Interview/Editor: Jaleel Jialiu, Cookie, BlockBeats

With the Fractal Bitcoin Fractal Network online for nearly a month, CAT20 has become one of the hottest and most consensus-based projects on the protocol.

One of the biggest highlights of Fractal Bitcoin is the activation of the OP_CAT opcode, so the discussion of OP_CAT in the Bitcoin ecosystem has become more heated. OP_CAT has become a frequently appearing keyword in this year's Bitcoin Optech newsletter and developer conference. Related reading: "Why should you pay attention to Bitcoin's OP_CAT? The biggest narrative after the Lightning Network".

CAT20 has done a lot of research on OP_CAT, so the low profile of CAT20 only lasted for a few hours, and then it quickly spread by word of mouth in the community, attracting great attention. Within a few days of minting, the mining fee rate of the Fractal Network soared to 5,000 sats/vb. According to DotSwap data, the current price of a CAT token is maintained at around $1.28 (US$6.4 per piece). The income of early minters has increased by 5 to 40 times.

Even though the popularity of Fractal Bitcoin has declined recently, the price of CAT tokens has remained strong. What are the reasons behind this? The code of CAT20 is so mature that it is obviously not from a team that has just started. In this context, BlockBeats conducted an in-depth interview with CAT20 officials, revealing the origin of CAT20, the technical accumulation behind it, the details of the cooperation between CAT20 and Fractal Bitcoin, and the "threat" of CAT20 to the Ordinals protocol.

Origin 6 years ago, revealing the birth of the prototype of CAT20

As an innovative Bitcoin token protocol based on the OP_CAT opcode, the origin of CAT20 can be traced back to six years ago. Its team members have been exploring how to implement smart contracts on the Bitcoin network since the BCH and BSV era, and years of technical accumulation have laid a solid foundation for the birth of CAT20. In this section, the CAT20 team will share in detail their development process, the philosophy and ideology of CAT20, and the future evolution direction of the project.

BlockBeats: CAT20 has become popular recently, and the technical implementation is also very mature. Everyone is curious about the background of the CAT20 team. Who made CAT20? Can you share it with us?

CAT20:At this stage, we choose not to disclose our identity information. But what can be revealed is that our team has 5 people and has been studying smart contracts on Bitcoin since 2018. Although we developed CAT20, we believe that CAT20 is an "ownerless" existence, and we are the code contributors of CAT20.

Although there are not many team members, we have always believed that a small team can also make great achievements. On the contrary, sometimes too many people will slow down the progress. This is also the purpose of our team-don't add more people if you can. In fact, if you find those who really love Bitcoin, they don't need many people to complete the project. Even if there are 20 people involved, the efficiency may not be so high. During the most intense stage of the project, we almost didn't rest for several weeks in a row, but we still produced results with high efficiency.

Although we have launched a preliminary version, there are still many areas that need to be optimized. This is a long-term project, we will continue to improve, and welcome everyone to give us feedback. We are currently running on Fractal, hoping to apply these experiences to a larger ecosystem, such as the Bitcoin mainnet.

BlockBeats: When did you have the idea of developing the CAT20 protocol? You have been researching smart contracts on Bitcoin since 2018. What attempts and experiences have you accumulated in this process? Can you share them with us?

CAT20:This process can actually be traced back to a relatively early time. If we talk about the source, we have been researching how to develop smart contracts for Bitcoin since 2018. At that time, we were developing on BCH (Bitcoin Cash) and BSV (Bitcoin SV, a forked chain of Bitcoin Cash). These two chains had activated OP_CAT in 2018, and other opcodes that were disabled on the mainnet were basically restored and activated. So, we started developing on these ecosystems. Especially on BSV, we invested a lot of energy. Because BSV is not as restricted as the Bitcoin mainnet, it has the best performance and the least restrictions on opcodes, so our tools run most smoothly there.

From the end of last year to the beginning of this year, the Bitcoin mainnet began to discuss whether to activate the OP_CAT opcode. We have been studying this technology for many years and know that if OP_CAT is activated, many things can be achieved. Although it cannot do everything, it is the optimal solution for implementing smart contracts on Bitcoin, and many applications that cannot be currently realized can be expanded in the future. So we decided to at least make something so that everyone can use it now and experience for themselves that OP_CAT is not just a theoretical concept. So we migrated the previous smart contract code to Fractal Bitcoin.

