BSV Blockchain recently held its Quarterly Townhall for Q1 of 2024 which featured a presentation on 1Sat Ordinals by its leading developer, David Case. As in the previous Townhall (Q4 2023), the webinar also featured presentations which summarised recent developments and progress of the value streams of BSV Blockchain, which included:
- Cyrille Albrecht, General Manager;
- Darren Kellenschwiler, Utilisation Technical Team Lead;
- Siggi Oskarsson, Teranode Director;
- Connor Murray, Director of Stewardship;
- Jake Jones, Business Program Manager;
- Nicolas Wellinger, Outreach: Public Sector Lead
- Marcin Rzetecki, Subject Matter Expert;
- Evan Freeman, Education Director;
- Liz Louw, Head of Content.
Management – overview and introduction
Albrecht gave an overview of the association’s activities. He outlined a high-level roadmap for the next few years, starting with stewardship as a core element, followed by SV Node and Teranode activities, for which e.g. existing libraries and new building units will be standardised and introduced. Albrecht mentioned a transition phase with SV Node and Teranode running concurrently, depending on various parameters and community feedback.
He emphasised the importance of education, events, marketing, and outreach activities. Collaboration is highlighted as crucial for success, aiming for a successful ecosystem and standardisation across layers. Albrecht also stressed the importance of community feedback through social channels, especially on Discord.
1Sat Ordinals on BSV
Case described the implementation of 1Sat ordinals on BSV, inspired by a preceding concept on BTC. These ordinals exclusively exist within one Satoshi outputs on BSV, simplifying the process due to dust limits. Case developed 1satordinals.com as a proof-of-concept website, allowing users to create inscriptions and perform basic actions. An open-source indexer was released to track ordinal transfers across transactions, with over 2.7 billion ordinals inscribed on the BSV chain to date.
Case discussed recursive inscriptions, a concept developed on BTC and implemented on BSV, enabling linking inscriptions in a standardised manner. Case developed a tool called OrdFS, facilitating the inscription of directories of files on the chain and serving these resources from a web server. The ordfs server allows users to serve their websites from the blockchain, involving DNS registration for regular web technologies.
An ordinal lock is a sCrypt smart contract allowing users to sell their ordinals by locking their UTXO with two spending conditions. The first permits the seller to cancel the listing, and the second enables any user to purchase the inscription adhering to the covenant-type contract. This mechanism allows users to list ordinals for sale and specify conditions for purchase.
Case discussed OpNS, a contract similar to DNS systems, enabling users to claim globally unique names with the state maintained on-chain. He also mentions Locks, a contract for locking BSV for a specified period, primarily used as a signal upvote system. BSV-21 tokens evolved from BSV-20, allowing smart contracts to control token distribution, as seen in initiatives like lock-to-mint and POW20.
Case highlighted the development of the Yours Wallet, an open-source wallet allowing developers to experiment with sCrypt contracts and enabling users to sign arbitrary contracts. Unlike some wallets, Yours Wallet permits external processes, facilitating interaction with BSV beyond specific functionalities.
Utilisation: SPV Wallet and ARC
Darren Kellenschwiler announced the release of an SPV wallet, implementing simplified payment verification as described in the Bitcoin white paper, potentially the first open-source project to do so comprehensively. A private beta group was launched at a recent sCrypt meetup in San Francisco, with feedback expected to inform the V1 release scheduled for early April. The release will include a product available on the AWS marketplace for one-click installation onto Kubernetes stacks. Extensive documentation will clarify the SPV concept and implementation.
A second announcement was the official launch of ARC V1 in a live production environment, achieving stability at a thousand transactions per second for a single vendor, with Handcash, Gorillapool, Tokenized, and Tokenovate among the testing partners. A proof of concept for a TypeScript overlay has been developed, pending approval from a steering committee.
The TypeScript SDK, with 4000 downloads to date, now includes examples and documentation, with plans for additional content creation. A Python SDK is in the contracting stage. Kellenschwiler also highlighted the establishment of a secure custody scheme. This scheme incorporates Shamir’s secret sharing, nChain’s optimal threshold signature scheme, and multi-party computation for securing large quantities of BSV or tokens on BSV. The next phase involves creating a public-facing BRC detailing these aspects.
Standardisation: Teranode – reaching 1 mln tx/s
Siggi Óskarsson provides an update on Teranode development, highlighting the challenges faced in dealing with network-related issues while striving to achieve a million transactions per second on the UTXO-based blockchain. They’ve encountered unprecedented workloads in stress-testing the system, leading to infrastructure and architectural changes. Utilising Kafka as a queue has been introduced to manage the scale effectively. Despite generating significant log data, they’re making progress in resolving issues and optimising infrastructure configurations.
