4 Top Bitcoin L2s to Watch
Thrilling BTC L2 analysis, strikes and gems.
Hey, friend!
It’s the 17th edition of Gems Corner. Today’s edition examines top L2s on the thriving Bitcoin ecosystem and other alpha bits.
Enjoy the gems.
The Bitcoin ecosystem has been all over the news lately following the explosive growth of BRC-20 tokens and the Ordinals. Impressive, to say the least.
However, as the oldest blockchain, Bitcoin should be the leading chain if not for the network’s low throughput and scalability issues. But thanks to the upcoming Bitcoin L2s, the narrative is changing.
With the rise of Bitcoin L2s, devs can unlock new use cases and make Bitcoin scalable again. Let’s dive into the top five L2s on Bitcoin without further ado.
1. Lightning Network (website)
Lightning Network is a layer 2 solution that enables instant payments on Bitcoin. Built by Thaddeus Dryja and Joseph Poon, the Lightning Network aims to make Bitcoin transactions faster and cheaper.
Lightning uses smart contracts to facilitate a secure and scalable network of participants capable of making high-volume and fast transactions. For instance, Lightning has incredibly assisted El Salvador in making payments and other transactions.
There are tons of applications leveraging on Lightning; a few that comes to mind is Strike, BlueWallet, and BottlePay.
2. Stacks (website)
Stacks is a Bitcoin layer for smart contracts, enabling decentralized applications to use $BTC as an asset trustlessly. Stacks leverage the Proof of Transfer (PoT) consensus mechanism to unlock novel use cases on the Bitcoin network.
Stacks Q1 report shows a whopping 33.7% and 34.8% increase in average daily transactions and active addresses, respectively. Over 20 apps on Stacks are scattered across different categories, from DeFi to NFT to Wallets.
Alex, an AMM protocol & launchpad, is the leading dApp on Stacks, with about 90% TVL dominance.
3. Liquid Network (website)
Liquid Network is an L2 solution facilitating fast, confidential settlement and issuance of digital assets on the Bitcoin network. These assets include stablecoins, security tokens, and other forms of financial instruments.
Liquid has a distributed governance model of more than 60 members around the world, consisting of leading exchanges, digital asset managers, wallet providers, and other Bitcoin-focused companies.
Many dApps are built on the Liquid Network, but the leading ones are Hodl and SideSwap.
4. Rootstock - RSK (website)
Launched in 2014, Rootstock is one of the leading L2s on Bitcoin. It’s an EVM-Compactible smart contracts platform designed for fast transactions and scalability. The RSK network is secured by over 50% of Bitcoin’s hashing power via the process of merged mining.
Rootstock leverages “Smart BTC” (RBTC) as its native token. Users can convert BTC to RBTC using the same 1:1 peg and also use it for interacting with dApps on RSK.
Examples of applications built on RSK are Sovryn, RIF, and Money on Chain
The Bitcoin ecosystem is now vibing with many developments across multiple crypto categories. And I’ll keep tabs on it and share more alpha in the coming weeks.
Image of the Day
$BTC market’s depth on Binance US experienced a significant decline due to the recent lawsuit by SEC. The Binance-SEC lawsuit is causing serious panic in the market.
Actionable Strikes
LayerZero and Polyhedra Airdrop strategy - link
New ways to stay safe on Metamask - link
Debank launches Debank Hi Bonus rewards (Use it for potential drop) - link
Ethereum Foundation opens Run A Node Grants program - link
Lens Protocol closes $15M seed round (Get active on Lens for potential drop) - link
Multiple drops with PhiLand - link
Tweet of the Week
Confused about whether or not to quit your 9-5 job for crypto? Click on the above tweet to read about the real experiences of people that quit their 9-5 job for crypto. NFA.
Alpha Drips & Threads
Aave sets to launch GHO stablecoins - link
Vela Exchange set to Launch on 26th June - link
Etherscan introduces an advanced filter feature - link
Arkham’s Dashboards V2 are live - link
Binance NFT Marketplace now supports Bitcoin NFTs - link
OKX Wallet primed to support Account Abstraction - link
Gains Network launches a $100,000 trading contest - link
A repository of ETH liquid staking options - link
…
Thanks for reading!
Until next Friday,
Viktor DeFi.
PS: I’d love to hear your feedback and comments.