Forward the Original Title ‘Unisat 明牌支持，比特币扩容方案 Fractal 轻解读’

Scalability has consistently been a major focus in the development of the Bitcoin (BTC) ecosystem. However, as interest in the sector has waned, many innovative BTC projects, including various scalability solutions, have gradually disappeared from the spotlight. Despite the market’s fluctuating sentiment, the phrase “still working” remains an accurate description of the status of many project teams.

Yesterday, Fractal, a native scalability solution built on the BTC core code and supported by UniSat, opened its official airdrop channel. Given the earlier announcement that UniSat will launch Fractal Bitcoin in September, I became curious about this project. So, I visited the Fractal website to gain a better understanding of what makes it unique.

Orthodox Improvement Based on the BTC Main Chain?

According to its official description, Fractal Bitcoin increases transaction processing capacity and speed by recursively creating infinite scalability layers on the BTC main chain using the BTC core code, while ensuring full compatibility with the existing Bitcoin ecosystem.

In summary, Fractal extends the BTC core code with the following features:

1. Fast Transaction Speed: Fractal’s network confirms blocks in approximately 30 seconds, offering 20 times the transaction processing capacity of the BTC main chain.
2. Native Compatibility: Built on the BTC core code, Fractal Bitcoin is fully compatible with existing Bitcoin wallets, tools, and mining hardware.
3. Dynamic Adjustment: The recursive system based on the BTC main chain automatically adjusts the number of scalability layers based on network congestion.
4. Security and Traceability: All transactions on the Fractal network can ultimately be traced back to the Bitcoin main chain.

How does Fractal manage to maintain the orthodoxy of the Bitcoin mainnet while improving processing efficiency across multiple aspects?

Multi-Layer Expansion Mechanism

Fractal enhances BTC transaction throughput through an innovative design of recursive expansion layers. These layers are built on top of the BTC main chain, forming a tree-like recursive structure. This design allows each layer to expand further, creating a “branching mode” that significantly boosts the network’s parallel processing capability.

When transaction volume on the main chain increases, Fractal automatically redirects some transactions to higher layers. Each layer can process transactions independently, and the system can dynamically adjust the number of expansion layers based on network demand. During peak times, new layers can be swiftly created to handle surges in transaction volume. This dynamic scalability enables the network to adapt flexibly to varying load conditions.

Cadence Mining

Fractal employs the same Proof of Work (PoW) consensus mechanism as Bitcoin, enabling BTC miners to seamlessly switch to mining Fractal blocks using their existing ASICs, GPUs, and other hardware.

To increase the diversity of participants in mining, Fractal introduces a mining mechanism called Cadence Mining, which combines Permissionless Mining with Merge Mining. This approach operates in cycles of three blocks: two blocks are produced through “Permissionless Mining,” and one block through “Merge Mining.”

Here’s a brief explanation of the two mining methods: “Permissionless Mining” allows anyone with suitable tools and hardware to mine Fractal blocks, similar to how Bitcoin is mined. On the other hand, “Merge Mining” is tailored for BTC miners, allowing them to mine both BTC and Fractal blocks simultaneously without needing additional computational power.

Reapplying OP_CAT

Fractal Bitcoin reintroduces OP_CAT, an opcode present in early BTC versions but later disabled. OP_CAT enables the concatenation of two strings, and scripts using OP_CAT can extend a 1-byte value into more than 1 TB of data. This capability could be misused by attackers for DoS attacks, causing node crashes or network congestion. Due to the absence of effective safeguards in early versions, OP_CAT was disabled until Tapscript addressed the issue by limiting stack element size to 520 bytes.

Today, the “purified” OP_CAT opcode is a valuable tool for developers, simplifying the handling of large integers and enhancing BTC’s scripting capabilities.

Reintroducing OP_CAT opens new development opportunities within the BTC ecosystem, allowing on-chain applications, smart contracts, and other diverse on-chain use cases to flourish on the BTC main chain.

Summary

The official Fractal project has recently opened its faucet channel and test page. However, due to the overwhelming response from users, the faucet page has crashed and is currently showing errors, making it impossible to claim test tokens at this time. The test tokens will be refreshed and reset at 16:00 Beijing time on August 13th, and the testnet will be officially launched afterward. So, there’s no need to rush if you’re interested in participating.

Looking at the project itself, both in terms of its philosophy and implementation, Fractal appears to consistently adhere to the “orthodox expansion” of the BTC main chain, using innovative mechanisms to achieve native BTC scalability. For widespread adoption, long-term security validation, and seamless integration with the existing BTC ecosystem, Fractal will need to undergo continuous iteration and withstand the test of time. We hope that Fractal will remain consistent and keep progressing in the volatile crypto world.

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