Author: Cookie

In the past half month, the two Bitcoin mainnet smart contract implementation solutions, OPNET and Arch, have sparked a lot of discussion. Interestingly, the name OPNET is similar to the well-known OPCAT, both starting with "OP", which is quite confusing and makes people think they are similar.

So, let's start by mentioning OPCAT. First of all, OPCAT is a Bitcoin opcode. Since last year, the community, led by "Quantum Cats" and "Taproot Wizards" founder Udi Wertheimer, has been calling for the "resurrection" of OPCAT. The term "resurrection" is used because OPCAT is an existing Bitcoin opcode, but it was removed by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2010 due to the potential for DoS attacks. CAT is an abbreviation for "concatenate," and just like the meaning of this word, the function of OP_CAT is to allow string concatenation, combining two strings into one.

So how does this opcode enable Bitcoin to implement smart contracts? To be honest, this is quite abstract and difficult to understand, so here I recommend interested friends to read an article by another author, Jaleel, titled "13 Lines of Code Help Bitcoin Implement Smart Contracts? Understanding the OP_CAT Soft Fork." Here, I would like to quickly summarize a few key points for everyone:

OP_CAT involves a soft fork of the Bitcoin network, and to reach this stage, the BIP-347 proposal needs to be approved. Currently, the proposal has only progressed to the second stage of the entire proposal process, the "Proposed" status.

OPCAT has been revived on BCH and BSV for several years, but the related use cases are still very abstract. In the current discussions, we can hardly see any particularly clear and direct examples of what kind of dApp can be created using OPCAT.

OPCAT is not a one-step "cure-all"; reviving OPCAT is more like the first step in unlocking Bitcoin smart contracts. It is reasonable to expect that if OPCAT can be successfully revived and some excellent use cases appear, there will be further discussions on unlocking more Bitcoin opcodes. We can look forward to seeing some innovative developments on Fractal, which has activated OPCAT.

On the other hand, OPNET should actually be classified as a "protocol" like Runes, BRC-20, and ARC-20. Although its name also starts with "OP", its implementation has nothing to do with Bitcoin opcodes.

OP_NET

The framework of OPNET can be roughly divided into two parts. Since it is a smart contract implementation solution on the Bitcoin mainnet, Bitcoin mainnet definitely plays a part in the entire technical framework. It can be said that the Bitcoin mainnet plays the role of the "behavior initiation layer" and the "final confirmation layer" in the OPNET technical framework. The execution and state confirmation of smart contracts constitute another part, which is the "execution layer" composed of OPVM and OPNET nodes.

According to the technical framework diagram above, we can briefly explain the process of implementing smart contracts on the Bitcoin mainnet using OPNET. First, users deploying/interacting with contracts initiate transactions on the Bitcoin mainnet. The data field of this transaction will contain the string "BSI," allowing the execution layer to detect that this is a transaction of an interactive nature for OPNET contracts. After the transaction is confirmed, OPVM executes the corresponding contract operation and updates the state, which is then confirmed by OPNET nodes, and finally the state is provided to the Bitcoin dApp. When the Bitcoin dApp receives the contract execution result and takes corresponding actions, it will also submit their action results to the Bitcoin mainnet.

At this point, you may have a familiar feeling—this is not the same as the "off-chain indexer" model of "off-chain execution, on-chain confirmation," right? Indeed, there is a slight similarity. However, OP_NET has an interesting mechanism in that it actually "burns Bitcoin."

The transaction fee of OPNET consists of two parts. The first part is naturally the basic Bitcoin network fee for a transaction, and the other part is the OPNET transaction fee, which is composed of execution fees and priority fees, both of which are paid in Bitcoin. The OPNET transaction fee must be more than 330 satoshis to ensure that it will not be rejected by nodes as "dust" (UTXO that is too small). The priority fee allows contract execution actions to be prioritized, similar to raising Gas in Ethereum to ensure that their transactions are executed first (OPVM can sort which action to execute first).

If the OPNET transaction fee is greater than 0.0025 Bitcoin, 330 satoshis will be "burned," and the excess will be given to the node operator as a reward. The so-called "burning" is somewhat similar to the situation often seen in Ethereum where money sent to a contract address cannot be withdrawn, because OPNET actually uses a specific type of Bitcoin transaction, "Taproot script path spending," to abstract the Bitcoin address into a contract address, which no one can control, thus achieving the "burning" effect.

Finally, let's take a brief look at the background of this project. The team behind this project is the MotoSwap team. I don't know if everyone remembers $OSHI, which ranked third in the total market value of BRC-20 tokens during the $OSHI market. OSHI is an application, and later, due to some disagreements within the team, some members switched to Moto on CBRC-20. Although OPNET uses Bitcoin as the token for protocol interaction consumption, it also incorporates two standards, OP20 and OP_721. Therefore, it can also be said that the style of this project tends more towards the "new protocol, new asset" style that we were familiar with last year.

Arch

Unlike OP_NET, Arch has announced that it has secured a $7 million seed round of financing led by Multicoin Capital, with participation from OKX, Portal Ventures, Big Brain Holdings, ABCDE, and others. Arch will have its own token, serving as both gas fees and the staking token for its PoS network validators.

As a result, Arch's positioning is completely different from OPNET. If OPNET is at least more inclined towards the "new protocol, new asset" style in the short term, then Arch is completely "building a smart contract layer on top of the Bitcoin mainnet," or "Bitcoin 1.5 layer."

From the above diagram, we can roughly describe the workflow of Arch. Users initiate transactions on the Bitcoin mainnet, and Arch nodes sniff out and process the transactions, with leader nodes responsible for "block transactions," i.e., building blocks for the Arch network, and also for submitting the finally confirmed Bitcoin transactions back to the Bitcoin mainnet.

It looks a bit similar to OPNET? But actually, if you carefully read Arch's official documentation, you will find that they are more detailed than OPNET in terms of ensuring network stability and other technical descriptions related to the "execution layer." For example, they use the "FROST + ROAST" signature scheme, which allows Arch to ensure network robustness as long as 51% of the network members are honest and cooperative enough to sign the signatures.

Finally, although Arch has its own token as the "execution layer," which is the gas fee for the Arch network, users can still pay with Bitcoin when interacting with contracts through Arch, and the fee conversion will be handled on the backend. Therefore, in terms of usage, Arch will not require a separate wallet.

Conclusion

In terms of technical implementation, OP_NET and Arch are somewhat similar. Overall, we can say that they both treat the Bitcoin mainnet as the "initiating end" and "confirmation layer," with the "execution layer" being their own. However, the positioning of these two projects is quite different, with the former being a "protocol" and the latter being a "Bitcoin 1.5 layer."

Of course, the problem of long block times on the Bitcoin mainnet may still limit the efficiency of dApps developed by both projects. Their own execution and confirmation are fast enough, but ultimately, the confirmation on the Bitcoin mainnet depends on the performance of the Bitcoin mainnet miners. Nevertheless, we welcome the continuous exploration of the Bitcoin ecosystem, as only through exploration can there be development.

Finally, it is worth noting that Arch's token may have a Token Generation Event (TGE) in the first quarter of next year. Therefore, if there are future related testing activities or dApps based on Arch, those interested can pay attention and interact. As for OPNET, there is not much to do at the moment. We can only hope for the emergence of popular tokens running on it. However, the current ecosystem's enthusiasm may make it difficult for OPNET to emerge as a protocol like ARC-20 did in the past.

免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。