Unisat Mingpai support, Bitcoin scaling solution Fractal light interpretation

Expansion issues have always been a key focus for the development of the BTC ecosystem. However, as the overall enthusiasm in the sector declines, many BTC ecological creative projects, including various expansion solutions, have gradually faded from public view. Yet, behind the restless market sentiment, "still working" remains an apt description of the status of many project teams.

Yesterday, the native expansion solution Fractal, based on BTC core code and supported by UniSat, opened its official faucet channel. Coupled with the previous news that Unisat will launch Fractal Bitcoin in September, I couldn't help but take an interest in this project. So, I visited the Fractal official website to get a general understanding of what makes this project special.

Authentic and "Orthodox" Improvements Based on the BTC Main Chain?

According to its official self-introduction, Fractal Bitcoin enhances transaction processing capacity and speed by recursively creating infinite expansion layers on the BTC main chain using BTC core code, while maintaining complete compatibility with the existing Bitcoin ecosystem.

In short, Fractal expands on the basis of BTC core code and has the following features:

1. Fast transaction speed: The block confirmation time on the Fractal network is about 30 seconds, and its transaction processing capacity is 20 times that of the BTC main chain.

2. Native compatibility: Fractal Bitcoin is developed based on BTC core code, so it is fully compatible with existing Bitcoin wallets, tools, and mining equipment.

3. Dynamic adjustment: The recursive system based on the BTC main chain can automatically adjust the number of expansion layers according to network congestion.

4. Secure and traceable: All transactions conducted on the Fractal network can ultimately be traced back to the Bitcoin main chain.

How does Fractal achieve the goal of maintaining the orthodoxy of the mainnet while improving processing efficiency from multiple aspects?

Multi-layer Expansion Mechanism

Fractal utilizes a clever design of recursive expansion layers to enhance the throughput of BTC transactions. Multiple levels of expansion layers are created above the BTC main chain, forming a tree-like recursive structure. This structure allows each layer to further expand in a "forking pattern," increasing the overall network's parallel processing capability.

As the transaction volume on the main chain increases, Fractal automatically diverts some transactions to the upper layers. Each layer can independently process transactions and can dynamically increase or decrease the number of expansion layers based on network demand. During peak times, it can quickly create new layers to cope with surging transaction volumes. This dynamic expansion capability allows the network to flexibly respond to varying load conditions.

Cadence Mining

Fractal adopts the same PoW consensus mechanism as Bitcoin, allowing BTC miners to seamlessly transition to Fractal block mining using their current ASICs, GPUs, and other existing hardware.

To expand the diversity of users participating in mining, Fractal introduces a combined mining mechanism called Cadence Mining, which combines permissionless mining and merge mining. This operates in cycles of three blocks, where two blocks are generated through "permissionless mining" and one block is generated through "merge mining."

To facilitate understanding, here’s a brief explanation of the two mining methods: "permissionless mining" allows anyone with the appropriate tools and hardware to mine Fractal blocks, similar to BTC mining; while "merge mining" is specifically for BTC miners, allowing them to mine BTC blocks and Fractal blocks simultaneously without requiring additional hashing power.

Reapplying OP_CAT

Fractal Bitcoin reintroduces OPCAT, an opcode that existed in early versions of BTC but was later disabled. OPCAT allows two strings to be concatenated, and a script using OPCAT can expand a 1-byte value into over 1 TB of data. This capability to generate massive data could potentially be exploited by attackers for DoS attacks, leading to node crashes or network congestion. Since there were no effective limiting mechanisms against the aggressiveness of OPCAT in early versions, it remained disabled until Tapscript effectively addressed this issue by limiting the size of stack elements to 520 bytes.

Today, the "purified" OP_CAT opcode has become a powerful tool for developers, making it easier to handle large integers and enhancing BTC's scripting capabilities.

Furthermore, reintroducing OP_CAT brings more development possibilities to the BTC ecosystem, allowing for a wider range of on-chain applications and smart contracts to take root on the BTC main chain.

Conclusion

Currently, Fractal has opened its faucet channel and test page, but due to overwhelming enthusiasm from users, the faucet page has been overwhelmed and is currently reporting errors, making it temporarily unavailable. Additionally, the test coins will refresh and reset at 16:00 Beijing time on August 13, and the testnet will officially launch afterward, so readers interested in participating need not rush.

Returning to the project itself, whether from the perspective of project philosophy or implementation mechanism, it seems that Fractal, which insists on "orthodox expansion" based on the BTC main chain, indeed achieves native expansion of BTC through creative mechanisms. The future widespread adoption, long-term verification of security, and integration with the existing BTC ecosystem will all require continuous self-iteration and ongoing time testing. I hope Fractal can remain consistent and keep going in the restless world of cryptocurrency.