比特币减半推动创新和投资，DeFi 兴起

在最近的比特币减半期间，区块链见证了重大进步，推出了旨在吸引开发人员加入其网络的创新编程功能。从历史上看，以太坊和 Solana 等竞争对手的链由于其内置的智能合约，在功能上已经超越了比特币。然而，最近的减半后升级使比特币上的 DeFi 成为现实，引起了程序员和风险投资投资者的关注。

The Bitcoin Halving: A Turning Point for Innovation and Investment

比特币减半：创新和投资的转折点

As the highly anticipated Bitcoin halving event transpired, the blockchain witnessed a confluence of groundbreaking developments designed to attract an influx of developers to the network. For years, rival blockchains such as Ethereum and Solana have challenged Bitcoin's functional prowess, boasting natively integrated smart contracts within their base chains. However, recent enhancements introduced in the wake of the halving have transformed decentralized finance (DeFi) on Bitcoin into a scalable reality, captivating coders as Bitcoin's market capitalization soars past $1.3 trillion.

随着备受期待的比特币减半事件的发生，区块链见证了旨在吸引大量开发人员涌入网络的突破性发展的融合。多年来，以太坊和 Solana 等竞争对手的区块链一直在挑战比特币的功能实力，并在其基础链中拥有原生集成的智能合约。然而，减半后推出的最新增强功能已将比特币上的去中心化金融 (DeFi) 转变为可扩展的现实，随着比特币市值飙升至超过 1.3 万亿美元，吸引了编码人员。

In the heart of Silicon Valley, 17 programmers working for Magic Eden, a renowned marketplace for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) known as ordinals, gathered in a sprawling rented house. Their mission: to dedicate a week to coding in preparation for the Bitcoin halving, an event embedded in the blockchain's code to curb inflation through programmatic monetary policy.

在硅谷的中心地带，Magic Eden 是一个著名的不可替代代币 (NFT) 市场，被称为序号，17 名程序员聚集在一间宽敞的租来的房子里。他们的使命：用一周的时间进行编码，为比特币减半做准备，比特币减半是嵌入区块链代码中的事件，旨在通过程序性货币政策抑制通货膨胀。

While much of the hype surrounding the halving, which occurs approximately every four years, centered on the impending reduction in the issuance of new coins, the block that triggered the halving also coincided with several other significant blockchain launches. These included cutting-edge programming innovations that promise to attract both a surge of coders and a substantial inflow of venture capital into the Bitcoin ecosystem.

虽然围绕大约每四年发生一次的减半的大部分炒作都集中在即将减少的新代币发行量上，但触发减半的区块也与其他几个重要的区块链发布同时发生。其中包括尖端的编程创新，这些创新有望吸引大批程序员和大量风险资本流入比特币生态系统。

In contrast to previous halving events, the world's largest cryptocurrency reached an unprecedented all-time high above $73,000 in March, driven by a surge of capital flowing into the Bitcoin ecosystem via newly launched spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the United States.

与之前的减半事件相比，由于美国新推出的现货比特币交易所交易基金（ETF）流入比特币生态系统的资金激增，全球最大的加密货币在 3 月份达到了前所未有的历史新高，突破了 73,000 美元。

"Bitcoin has never been healthier – what was missing previously was a vibrant developer ecosystem on top," asserted Zedd Yin, Magic Eden's co-founder and chief operating officer.

Magic Eden 联合创始人兼首席运营官 Zedd Yin 表示：“比特币从未如此健康过，之前缺少的是一个充满活力的开发者生态系统。”

Amidst the coding frenzy, some Magic Eden programmers took brief respites to indulge in arcade games. The pop-up hacker house, while modest in scale, provided a few creature comforts to sustain the team throughout the week. These included Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Street Fighter-themed arcade machines in the living room, complemented by a makeshift open bar on a collapsible plastic table in the dining room.

在编码狂潮中，一些 Magic Eden 程序员短暂休息一下，沉迷于街机游戏。弹出式黑客之家虽然规模不大，但提供了一些物质享受来维持团队一周的生活。其中包括客厅里的忍者神龟和街头霸王主题的街机，以及餐厅可折叠塑料桌上的临时开放式酒吧。

The engineers embarked on the hackathon with a clear understanding of their objectives. In the days leading up to the halving, Yin, 33, assembled his team under one roof in Northern California with a singular goal: to code and launch the definitive marketplace for a new wave of digital products emerging on Bitcoin's blockchain. On Monday morning, Magic Eden's Runes Platform went live, solidifying its position as the preferred platform for trading these novel Bitcoin offerings.

