Essays

2024.09 PizzaSwap - A Real-World Proof of BRC-20’s Decentralization

BRC-20 is far more decentralized than we have thought over the past year.

Let’s set aside, for a moment, the community’s various opinions on UniSat’s supposed influence within the BRC-20 ecosystem. Focusing solely on the technical developments and impacts of BRC-20, as an index service provider, UniSat’s actual influence on the BRC-20 standard can be considered minimal.

Over the past year, our understanding of this gradually evolved. We dedicated considerable effort towards advancing the standard through proposals and iterations. However, as has been observed over the past twelve months, our progress in standardization has proven to be both slow and challenging.

The difficulties we encountered while attempting to establish the brc-20 swap module on bitcoin mainnet are a clear demonstration of this situation.

The modular solution, particularly the introduction of the first swap module, represents an elegant and effective extension for BRC-20. This approach was recognized by Domo, the respected creator of BRC-20. If we lived in a world where “BRC-20 is centralized, and UniSat possesses a certain level of influence in shaping the protocol,” the BRC-20 swap could have been officially launched on the Bitcoin mainnet just two weeks after testing last year. Its sophisticated design—allowing flexible extensions without disrupting the solid and simple core of BRC-20—along with its innovative use of the rollup approach to optimize limited block space, would have led to swift success.

UniSat’s only significant ‘voting’ attempt to influence BRC-20’s future direction took place in January 2024. Why do we refer to this as a “vote”? Because in our announcement (see the tweet below), we did not address other index service providers. Instead, we simply indicated that our index aimed to avoid diverging from Ordinals.

This action garnered strong support from some users who understood our approach, while others, including individuals we greatly respect, voiced concerns, with some accusing us of “hijacking BRC-20.”

This reaction was disappointing, and since then, we have refrained from making any public statements expressing a specific stance or inclination regarding BRC-20.

Decentralization is a core value of the Bitcoin community, and we choose to respect this culture. We have learned to maintain a neutral and constructive attitude moving forward.

As engineers, our goal is to deliver meaningful products, not to engage in manipulative or divisive discussions within the community.

The successful launch of Fractal finally provided us with an opportunity to explore exciting innovations in a clean, apolitical environment. We are excited by the various experiments that are underway, as well as those yet to begin.

PizzaSwap is not the first of these innovations, and it will not be the last. We are working on several promising projects, such as some interesting experiments related to OP_CAT & cat20, which are waiting for the right moment to step into the spotlight.

As the maintainers of the BRC-20 standard, we remain committed to contribute to the upgrade of brc20-based swap on the Bitcoin mainnet, as promised. This, of course, will be done in a way that respects all participants involved.

Decentralization is a difficult journey, but one we are committed to. For the UniSat team, it is essential to find our place within the system and make meaningful contributions.

We remain open to feedback, continuously refining and optimizing our work. Thank you to everyone for your support. Without you, we could not have come this far.

Lorenzo
September 30, 2024

E-2409 (Lorenzo’s Library)
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Essay
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© 2024 Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 (Lorenzo)
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