Although Teranode software functions properly, infrastructure and configuration challenges persist, particularly with three nodes competing for blocks. Despite encountering bugs, recent weeks have shown stability in software performance, focusing now on tweaking infrastructure settings for cost efficiency. A graph illustrates achieving 1.1 million transactions per second but shows dips corresponding to node activity. While challenges persist, progress is evident, and public transparency in testing aims to showcase advancements in reaching high tx/s capabilities.
Stewardship: NAR, alert system and protocol restoration
Connor Murray highlighted the recent launch of two significant initiatives, starting with the Network Access Rules. He discussed collaborating with legal scholars to translate the Bitcoin white paper into a clear legal contract, aiming to define the rules for network participants and bind the BSV Association to specific terms. Murray emphasised the importance of establishing clear terms and conditions, especially with the potential for large enterprise customers to participate in becoming part of the network as it scales. He encourages reading the rules to understand their significance for the ecosystem.
The second talking point was the release of the alert system, designed to run alongside the node, facilitating direct communication with nodes for network security and protocol updates. He discussed the forthcoming development of the Protocol Restoration, aiming to remove remaining opcode limitations and enhance transaction malleability.
Ecosystem: Developments and the bigger picture
Jones provided a broader perspective, connecting the initiatives by the various value streams, which are not singular projects but rather build upon and depend on each other. He referred to BSV’s competitive advantage in offering high-frequency micropayments. Teranode serves as a foundational step to achieve this at a global scale, proving the feasibility of small, high-frequency micropayments.
Jones outlined upcoming milestones, such as the alpha launch of Teranode in Q1 as well as the launch of overlay services and the listing node later in the year. He discussed the shift toward IPv6 and the M-Net for interaction.
Outreach: Public sector
Wellinger highlighted the success of BSV Demo Day on Capitol Hill, which was sponsored by Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the US House of Representatives. More people attended than initially expected through RSVPs, showing significant interest in blockchain and its applications. Various solutions were presented to the audience, including identity solutions by nChain, IoT in agriculture with SmartGrow Agritech LLC, cybersecurity tool CertiHash, and innovative futures and options platforms with Tokenovate.
The event aimed to educate politicians and committee representatives about blockchain’s potential utility, paving the way for future engagements and state-level presentations. Wellinger emphasised the significance of this event as the first time functioning blockchain applications were showcased to the US federal government, indicating opportunities for further collaboration and exploration of new use cases in future demo days.
Outreach: Private sector
Marcin Rzetecki provided updates on his value stream on various activities across different regions.
Mobilum Partnership: The outreach team is nearing an agreement with Mobilum for global BSV on/off-ramp services covering 50 US states. They’ll also introduce BSB US, a stablecoin important for the BSV ecosystem. Additionally, they’ve had over 55 meetings with exchanges and off-ramp services to discuss BSV listings and finalise timelines.
India: Led by Rohan Sharan, the BSV group in India organised meetups in Delhi, Mumbai, and Indore, attracting nearly 100 new members to the big blockers community. Rohan conducted blockchain workshops at prestigious universities and developed three proof-of-concept projects, one of which involved collaboration with the Reserve Bank on a sandbox project.
China: Led by Lise Li, the Chinese community collaborated with Hunan University of Information Technology on a blockchain course. They hosted an event attended by 80 people and nine speakers, resulting in two potential projects related to IP management and monetisation.
Poland: Under Rzetecki’s own leadership under the Polish Blockchain Association, they have established cooperation with the Blockchain New Technology Student Club at Poznan University of Technology and are in talks to join the IT Corner Association. They’ve also launched the “Innovators of Tomorrow” project, teaching high school students about blockchain, IoT, AI technologies, and startup management, with involvement from various organisations, including BSV Blockchain.
Education: Educational initiatives in Europe, Africa and the Philippines
Freeman provided an update on education initiatives, mentioning their progress despite online hostility towards their partners. They’ve conducted a Sports Industry webinar series with Zetly and a prestigious European sports business school, the Johan Cruyff Institute. The initiative is led by content specialist Kevin Healy.
Additionally, they’re advancing a master’s program in the Philippines under Chief of Content Todd Price, with plans for more programs there and the launch of a blockchain innovation program in Africa soon. They offer free graduate and undergraduate program offerings to universities and seek assistance from the ecosystem in connecting with interested universities. They encourage anyone with university connections to reach out to explore potential collaborations.
Growth: Facing hostility & FUD and content initiatives
Liz Louw described the proactive strategy of the growth and education teams to combat hostility and FUD in the BSV ecosystem through live-stream education. Another approach to tackle this problem is the creation of easily understandable content like FAQs, ELI5 videos and glossaries to ensure everyone is well-informed.
Recent campaigns covered various topics like the Libraries revamp, SPV wallet launch, and Stewardship Value stream. Louw encouraged signing up for their newsletter for timely updates.
Request an invitation to the next BSV Town Hall
To participate in the next, exciting BSV Town Hall event, you can join the BSV Discord or you can email Brett Banfe directly at [email protected]. Thank you.