工程师们在清楚地了解自己的目标的情况下开始了黑客马拉松。在减半之前的几天里，33 岁的 Yin 将他的团队聚集在北加州的一个屋檐下，只有一个目标：为比特币区块链上出现的新一波数字产品编写代码并推出最终市场。周一早上，Magic Eden 的 Runes 平台上线，巩固了其作为交易这些新颖的比特币产品的首选平台的地位。

For years, rival chains like Ethereum and Solana have challenged Bitcoin's functionality, as both incorporate smart contracts, programmable pieces of code, directly into their base chains. This has been a primary reason why developers worldwide have flocked to these blockchains to build applications.

多年来，以太坊和 Solana 等竞争对手链一直在挑战比特币的功能，因为两者都将智能合约、可编程代码片段直接纳入其基础链中。这是世界各地的开发人员纷纷涌向这些区块链来构建应用程序的主要原因。

Enter Casey Rodarmor, a prominent Bitcoin coder who shattered this dynamic last year with the introduction of Bitcoin's version of NFTs, known as ordinals. Developers subsequently leveraged ordinals as a foundation for Bitcoin-issued coins called BRC-20 tokens. The launch was initially met with muted fanfare but ultimately garnered Rodarmor immense acclaim.

凯西·罗达莫 (Casey Rodarmor) 是一位著名的比特币编码员，他去年推出了比特币版本的 NFT（称为序数），打破了这一动态。开发人员随后利用序数作为比特币发行的代币（称为 BRC-20 代币）的基础。此次发布最初引起了热烈的关注，但最终为 Rodarmor 赢得了巨大的赞誉。

Late on Friday night, coinciding with the precise moment of the Bitcoin halving, Rodarmor unveiled his latest creation, runes, which essentially represents a superior and more efficient version of BRC-20 tokens.

周五深夜，恰逢比特币减半的时刻，Rodarmor 推出了他的最新作品 Runes，它本质上代表了 BRC-20 代币的高级且更高效的版本。

"People really respect Casey and think that he sort of captured lightning in a bottle," said Nic Carter of Castle Island Ventures. "And so there's very high expectations for runes as well."

Castle Island Ventures 的尼克·卡特 (Nic Carter) 表示：“人们真的很尊重凯西，认为他在瓶子里捕捉到了闪电。” “所以人们对符文也抱有很高的期望。”

Technically, runes enable asset issuance of fungible tokens directly on Bitcoin's base chain. These assets could encompass stablecoins, memecoins, or any other type of fungible token.

从技术上讲，符文可以直接在比特币的基础链上发行可替代代币的资产。这些资产可能包括稳定币、模因币或任何其他类型的可替代代币。

The significance of runes for developers lies in their efficiency compared to existing BRC-20 tokens, Bitcoin's widely adopted fungible token standard that has already gained significant traction. Establishing a universally accepted token standard is considered crucial for unlocking the scalability of decentralized finance on Bitcoin. Decentralized finance, or DeFi, is a parallel banking system that eliminates intermediaries such as lawyers and banks, relying instead on code for enforcement.

符文对开发人员的重要性在于其与现有 BRC-20 代币相比的效率，BRC-20 是比特币广泛采用的可替代代币标准，已经获得了巨大的关注。建立普遍接受的代币标准被认为对于释放比特币去中心化金融的可扩展性至关重要。去中心化金融（DeFi）是一种平行银行系统，消除了律师和银行等中介机构，而是依靠代码来执行。

"Fungible tokens are a significant part of every meaningful ecosystem like solana and ethereum, so runes is an important step in the evolution of bitcoin," said Yin, who previously led institutional trading product development at Coinbase.

“可替代代币是 solana 和以太坊等每个有意义的生态系统的重要组成部分，因此符文是比特币进化的重要一步，”曾在 Coinbase 负责机构交易产品开发的 Yin 表示。

Bill Barhydt, the CEO of Abra, a company that offers a suite of services to miners, including auto liquidations, and possesses access to industry-wide macro data, posits that Bitcoin cannot scale 100% on-chain via its own layer one. This impediment stems from the absence of built-in smart contract capabilities within Bitcoin's blockchain, which are essential for replicating the banking stack of blockchains like Ethereum or Solana.