Of course, we iterated many versions in this process, and may have gone through four or five generations of improvements. Now is the latest version. Although there may be new updates in the future, this version is already quite ideal. So CAT20 is the result of many years of accumulation, similar to a research topic, which has gone through many versions and has been implemented on different chains. But because Fractal has a high level of attention, everyone has just begun to understand its practical application. In fact, similar technologies have been implemented on other smaller chains, but these chains are not well-known, so people are not very clear about them.

BlockBeats: There is a much-discussed "rumor and gossip" in the community, saying that CAT20 and Fractal have a close relationship, and even suspect that CAT20 is made by Fractal. Do you have anything to clarify on this topic?

CAT20:First of all, we are very grateful to Fractal for providing a platform, otherwise we are still waiting for BTC to activate the OP_CAT opcode, and this waiting process may continue until our project is over. So I think this cooperation is a win-win situation, and it is also the result we hope to see.

The relationship between CAT20 and Fractal can be compared to the relationship between Ethereum and Celestia. We are building an ecosystem on Fractal, but we are not part of Fractal officially, but an independent team, and the two sides have in-depth cooperation.

We have a long history with Fractal. When Lorenzo was working on a project on BSV, we had a cooperative relationship. It has been four years now, and we have been working together for a long time. Later, they were very successful in making UniSat wallet, but they also faced a problem: once the Bitcoin mainnet was blocked, their new issuance or trading market business could not proceed.

We heard about Lorenzo's plan to work on Fractal at the end of last year, and he mentioned it when we met in December last year. However, they did not plan to add the OP_CAT opcode to Fractal at the beginning. Our work has always been to verify the feasibility of OP_CAT, and we have found that it can bring many new applications, but we are suffering from the lack of a real asset chain for us to experiment or develop on it. So I proposed to Lorenzo, "Fractal is going to be launched in September, can we add OP_CAT to it?" Later, after internal research and information collection on Twitter, they decided to add this feature.

In fact, we also maintain cooperative relations with some very well-known projects, such as sCrypt, etc. Now, more and more project parties have come to us to help them develop on Bitcoin. We welcome more project parties to cooperate with us to promote the development of OP_CAT.

BlockBeats: What is the current work and research focus of the team? What does the team hope to do through CAT20?

CAT20: It can be understood that our team does the same work as the teams of Ordinals, BRC20 and Runes. As a protocol developer, we try not to develop specific applications, such as wallets, browsers or DEX, but focus on improving the design at the protocol level. As for applications such as DEX, AMM or on-chain games, they may be developed by other teams. We also welcome more development teams or independent developers to participate and put forward their own ideas, "I want to make a DEX, I want to make a pump fun", all of which are good. We will try our best to give some suggestions, explore the potential of CAT20, create more valuable applications, and allow users to truly experience and feel the charm of CAT20.

We hope to remain neutral. For example, we do not plan to create a CAT20 Marketplace ourselves, because that might make people think that we have seized the opportunity. On the other hand, our team is good at building underlying infrastructure, and if we develop specific products, the results may not be ideal. Even if we have users at the beginning, they will most likely be replaced by products with better UX/UI later. So we prefer to do what we are good at, and let other teams develop more applications.

BlockBeats: What directions will the team encourage developers who are interested and want to participate to try? Or are there any project parties that have already started building in the CAT20 ecosystem and are seeking technical support from you?

CAT20:In the final analysis, CAT20 is a token protocol. You can refer to the development history of other token protocols, such as Atomicals, BRC20, and Runes. In the initial stage, people could only perform simple operations, such as minting coins, and there was no wallet, let alone trading. Therefore, with the improvement of tools such as wallets, Marketplace, and browsers, the entire ecosystem gradually formed a closed loop, and users could truly experience the convenience of this ecosystem.

However, if we only stay at the construction of these infrastructures, CAT20 is not much different from other token protocols. The biggest advantage of CAT20 is that it can be seamlessly integrated with other dApps. You may have seen the official tweets from CAT, introducing that CAT20 is not just a protocol that can launch Meme Coins, but it can actually be combined with all smart contracts. Therefore, it can be applied to various scenarios similar to Ethereum or Solana, such as Uniswap, pump.fun, etc.

