In June 2023, all eyes in the crypto industry were on regulations as the SEC continued its crackdown by suing Coinbase, the largest exchange in the US, alleging that several crypto assets traded on the platform were securities and that Coinbase had violated securities law. Commenting on the event, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey tweeted the following:

There are only three truly censorship-resistant technologies at scale today: Tor, Bitcoin, and Nostr

On Twitter, this tweet not only garnered a comment from Elon Musk but also received 12,000 likes. On Nostr, the note only received a meager 417 likes, but it earned 47 Bitcoin zaps from Nostr users. What’s important to note is that the zaps were in sats — one-hundred-millionth of bitcoin.

UXUY used the Lightning Network to send ‘sats’ and tip Jack Dorsey on Nostr.

In early 2023, the Nostr-based app Damus was launched on the App Store, gaining widespread attention and downloads. Like many social products that became an overnight success, the hype quickly died down. However, a tipping feature called ‘Zaps’ quietly began to gain popularity.

As of June 2023, there have been over 900,000 records of Zaps tipping, with a total amount exceeding 10 bitcoins. The Zaps tipping feature, developed based on the Bitcoin Lightning Network, was added to the Nostr protocol and more applications began to support it. The total number of users on the Nostr protocol also surpassed 500,000.

The popularity of Zaps may only serve to demonstrate that the obstacles to user adoption on the Lightning Network have been, to an extent, overcome. What is more noteworthy is that after the Bitcoin Taproot upgrade, Lightning Labs released the TARO protocol (Taproot Asset Representation Overlay) in April 2022. Based on this protocol, assets can not only be issued on the Bitcoin network but can also be stored on Lightning Network channels and traded or transferred using existing Lightning Network infrastructure.

The security provided by Bitcoin’s hashing power, combined with the efficiency and low cost of the Lightning Network, opens up endless possibilities for asset issuance and management. Compared to previous attempts to introduce assets onto the Bitcoin network, Taproot Assets offer greater privacy and scalability.

As some began to proclaim ‘Taproot Summer’, another group of atypical Bitcoin maximalists began to gain public attention. On February 1, 2023, Udi Wertheimer engraved a 3.96 MB JPG image into the Bitcoin blockchain.

This block became the largest block and transaction in the history of Bitcoin. This project, known as ‘Taproot Wizards’, quickly swept the industry, with its iconic image of a wizard wearing a hat taking a bath being imitated by enthusiasts.

Traditional Bitcoin adherents openly criticized the practice of ‘Taproot Wizards’, believing that it would cause the Bitcoin blockchain to rapidly expand, effectively raising the requirements for running full-node equipment and potentially reducing the number of full nodes, thereby threatening Bitcoin’s censorship resistance.

Even on the eve of the Bitcoin 2023 conference, Udi Wertheimer, founder of ‘Taproot Wizards’, received death threats, but this did not stop him from wearing a wizard hat and dancing on stage at the conference. Udi sought to attract ordinary users to reignite their interest in Bitcoin by subverting, creating community, and rebuilding Bitcoin’s original rebellious spirit and actively participating in this innovation.

The immense controversy sparked by the issuance of ‘Taproot Wizards’ through the Ordinals protocol did not become the shining moment for Ordinals. On March 9, 2023, just one month after the release of ‘Taproot Wizards’, a developer named Domo sparked a new trend with a short inscription — BRC20. The token, called $ORDI, was embraced by the community and two months later, began trading on centralized exchanges, attracting numerous traders with its wealth effect and FOMO sentiment.

Apart from features such as fair launch, no one can ignore the appeal of BRC20 as a narrative for native assets on the Bitcoin chain, ultimately shining a light on a high point for Ordinals.

Rootstock (RSK) has 3,540 $RBTC on-chain, Liquid Network has 3,127 $L-BTC on its chain, and Stacks is soon to launch its non-custodial $sBTC. Whether through second-layer networks or sidechain solutions, RSK/Liquid Network/Stacks are all attempting to bring DeFi into the Bitcoin ecosystem. Among these solutions, we can see familiar faces such as decentralized exchanges, lending platforms, collateralized stablecoins, NFT trading, and more. Compared to Bitgo’s Ethereum-based 156,500 $WBTC and Binance’s BSC-based 53,000 $BTCB, Bitcoin’s DeFi ecosystem still has a high ceiling.

The Lightning Network, Taproot Assets, Ordinals, RSK, Liquid Network, and Stacks are becoming core elements of the Bitcoin ecosystem, with the unexpected success of BRC20 being just a prelude to its explosion. It is clear that using ‘sats’ as the pricing unit will become a new paradigm for the Bitcoin ecosystem. The rapid registration of 300,000 .sats domains confirms this trend.

As the next-generation decentralized trading platform, UXUY is actively embracing Bitcoin. The moment UXUY changed their Twitter handle to ‘UXUY.sats’, they eagerly announced that we are on the eve of a Bitcoin ecosystem explosion.

With over seven years of cross-chain development experience, the UXUY team has witnessed and experienced countless explorations in the field of ‘ecosystems’. From BitShares to Ethereum, from Solana to Cosmos, from Polygon to Arbitrum. The UXUY team believes that Bitcoin will not be monopolized by any one second-layer network or sidechain. The current diverse scaling solutions are the best embodiment of Bitcoin’s decentralization and censorship-resistant nature.

Based on Ordinals’ .sats domain, it does not belong to any one particular second-layer network or sidechain. Its open nature could potentially develop into a fixed system for the Bitcoin ecosystem, becoming an important link to connecting the ecosystem. UXUY is actively promoting support for .sats domains, helping ordinary users to have a better experience in trading, transfers, and other scenarios within the Bitcoin ecosystem.

UXUY continues to engage in dialogue with the .sats team and co-hosted the first Twitter Space event, which attracted over 1,000 community members. UXUY co-founder Jordan announced during the event that they would conduct an airdrop campaign for .sats domain users, and a lucky 100 users without .sats domains would also receive an airdrop of .sats domains.

As DeFi Summer, Metaverse Summer, NFT Summer, and Web3 Summer fade away, UXUY is actively participating in the Bitcoin ecosystem, providing users with the smoothest cross-chain trading experience and embracing the upcoming Bitcoin Summer with Bitcoin believers.

Come on board!