Abra 是一家为矿工提供包括自动清算在内的一系列服务的公司，其首席执行官 Bill Barhydt 认为，比特币无法通过其自己的第一层在链上实现 100% 的扩容。这一障碍源于比特币区块链内缺乏内置智能合约功能，而这对于复制以太坊或 Solana 等区块链银行堆栈至关重要。

"BRC-20 tokens and ordinals, its successor runes, sidechains such as stacks, and DeFi on bitcoin are all showing strong promise in user adoption which stands to dramatically increase the demand for bitcoin block space and adoption, which I believe will create a positive feedback loop further driving bitcoin price gains in the coming years," Barhydt said. "It's truly remarkable the level of new development work happening around bitcoin," he added.

“BRC-20 代币和序号、其后继符文、堆栈等侧链以及比特币上的 DeFi 都在用户采用方面表现出了强大的前景，这将大大增加对比特币区块空间和采用的需求，我相信这将创造积极的影响反馈循环将在未来几年进一步推动比特币价格上涨，”Barhydt 说道。 “围绕比特币进行的新开发工作的水平确实令人瞩目，”他补充道。

Venture investors echo these sentiments.

风险投资者也赞同这些观点。

"I've never seen deal pacing move this aggressively in the bitcoin space in my entire career," Carter tells CNBC.

卡特告诉 CNBC：“在我的整个职业生涯中，我从未见过比特币领域的交易节奏如此剧烈。”

Surging Interest in Bitcoin Layer Two

对比特币第二层的兴趣高涨

Indeed, the appetite of venture capital firms for these layer two Bitcoin projects has witnessed a marked uptick in recent months.

事实上，近几个月来，风险投资公司对这些第二层比特币项目的兴趣明显上升。

PitchBook indicates that the final quarter of 2023 was the first time in nearly two years that deal value in the crypto sector had increased, reaching $1.9 billion – a 2.5% increase from the previous quarter. While still a far cry from the $31 billion high recorded in 2021, funds are gradually rebuilding their interest and trust in the space.

PitchBook 表示，2023 年最后一个季度加密货币领域的交易价值近两年来首次增长，达到 19 亿美元，较上一季度增长 2.5%。尽管距离 2021 年创下的 310 亿美元高点仍有很大差距，但基金正在逐渐重建对该领域的兴趣和信任。

"There's definitely been an awakening of capital interest in the bitcoin layer two space," said Muneeb Ali, co-founder of Stacks – an open-source blockchain network that brings smart contracts to Bitcoin.

Stacks 的联合创始人 Muneeb Ali 表示：“资本对比特币第二层领域的兴趣肯定已经觉醒。Stacks 是一个为比特币带来智能合约的开源区块链网络。”

Stacks operates as a separate chain from Bitcoin, but the two can interoperate. The project also launched an upgrade at the time of the halving block, reducing transaction time to five seconds, significantly faster than the 10 to 30 minute block times associated with Bitcoin's base chain.

Stacks 作为与比特币分开的链运行，但两者可以互操作。该项目还在区块减半时启动了升级，将交易时间缩短至五秒，明显快于比特币基础链相关的 10 至 30 分钟的区块时间。

"Having so much VC interest just cements that the bitcoin ecosystem is primed to grow," said Ali, noting that the pace of projects launching on Bitcoin has also accelerated in the past six months, from a handful of live projects to over 50.

Ali 表示：“如此多的风险投资兴趣巩固了比特币生态系统的发展势头。”他指出，过去六个月里，比特币项目的启动速度也有所加快，从少数几个活跃项目增加到 50 多个。

A recent report published by Austin-based venture capital firm Trammell Venture Partners revealed that the Bitcoin startup sector experienced a breakout year at the pre-seed stage, with a notable 360% year-over-year surge in transaction count.

总部位于奥斯汀的风险投资公司 Trammell Venture Partners 最近发布的一份报告显示，比特币初创行业在种子期前经历了突破性的一年，交易数量同比大幅增长 360%。

"Founders really want to be building on bitcoin specifically," said Christopher Calicott, the fund's managing director and founding partner, regarding the study's findings.

该基金董事总经理兼创始合伙人克里斯托弗·卡利科特(Christopher Calicott)在谈到该研究结果时表示：“创始人确实希望专门以比特币为基础。”

The report further indicated that early-stage, Bitcoin-native startups raised just under $1 billion from 2021 through 2023.

