From "Ceasefire Protocol" to the Methane Revolution: The Soul of Bitcoin and the Battle for Its Future

Recently, the Bitcoin community has engaged in intense debates surrounding "inscription" and ordinal theory, with supporters believing it brings innovation and wealth effects to the Bitcoin ecosystem, while opponents worry it harms decentralization and the purity of the network.

Written by: Luke, Mars Finance

In the clamor of the crypto world, the market's gaze is always drawn to the fleeting fluctuations of prices. However, recently, a joint letter that has quietly circulated on the Bitcoin Core forum is like a stone thrown into a deep lake; although it may not immediately stir up vast waves, it could be profoundly changing the direction of the entire Bitcoin ecosystem. This letter does not directly discuss wealth, but it may determine where future wealth is born. It resembles a 'ceasefire agreement' attempting to put an end to a protracted 'civil war' concerning the soul of Bitcoin.

The core of this "war" is the "inscription" that has ignited the Bitcoin network in recent years and the ordinal theory behind it. When developer Casey Rodarmor cleverly utilized a long-neglected corner of Bitcoin transactions—witness data—in early 2023 to successfully engrave non-financial data such as images and text permanently onto the smallest unit of Bitcoin, the "Satoshi," he perhaps did not foresee that he had unleashed a Pandora's box full of opportunities and controversies.

"Spam" or "Renaissance"? A Controversy that Tears the Community Apart

Inscription has ignited the Bitcoin ecosystem in an unprecedented way. For a time, a large number of BRC-20 tokens and NFTs surged onto this public chain, known for its "purity", creating an astonishing wealth effect and bringing a boon to the increasingly exhausted miner income — transaction fees once soared, even exceeding fixed block rewards. Supporters hailed this as a "Renaissance of Bitcoin", believing it proves that the Bitcoin network can build a rich and diverse application ecosystem without relying on complex smart contract virtual machines, thereby attracting massive users and funds.

However, on the other side of the coin, there is the anger and concern of Bitcoin purists and some core developers. In their eyes, these inscriptions, seen as "financial graffiti", are a serious misuse of the precious space resources on the Bitcoin blockchain. Among the most famous opponents is veteran Bitcoin core developer Luke Dashjr, who denounced the inscriptions as a "spam attack" that exploited a "vulnerability" in the Bitcoin Core client.

His logic is solid and clear: Bitcoin was originally designed to be a peer-to-peer electronic cash system, and every byte of its blockchain should serve this core goal. The inscription permanently inscribes a large amount of extraneous data on the ledger, causing the blockchain to expand at an unprecedented rate, which not only increases the hardware barrier for the average user to run a full node, but also undermines the decentralized foundation on which Bitcoin rests in the long run. He believes that this behavior is a serious deviation from the ultimate vision of Bitcoin as a sound currency. As a result, Luke and like-minded developers began to work on how to "fix" the vulnerability through a software upgrade, known as a "soft fork", to prevent the inscription from being created in the first place. For a time, the mountain rain was about to come and the wind was full of buildings, and the entire emerging inscription ecology was shrouded in the shadow that could be "cleared with one click" at any time.

The debate quickly evolved into a profound philosophical and ideological struggle, splitting the Bitcoin community into two major camps. One side is the "minimalists," who firmly believe that Bitcoin should remain in its most minimalist and pure form, focusing on becoming digital gold and the ultimate store of value, with any potential "impurities" that could disrupt this goal being eliminated. The other side is the "expansionists," who argue that Bitcoin is the most secure computing and consensus platform in human history, and its vast security budget should not be used solely to protect simple transfer transactions. Positioning Bitcoin as a settlement layer for broader applications not only increases its utility value but also creates sustainable income for miners through a prosperous on-chain economy, thereby ensuring the long-term security of the Bitcoin network in the future when block rewards continue to halve.

The "Yangmou" Behind a Joint Letter

Just when the contradictions between both parties seemed irreconcilable, the appearance of this joint letter brought a turning point to the tense situation. The list of signatories of the letter itself is very persuasive, as it not only includes Casey Rodarmor, the founder of ordinal theory, but also core developers like b10c, as well as influential project parties in the inscription ecosystem such as Taproot Wizards. This signifies that the builders, once regarded as "heretics", are now articulating their ideas to the entire community, especially miners and developers, in a more mature and constructive manner.

The core argument of the letter cleverly sidesteps the subjective value judgment of whether inscriptions are useful and instead strikes at the most fundamental and indisputable principle of Bitcoin—Censorship Resistance. The letter emphasizes that Bitcoin is great precisely because it is a permissionless, neutral platform. As long as a transaction meets the network's consensus rules (format is valid, the spender has the corresponding UTXO, and adequate fees are paid), it should be packaged, and no developer, miner, or group should scrutinize its "intent" or content. Today, one can refuse to package inscription transactions simply because they "dislike JPEGs," and tomorrow, they might refuse to package any "unpopular" transactions for other reasons, which would open a dangerous Pandora's box that fundamentally erodes Bitcoin's value proposition.

Rather than being a defense, this is more of a higher-dimensional "general." It has passed the ball to those developers who are trying to "fix" the loopholes: Are you willing to sacrifice the fundamental principle of censorship resistance in order to maintain the "purity" of Bitcoin in your heart?

Further, the letter does not shy away from pointing out a reality that everyone can't avoid: Bitcoin's economic security model. With the block reward halving every four years, miners' income will be increasingly dependent on transaction fees. A dormant Bitcoin network with only a handful of transactions will not be able to sustain a trillion-dollar security budget worth more than enough to defend against state-level attacks. And inscriptions, as well as various non-financial applications that may appear in the future, are precisely the most powerful engine of the Bitcoin fee market. The letter makes it clear that by helping miners get paid, they are helping the Bitcoin network stay alive and secure. This is undoubtedly a "conspiracy" aimed at the core interests of the miners, making them choose between "philosophical ideas" and "economic reality".

