Years ago I was at a conference and met a guy who asked me a question that I can’t forget: why do we need another blockchain when we already have Bitcoin? It was at a time when Ethereum is amazingly bringing us new ideas and innovations so I did not take the question seriously. Looking at the same question now, we have a completely different context. For one thing, after so many years, alt-chains still struggles with scalability and application scenario issues; on another hand, Bitcoin ecosystem is rising and we have figured out ways of issuing digital assets on the Bitcoin network. So why not? Why don’t we build with Bitcoin directly?
Another thing we’ve noticed is that, for the past decade, almost all the well adopted crypto applications are hybrid - the applications are off-chain, the assets are on-chain. Binance is a hybrid app. StepN is a hybrid app. Farcaster is also a hybrid app. And it seems that this hybrid model is well accepted by all users and there’s no point of building everything on-chain anymore, except the assets themselves. So why not stick with this model and make an infra that is dedicated for merging off-chain apps with on-chain assets?
These thoughts led us to the recent pivoting of Rooch, for which we have been building around a year now, and I’m proud to share some news and progresses that we have at Rooch.
Rooch - The Application Layer for Bitcoin Ecosystem
Allow me to re-introduce Rooch to you:
Rooch Network is a native application layer for the Bitcoin ecosystem, based on the Stackable L2 solution, serving as the go-to Bitcoin assets launchpad and Bitcoin application infra for users and devs.
As the Bitcoin assets launchpad, Rooch supports all existing Bitcoin native assets and the issuance of all forms of new Bitcoin assets, be it coin, NFT or SFT(UTXO). The issuance distribution can be customized with smart contracts.
As the Bitcoin application platform, we expect the users to use all Bitcoin native assets directly in Rooch powered Bitcoin apps, and the developers can be given a large design space for building interesting apps that leverages and produces Bitcoin native assets.
We envision Rooch to be the go-to and must-have solution for the upcoming thrive of the Bitcoin ecosystem. We’ve got a long way to go and we will never stop building.
Roadmap
One of the major updates of Rooch is the latest roadmap. Inherited the previous naming, we are now in the Sprouting phase where we are working towards launching the Testnet and Pre-Mainnet.
For 2023, our focus was building a Move language based modular execution layer that supports off-chain smart contract applications with parallel execution and better smart contract security. So far we have completed the execution runtime, froze the frameworks and interfaces, and packed it up into a “container” for off-chain smart contract apps. This part of work still makes sense to us, but it needs a strong use case.
And we have found that use case now - make Rooch the native application layer for Bitcoin ecosystem. By using Rooch as the off-chain app solution plus the stacking of the Bitcoin state, we can provide a one-stop solution for issuing Bitcoin assets and building Bitcoin applications.
See the updated roadmap: https://rooch.network/learn/miscellaneous/roadmap (opens in a new tab)
Testnet v0.5 Launch
We released the Rooch v0.5, which marks the first version of Rooch with the framework and interfaces frozen. This is a version where our long waited community developers can start to deploy their experimental apps.
For the next phase, we will be working on improving the performance and completing the security audit to make sure the next testnet (might be the pre-mainnet) can handle transactions at a very large capacity.
See the release on GitHub: https://github.com/rooch-network/rooch/releases/tag/v0.5.0 (opens in a new tab)
Rooch Portal Launch
Rooch Portal is live!
Rooch Portal will be a key tool for the community to explore the Bitcoin ecosystem. It comes with a full-set of Bitcoin natives features including deploying and minting Bitcoin assets, trading them, as well as leaping them to off-chain, for apps and utilities, or to on-chain, storing them on the Bitcoin network.
Although this is only a beta version and the only thing you can do for now is to connect your Bitcoin wallet via Unisat and get some testnet gas coin, you can get a better picture on what we are going to rollout in the coming versions.
Try Rooch Portal: https://portal.rooch.network/ (opens in a new tab)
See the full intro of Rooch Portal here: https://rooch.network/learn/miscellaneous/portal (opens in a new tab)
Campaigns - Insights and Build
To better engage our community and developers with som early Rooch tokens, we’ve launched 2 campaigns.
The first campaign will be an insight showcase contest for encouraging the community to explore the possibilities and future of Bitcoin ecosystem and Rooch. You may just post your insights on X and get some token rewards for your amazing content. See the details: https://rooch.network/blog/showcase-insights (opens in a new tab)
The other campaign is a developer facing early-builder campaign that accommodates the need of eager community devs to get their hands dirty. The campaign does not require a full product but we do value the ideas and its demonstration. See the details: https://rooch.network/blog/early-builders (opens in a new tab)
About Rooch Network
Rooch Network is the Native Application Layer for Bitcoin Ecosystem, based on the Stackable L2 solution, serving as the go-to Bitcoin assets launchpad and Bitcoin application infra for users and devs.
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