Written by: 0xSea.eth, host of the podcast Sea Talk and co-founder of NextDAO

Have you been confused by the endless new protocols like Ordinals / BRC-20 / Atomicals / Pipe that keep popping up? Not sure what their relationships are?

Don't worry, let me help you sort out the timeline and the underlying connections between them. I'll try to use simple language without complex concepts, aiming to help newcomers understand, even grandmothers can comprehend. This article does not constitute investment advice (NFA).

Chapter I: The Delightful Jianghu of Ordinals and BRC-20 Casey and domo

The Pandora's box of Bitcoin was opened by a man named Casey Rodarmor (@rodarmor).

In December 2022, Casey launched the Ordinals protocol. It assigns a unique serial number to each satoshi and tracks them in transactions. Anyone can attach additional data through Ordinals, including text, images, videos, etc., which is determined by the permissionless nature of blockchain/Bitcoin.

In the early days, Ordinals was far from the popularity it has today, with players mainly creating NFTs and trading volume being low. The founder Casey initially positioned it as a way for people to store something eternal on Bitcoin, the oldest and most consensus-driven chain. So for a while, many people equated Ordinals with "Bitcoin NFTs."

Things changed on March 8, 2023, when an anonymous developer named @domodata launched BRC-20 based on the Ordinals protocol. The name evokes the ERC-20 token standard on Ethereum, and yes, you can simply understand BRC-20 as a meme coin issuance protocol based on Ordinals (i.e., based on Bitcoin).

Issuing meme coins on BTC? Most people's first reaction is that it's quite magical and a step backward. When the first token $Ordi was issued, tools like Unisat had not yet appeared, requiring local Bitcoin full nodes to run. Developers like @shep_eth seized the opportunity and acquired chips at a very low cost.

As BRC-20 exploded in popularity during the two rounds in May-June and October-November, BRC-20 trading accounted for a large portion of the Ordinals protocol, which made Casey very unhappy. He publicly stated that BRC-20 brought a lot of garbage to the Ordinals he created. So a few days ago, we saw Casey's team publicly write to Binance to remove Ordinals from the introduction of the $Ordi token; he didn't want Ordinals to be associated with $Ordi.

Conclusion 1: Regarding the issuance of $Ordi, Casey himself does not hold any tokens. Domo seems to have minted 1,000 (one), but whether there are other wallets involved in insider trading remains unknown. As Ordi continues to rise, what the two of them think internally is even more unknown.

Gossip 1: During the Singapore conference in September, a well-meaning person arranged for Casey and domo to be at the same event. It is said that the two met and greeted each other quite amicably. If you look at their statements on ? , you'll find that their levels of involvement in the project are completely different.

Gossip 2: Why was domo wearing a mask in public during the Singapore conference? Does anyone know the reason?

Chapter II: A Guy Named Beny and the Intricate Nested Governance

After the emergence of BRC-20, there was an active developer in the community named Beny (he seems to have no personal ? ID). This guy is an energetic developer: he launched the BRC-20 minting tool LooksOrdinal (no token) around March, deployed $Trac @tracbtc in May, and the first cursed inscription with a total supply of 21 million -crsd, and in August launched the BRC-20 improved version Tap Protocol @tapprotocol aimed at OrdFi, and in October issued the improved version of Runes called Pipe @PipeBtc.

You might wonder why this guy has created so many projects. You'd have to ask Beny himself; I can only say that he is indeed energetic and has a keen sense of smell.

So what is the relationship between these projects?

1. $Trac is a BRC-20 token and also the governance token for Tap Protocol.

2. Tap Protocol is an improvement at the BRC-20 protocol level, with both $Tap and $-Tap tokens issued based on Tap Protocol, which are no longer within the BRC-20 scope (but still based on Ordinals).

3. $Tap is the governance token for the Pipe protocol.

4. The Pipe protocol is an improvement based on the Runes concept (which will be elaborated later) and has already departed from the Ordinals scope.

Wonderful, what a nested governance!