From "Block" to "Unblock": The Three Acts of the Evolution of the Bitcoin Protocol

The far-reaching significance of this joint letter lies in the fact that it marks a shift in the Bitcoin community from "confrontation" to "integration," from simple "blocking" to more intelligent "guidance." It does not end the debate, but it sets a healthy bottom line for the discussion. When the question of "whether to build" is no longer an issue, the community's creativity focuses in an unprecedented way on "how to build better." History is confirming this point; when the option of "blocking" is set aside, the path of "guidance" becomes clear.

The wave of innovation surges on the ancient river of Bitcoin, while the evolution of Metaprotocols has become the most noteworthy three-act play in this tide.

Act I: Genesis - Ordinals' Onslaught Ordinal number theory and inscriptions are the starting point for this evolution, and they are like a great "proof of concept", crudely but powerfully proving to the world that it is perfectly feasible to issue non-fungible (NFT) and fungible tokens (BRC-20) on Bitcoin. Although it brought problems such as UTXO set bloat, it lit the first fire and gave a glimpse of the other side of Bitcoin's long-dormant silence. However, its limitations are just as obvious: the functionality is mainly stuck in token issuance and simple peer-to-peer transfers, lacking broader programmability. As a result, after the initial hype boom, further innovation in the ecosystem seems to have reached a bottleneck.

Act II: Improvements - Runes' Delicate Turn Against this backdrop, the Runes Protocol, designed by Ordinal founder Kathy Rodamo, was born. Like a serious engineer, it has been precisely optimized for the drawbacks of BRC-20 generating a lot of "garbage" UTXOs during the transaction process. With a more efficient and "Bitcoin-native" UTXO model, Runes offers an elegant fungible token offering. The emergence of Runes is the logical necessity of the evolution of meta-protocols, from "feasible" to "better". It makes asset issuance cleaner and more efficient, but at the end of the day, it is still an improvement within the framework of "asset issuance" and does not touch on deeper changes.

Act Three: Paradigm Revolution - The Astonishing Leap of Alkanes. However, whether it's Ordinals or Runes, they are still answering the question of "how to issue assets on Bitcoin." The real breakthrough lies in answering a more fundamental question: "Can Bitcoin become a decentralized computer capable of supporting complex applications?" The latest "Methane Protocol" (Alkanes) is attempting to achieve this astonishing leap, pushing the entire narrative to new heights.

Alkanes is no longer satisfied with merely patching existing protocols, but ambitiously introduces a complete smart contract environment based on WASM (WebAssembly) built on the foundations of Bitcoin. WASM is an efficient binary instruction format that allows developers to write complex applications using various high-level languages (such as Rust, C++) and execute them securely on the Bitcoin network. Theoretically, this is equivalent to directly embedding an "operating system" within the Bitcoin base layer.

This leap is disruptive. It means that developers can now build truly autonomous decentralized applications (DApps) on the Bitcoin main chain for the first time, such as automated market maker (AMM) decentralized exchanges, trustless lending protocols, on-chain derivatives, and even complex yield aggregators. It is no longer just about issuing a "small image" or a type of "meme coin"; it is about constructing a complete, composable DeFi Lego world.

Since its launch in January 2025, Alkanes has begun to gain traction after several months of silence. Data shows that in just three months from March to May, the transaction fees generated by exchanges interacting with the Alkanes protocol reached 11.5 BTC. Although this figure is still lower than Runes (41.7 BTC) and BRC-20 (35.2 BTC), it has significantly surpassed the Ordinals NFT during the same period (6.2 BTC), demonstrating strong growth momentum.

The real killer feature of Alkanes is its upcoming native AMM DEX. Once launched, it will revolutionize the trading experience of Bitcoin's native asset. Users will no longer need to go through the cumbersome process of manually placing orders and waiting for counterparty matching, but can directly interact with the liquidity pool powered by smart contracts to achieve instant and smooth transactions. This is not only a huge leap forward in user experience, but also an essential breakthrough in functionality. It means that the Bitcoin ecosystem is finally able to bridge the gap with modern smart contract platforms such as Ethereum, laying the groundwork for more expressive and native DeFi activities. The emergence of Alkanes represents the next evolution of the Bitcoin Meta protocol, pushing the narrative from static "asset issuance" to dynamic "application deployment". Behind the door it opens is a world of imagination.

Evolution, never-ending

The story of Bitcoin, since its inception, has not been a perfect script written by a single 'god', but rather an evolutionary epic co-authored by countless developers, miners, and users through debate, compromise, and consensus. From the early 'block size wars' to today's 'inscription dispute', every major divergence has ultimately become a catalyst for the forward evolution of Bitcoin. This seemingly inconspicuous open letter is yet another key chapter in this epic.

It reminds us that the greatest power of Bitcoin is not the rigidity of its code, but the strong resilience and self-correcting ability of its consensus mechanism. A truly decentralized system will eventually find an inclusive and sustainable path. From the groundbreaking innovation of Ordinals to the meticulous improvements of Runes, and the revolutionary leap into the era of smart contracts with Alkanes, we are witnessing the acceleration of this evolution.

For those who are concerned about this field, it might be time to shift some attention away from the K line and spend more time gazing at this ancient yet young public chain. Because within those seemingly dull codes and forum debates, in new protocols like Alkanes, the seeds of the next paradigm shift are brewing. The future of Bitcoin may be broader than we imagine.