该报告进一步表明，从 2021 年到 2023 年，早期阶段的比特币原生初创公司筹集了近 10 亿美元。

Alpen Labs, for instance, a layer two project introducing cutting-edge scaling technology known as zero-knowledge proofs to Bitcoin, recently emerged from stealth mode with Ribbit Capital leading a $10.6 million funding round. Another prominent layer two solution, dubbed "Build on Bitcoin" or BOB, has secured $10 million in seed funding.

例如，Alpen Labs 的第二层项目引入了被称为比特币零知识证明的尖端扩容技术，该项目最近从隐形模式中脱颖而出，由 Ribbit Capital 领投，领投了一轮 1060 万美元的融资。另一个著名的第二层解决方案被称为“基于比特币构建”或 BOB，已获得 1000 万美元的种子资金。

"Ordinals, BRC-20s and other innovations that came about in 2023 really helped build momentum ahead of the halving," Ali said. "They made bitcoin fun again for developers and showed that users will favor NFTs, assets, and apps on bitcoin if given the opportunity."

“Ordinals、BRC-20 和 2023 年出现的其他创新确实有助于在减半之前建立动力，”阿里说。 “他们让比特币再次为开发者带来乐趣，并表明如果有机会，用户将青睐比特币上的 NFT、资产和应用程序。”

DeFi on Bitcoin Rails

比特币轨道上的 DeFi

For years, developers have endeavored to incorporate additional functionality into Bitcoin's base chain. Barhydt tells CNBC that demand for DeFi – especially yield and lending – is a key driver of crypto adoption.

多年来，开发人员一直致力于将额外的功能纳入比特币的基础链中。 Barhydt 告诉 CNBC，对 DeFi 的需求——尤其是收益率和贷款——是加密货币采用的关键驱动力。

Sidechains like Stacks, for instance, have been diligent in their efforts to introduce the speed and competitive transaction costs of Solana-like rails into the Bitcoin ecosystem, aiming to decongest the main chain and enable the overall Bitcoin economy to scale.

例如，像 Stacks 这样的侧链一直在努力将类似 Solana 的轨道的速度和有竞争力的交易成本引入比特币生态系统，旨在缓解主链的拥塞并使整个比特币经济规模化。

With runes, these existing projects have acquired a new tool for growth, as it empowers them to potentially integrate with a native, lightweight token system on the main Bitcoin chain rather than having to establish their own independent token environment.

借助符文，这些现有项目获得了新的增长工具，因为它使它们能够与比特币主链上的原生轻量级代币系统集成，而不必建立自己的独立代币环境。

"Runes presents an efficient system for creating and managing fungible tokens directly on bitcoin in a way that reduces blockchain bloat and improves scalability compared to other token standards," said Hong Fang, president of crypto exchange OKX. "This has major implications for layer two solutions and sidechains that are working to scale bitcoin," added Fang, who previously spent almost a decade at Goldman Sachs.

加密货币交易所 OKX 总裁 Hong Fang 表示：“Runes 提供了一种直接在比特币上创建和管理可替代代币的高效系统，与其他代币标准相比，可以减少区块链膨胀并提高可扩展性。” “这对致力于扩展比特币规模的第二层解决方案和侧链具有重大影响，”之前在高盛工作了近十年的 Fang 补充道。

Stacks's Ali dubs the post-halving environment "bitcoin season two."

Stacks 的阿里将减半后的环境称为“比特币第二季”。

"Season two is all about the return of builders to bitcoin. Users are finally separating bitcoin the asset from Bitcoin, as the rails," he said.

“第二季的主题是开发者回归比特币。用户最终将比特币作为资产与比特币分开，作为轨道，”他说。

For Yin and his team, one other significant takeaway from the runes hackathon was the need for enhanced due diligence when selecting Airbnb properties.

对于 Yin 和他的团队来说，符文黑客马拉松的另一个重要收获是在选择 Airbnb 房产时需要加强尽职调查。

The team encountered an inoperable outdoor gas fireplace that emitted a persistent odor of gas throughout the week, the rental's WiFi was inoperable for the entire first day, and several individuals contracted Covid.

该团队遇到了一个无法使用的室外燃气壁炉，整个星期都散发着持久的煤气气味，出租屋的 WiFi 在第一天都无法使用，并且有几个人感染了新冠病毒。