Luke Xie, co-founder and CEO of Satlayer, emphasizes the significance of highlighting bitcoin’s different use circumstances, significantly with the introduction of Taproot.
The ETF and Trump Impact on Bitcoin
The elevated public curiosity in bitcoin, sparked by rumors in Q3 2023 that funding large Blackrock contemplated launching a bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), persevered all through 2024. Throughout this time, bitcoin’s efficiency versus different property in U.S. {dollars} was phenomenal, additional fueling curiosity. Though based on groundbreaking software program, bitcoin’s rising reputation seemingly revolves round its U.S. greenback value relatively than the underlying know-how’s capabilities.
The emergence of bitcoin and cryptocurrency as a key challenge in U.S. elections and President Donald Trump’s choice to embrace crypto spotlight how bitcoin’s reputation is more and more disconnected from the know-how behind it. Because the pattern is anticipated to proceed in 2025, with the “pro-crypto” Trump administration making good on guarantees to advance the digital asset business’s causes, some Bitcoin blockchain proponents stress the significance of highlighting the tech’s different use circumstances.
Certainly one of these proponents, Luke Xie, co-founder and CEO of Satlayer, highlights the introduction of Taproot as a growth that ought to maintain curiosity in each the native cryptocurrency and the underlying know-how. Based on Xie, an alumnus of the Massachusetts Institute of Expertise (MIT), Taproot has not solely enabled the commerce of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and inscriptions however has additionally made it potential to create options that additional push the boundaries of what’s potential.
“For instance, options corresponding to Babylon enable BTC holders to take part in staking to safe different networks and earn rewards. This successfully extends Bitcoin’s utility with out sacrificing its elementary PoW consensus safety mannequin,” Xie defined.
Bitcoin Community Safety Prolonged Via Restaking
He additionally revealed that his platform subsequently constructed on this to allow a phenomenon referred to as Bitcoin restaking. Moreover Taproot and restaking, the Satlayer CEO additionally pointed to layer-2 protocols designed to beat Bitcoin’s limitations, making a Bitcoin-centric decentralized finance (BTCFi) ecosystem.
In written solutions to questions from Bitcoin.com Information, Xie mentioned how Bitcoin restaking has prolonged the blockchain’s safety “to energy richer performance.” Simplifying what Bitcoin restaking successfully accomplished, Xie stated: “Consider it as storing gold in a vault (Bitcoin’s essential chain) and receiving a certificates (wrapped BTC) to make use of in broader markets.”
For customers, Bitcoin restaking means incomes yields from decentralized functions, liquidity swimming pools, and defi merchandise whereas preserving their principal BTC safe.
“Restaking transforms BTC right into a dynamic, yield-generating asset that can constantly earn its holders a return. Within the course of, it bootstraps an array of recent networks and protocols,” Xie provides.
Bitcoin restaking additionally gives a much less capital-intensive method to safe new blockchain networks. As a substitute of counting on unproven tokens and rich traders, restaking permits builders to concentrate on constructing new functions and use circumstances, realizing that the restaking mechanism will present the required safety and liquidity for progress.
Concerning Satlayer’s position in serving to builders construct Bitcoin Validated Providers (BVS), Xie revealed that his platform has launched Bitcoin Restaking Tokens (LRTs) to reflect the staked BTC. He stated the LRTs could possibly be traded, deployed in defi, or restaked to safe new protocols. This, he stated, provides BTC “a utility layer akin to staked ETH within the Ethereum ecosystem.”
Xie in the meantime argues that bringing the Ethereum restaking idea to Bitcoin, which boasts a far bigger market capitalization and liquidity, will enable a brand new universe of BTC-centric defi, that includes stablecoins, lending protocols, and even artificial property, to thrive.
In different phrases, the developments and improvements show that Bitcoin is not only in regards to the “quantity go up hopium.” As a substitute, the highest digital asset can turn into the “bedrock for a brand new class of functions, all whereas preserving the qualities that made it the king of crypto within the first place,” Xie stated.