Interestingly, the total supply of 21 million $Tap is currently all held by Beny, with 0 circulation; the circulating token in the market is the first token $-Tap on the Tap Protocol. The next step is for the project team to use $Tap for financing and governance and will allocate a portion to the holders of $Trac, $-Tap, and $Pipe, with the specific ratio yet to be determined.

If you're interested in Tap Protocol, you can check out my previous introduction.

As for the other two projects Looksordinal and -crsd: the former is a pure tool with no tokens; the latter's index for -crsd is not yet complete due to the ord development team not having completed all negative inscription types, so it cannot be traded at the moment.

Conclusion 2: A team launches three horses, with nested binding; this play is currently unique in the L1 landscape.

Chapter III: Half a Year of Sharpening a Sword, The New Protocol Star Atomicals Reveals Its Edge

About three months after the release of Ordinals, another anonymous developer took notice. After some contemplation and research, he believed that Ordinals had some shortcomings.

So he got to work, and after 6-7 months of dedicated development, he launched the Atomicals Protocol (@atomicalsxyz) in September. In the early hours of September 21, someone issued the first token $Atom on the Atomicals protocol, which was mined out in about 5 hours. $Atom needs to be mined using a computer CPU, requiring installation and configuration of the local environment, which has a higher technical threshold (more Geek) than the BRC-20's direct gas grabbing method, and is arguably fairer to some extent.

At its core, the Atomicals Protocol has several important differences compared to Ordinals:

1. Atomicals is based on the UTXO of BTC for minting and propagation, with 1 token = 1 sat, which aligns more closely with Bitcoin technology and does not impose additional burdens on the BTC network. In terms of "orthodoxy" of technology, it surpasses Ordinals and aligns more with the technical aesthetics of BTC Maxi fundamentalism.

2. In contrast, Ordinals is "non-interventionist"; it does not have a token issuance protocol (which is why BRC-20 came later), but when the Atomicals protocol was launched, the ARC-20 token standard and many other use cases were already defined.

As the community delved deeper into Atomicals, they discovered that its long development time, the founder's determination, and the multitude of scenarios and features considered made it a very complete protocol, well-prepared, and thus gradually gained significant respect from the community!

By the way, @shep_eth remarked after watching several interviews with Atomicals' anonymous founder: this person speaks too much like a young Steve Jobs. I feel the same way; he speaks rationally and eloquently, gaining +1 in likability. Back in the day, Vitalik believed Bitcoin had many limitations, and his proposed improvements were rejected, leading him to create Ethereum with a few partners, which is somewhat similar to the birth story of Atomicals Protocol.

If you're interested, you can watch the interview with the founder..

Conclusion 3: Atomicals has been in dedicated development for half a year and is gaining attention as a strong competitor to Ordinals. The ecosystem is still in its early stages, with more builders pouring in.

Chapter IV: The Unyielding Casey Brings Forth the Formidable Runes

As mentioned above, Casey has always disliked BRC-20, believing it brought too much garbage inscription, polluting the sacred Ordinals. Less than a week after the launch of Atomicals, on September 26, Casey tweeted about a terrifying new idea: to create a homogeneous token protocol based on Bitcoin, named Runes.

Like Atomicals (great minds think alike), the significant improvement of Runes compared to BRC-20 is its foundation on UTXO technology. Casey believes that creating a good homogeneous token protocol for Bitcoin could bring considerable transaction fee income, more developers, and users to Bitcoin.

Shortly after the release of the Runes-related documentation, Comrade Beny saw this opportunity and launched the Pipe protocol based on the Runes concept, which connects back to Chapter 2.

On Casey's side, he is also busy with the upgrades of the Ordinals protocol and dealing with occasional small bugs, which takes up some of his energy. The official launch time of Runes is still uncertain, but I believe it will be a protocol that garners significant attention in the Bitcoin ecosystem moving forward.

Conclusion 4: As the founder of the currently hottest Ordinals protocol, Casey will receive enthusiastic market attention once he launches Runes.

For the protocols mentioned above and the tokens with high relevance, I have organized a simple mind map (I didn't have time to create a more detailed one) to help you understand the dependencies and competitive relationships.

Finally, there have been too many new "protocols" on Bitcoin in the past six months. My energy and ability are limited, so I can't mention them all; please forgive me.