In the world of blockchain, Bitcoin is not just a digital currency, it is also a platform for technological innovation. With the continuous development of technology, the application scenarios on the Bitcoin network are becoming more and more abundant. Among them, the emergence of the Atomics protocol and ARC20 tokens has undoubtedly injected new vitality into the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Atomics protocol
To understand ARC20, you must first understand the Atomics protocol. The Atomics protocol is a protocol built on the Bitcoin network. On the Bitcoin network, through the Atomics protocol, digital items (NFTs, such as native digital NFTs, game NFTs, digital identities, domain names, social networks, etc.) can be created (mint), transferred and upgraded, and interchangeable tokens can also be created. Token. In other words, through the Atomics protocol, non-interchangeable NFTs can be generated on the Bitcoin network, as well as interchangeable tokens. This fungible token is the ARC20 token.
The Atomics protocol makes full use of the UTXO characteristics of Bitcoin and uses satoshi as the unit of account. That is to say, any digital item created based on the Atomics protocol can trace its transaction history and be authentic and verifiable. Any individual or institution such as users, wallets, and project parties can verify transaction history through simple rules and detect whether it is authentic and trustworthy. The approach of the Atomics protocol is to regard the Bitcoin network as the source of truth. By realizing the trustworthiness of digital items based on the Bitcoin network + Atomicals protocol, we are trying to return to the original idea of personal ownership and control of digital items. The era of digital native assets requires this type of underlying foundation for ownership control.
The Atomics protocol is more consistent with the characteristics of Bitcoin, and its implementation is relatively simple, which also makes it attract people's attention and is relatively favored by the technical community. NFTs built on the Atomics protocol can be created and transferred on the Bitcoin network without being subject to indexers or other intermediaries. They do not require changes to Bitcoin L1, nor do they require L2 or side chains to complete these tasks. In short, the technical path is relatively simple and consistent with the characteristics and current situation of Bitcoin.
Additionally, the Atomics protocol is open source and free for anyone to use.
ARC20 Token
Although the Atomics protocol focuses on digital items NFT, ARC20 has gained greater attention. ARC20 is an interchangeable colored currency standard supported by Satoshi. It uses satoshi units to represent each token, which means that ARC20 tokens are backed by 1 satoshi. That is, the value of each ARC20 token will not be less than 1 Satoshi. Because ARC20 uses satoshis to represent the unit of ownership of deployed tokens. ARC20 tokens can be split and combined. Anyone can freely mint ARC20 tokens, which can be transferred through the Bitcoin network. This means that ARC20 tokens, attached to the Bitcoin network without any modifications to L1, can utilize existing Bitcoin infrastructure, such as wallets, etc.
In addition, ARC20 has a built-in naming system. Once it is named, it will be unified globally and there will be no second one. For example, after being named ATOM, there will be no second ARC20 token with the ATOM name, which is unique.
ARC20 can set the name, mint reward, total number of mints, starting block height, and metadata.
What is ATOM token?
First of all, the ATOM token here is not the Atom token on the Cosmos chain. The two "ATOM" are two completely different tokens. The ATOM here is the ARC20 token produced through the Atomics protocol mint. According to the description of the atomic protocol, this ATOM token has no team, no financing, etc. It is a native token of the community and a way to display tokens without pre-mining. It is supported by distributed CPU mining (using Bitwork PoW). Since ATOM is an early native ARC20 token, it has become an important iconic token among ARC20 tokens.
Through the Atomics protocol and ARC20 tokens, the Bitcoin network becomes more than just a store of value, it becomes a rich platform for the creation and management of digital assets. This change will undoubtedly promote the further development of the Bitcoin ecosystem and bring more possibilities to the future digital economy.