This week, BTC surpassed $69,000 to hit its first all-time high in over two years. Frankly, we’re not surprised, because the record-setting price action we saw validated something we knew was bound to happen: Bitcoin would be back, and in a big way.
Since the launch of Ordinals last year, we’ve been beating the drum on Bitcoin’s comeback. A Bitcoin renaissance, if you will, emerged as builders flocked to the world’s oldest blockchain to inscribe their own Ordinals and, later on, mint their own memecoins (among other things). But as with many things in crypto, what began as a meme evolved into a more powerful experiment to address the age-old question: how can we scale Bitcoin?
Our team attended ETHDenver 2024 against this backdrop. Since Trust Machines was founded over two years ago, our leaders have championed the development of Bitcoin L2s and products that demonstrate the use cases that can be built with Bitcoin layers. Our vision of building the biggest ecosystem of Bitcoin apps was rooted in our faith that one day, the world would gradually come to understand how empowering a decentralized economy built on Bitcoin could be.
And so we found ourselves in Denver advocating for a new decentralized economy built on Bitcoin.
The Bitcoin Renaissance is Real, and so is the Bitcoin L2 Economy
As we mentioned, our mission at Trust Machines is to expand the Bitcoin app economy. We’ve long stood by our position that Bitcoin L2s are key to making this vision a reality, and our suite of products is just the beginning of a layer-agnostic approach that will demonstrate the versatility a full-fledged Bitcoin L2 economy could bring.
Fortunately, ETHDenver was proof that, as our CEO Muneeb Ali describes, “no one can stop Bitcoin L2s from emerging even if they tried.” Over one thousand attendees registered for the Bitcoin Renaissance Summit, and many of those attendees were curious to learn more about Bitcoin layers.
Behind the scenes, our team served as the main point of contact for developers looking to build Bitcoin products and partner with a leading L2. This includes DeFi projects on Bitcoin L2s, which are gradually becoming their own standalone category as Bitcoin wallets like Leather increasingly establish themselves as gateways into the Bitcoin DeFi ecosystem.
Celebrating Bitcoin Builders
It’s hard not to liken today’s Bitcoin revival to the spirited builder culture that has been a mainstay in Ethereum. The Ethereum ecosystem deserves credit for fostering a strong developer culture that focused heavily on the experimentation of new ideas in a bid to bring new use cases to the blockchain.
Today’s Bitcoin builders, in their own ways, have increasingly adopted much of the same mindset, many of whom were inspired by what they witnessed on Ethereum. The road Bitcoin builders, of course, take could look very different from what we’ve seen from Ethereum’s developers – a point our CEO touched on in his main stage panel – but the parallels do exist. Ultimately, the emergence of protocols like BitVM, for example, point to the development of more advanced, decentralized, and trust-minimized technologies on Bitcoin in the years to come.
It is, however, important to emphasize that we’re still in the early stages of this Bitcoin L2 revolution. While there has been an explosion of activity around its development, the Bitcoin L2 economy is still small. Today’s all-time high has sent Bitcoin’s market value back over $1 trillion, but the market value of Bitcoin L2s is still a far cry from that number.
More Bullish Than Ever on Bitcoin
Nevertheless, the most recent big BTC rally is a testament to the work of dedicated Bitcoin builders. Many of these builders have remained within the Bitcoin ecosystem for years, committed to the belief that all successful experiments in crypto will eventually come back to Bitcoin.
The buzz around Bitcoin that was at ETHDenver is testament to a new chapter in Bitcoin’s history. We all win if Bitcoin wins, so let’s keep building.
