological attempts (although this article does not cover this aspect; interested partners can search for related articles) and has attracted too much attention in the near future, temporarily flameouting the BRC20 market. However, these optimizations are still difficult to shake the BRC20 leading position.

The current crypto market is in a constant state of exploration and development, with various new ideas and models emerging, most of which have yet to form a clear collective consensus. In this context, each protocol is trying to shape its narrative and attract users and developers who share its philosophy. This situation of a hundred flowers blossoming and a hundred schools of thought competing is not bad for the industry as a whole. Only through full exploration and competition can a new consensus emerge and drive the industry toward maturity.

To quote Twitter user CM, "What we can do is to find a suitable track for ourselves at this stage, not to delude ourselves into thinking that we can make all the money in the market, and then save up enough bullets to meet the next super narrative of collective consensus."

Standing at this point, the author is more optimistic about BRC20; it is this kind of agreement rooted in the principle of decentralization and adherence to fair distribution to obtain the long-term support and trust of the community, which is also the core competitiveness of BRC20, and also the fundamental reason why it is difficult to be surpassed.