Currently, some developers have shown interest in CAT20, but we do not plan to develop these applications directly. We hope to leave the opportunity to developers and teams to explore the potential of CAT20 on their own and build a more diverse ecosystem. In this way, the entire ecosystem will be more organic and healthy, rather than driving development through reserved tokens or other incentive mechanisms. Our goal is to allow everyone to actively participate in the construction because they see the potential of CAT20.

Our partner sCrypt has an OP_CAT developer group on Telegram, which currently has more than 1,300 people, and everyone discusses how to use CAT20 to implement on-chain applications, such as the function of locking time, etc. The biggest advantage of this protocol is that it does not require our approval or modification of the underlying protocol. Developers can directly write smart contracts without contacting us, and the protocol itself is very open.

For example, some developers are studying how to build decentralized exchanges through CAT20. They found that they can implement transactions on the chain like Uniswap or DYDX without complex smart contracts and PSBT. Others are trying to develop algorithmic stablecoins and on-chain voting mechanisms, which are all good application examples.

BlockBeats: The threshold for deploying CAT20 tokens seems to be a bit high for ordinary developers. In terms of deploying tokens, does the team plan some innovations and solutions to lower the threshold for deploying tokens and create more gameplay innovations?

CAT20: Indeed, the current threshold is relatively high, because the project has just been launched and everyone needs time to adapt. However, we will launch some documents and educational content to help developers better understand this protocol. CAT20 is not just an ordinary token protocol, it has many flexible ways to play, such as the pre-mine or fair launch you mentioned. The mint method we provide is customizable. Although the most basic method currently announced is similar to the mint of BRC20 or Runes, the underlying architecture of CAT20 is actually completely different.

For example, you can design a mint in the ICO mode, so that users pay a certain amount of coins to mint, or you can combine the method of Atomicals and add hashing and proof of work mechanisms. Of course, this difficulty is much lower than the main network, but you can make users work harder to get tokens. In addition, there are various innovative ways to mint, and even require you to lock a certain amount of coins before you can mint, etc.

Of course, as you said, end users do not need to directly access these complex mechanisms. Just like on Ethereum, ordinary users will not directly write smart contracts. These should be the tasks of developers and project parties. Developers and project parties can use existing tools to innovate more attractive ways to mint, and then let users experience it through a friendly front-end. In the end, users will access contracts through these applications instead of directly operating the protocol itself, just like on UniSat, Dotswap or other platforms.

BlockBeats: When the team was developing CAT20, how did they balance the relationship between technology, capital and community? For example, the Atomicals protocol is called the "technical halal" in the Bitcoin ecosystem. It does not rely on VC investment, but mainly relies on community donations. As a result, community cohesion has declined. CAT20 and OP_CAT are also very technical, and ordinary communities may find it difficult to understand their importance. If there is capital to promote it, it may be more successful. How do you consider this?

CAT20:This is a good question, how to strike a balance. On the one hand, our love and ideals for technology drive us to provide tools to the community for free. The benefits of this are obvious, everyone will feel fair, and it will be easier to gain community recognition. This is a bit like the way Bitcoin was issued. Satoshi Nakamoto did not raise funds, nor did he make profits through exchanges or wallets. We also hope to follow a similar path.

On the other hand, VC is also a reasonable way. No model is necessarily the best. It depends on what product you are working on. Take Bitcoin, Ordinals and BRC-20 as examples. As far as we know, they have not received financing, but they have developed well. Of course, there are some projects that may not develop well due to insufficient resources, such as Atomicals you mentioned (I don’t know much about it). But the situation of each project is different.

For us, CAT20 is not an amateur project. It requires long-term maintenance and updates, but we do not intend to make profits through pre-mining or financing. We now have other entities to make profits. In addition, when the CAT20 ecosystem grows, new business needs will emerge to make indirect profits, such as providing contract development, contract auditing, and more related tools to support the entire ecosystem. When the ecosystem grows, we will naturally get more opportunities and achieve a virtuous circle. So at present, the development of CAT20 will not rely on and introduce VC, which can ensure the independence of the project and the community-driven development model.

BlockBeats: What are the team's expectations for the price of $CAT and the overall market value performance of CAT20?

CAT20: First of all, the rise in the price of the coin is definitely a good thing. The development of this ecosystem is a great incentive for our main business, but we don't want the development and promotion of the entire project to be too dependent on the price of the coin, and it is even more impossible to find a market maker or spend effort to maintain the price of the coin. Including some exchanges that come to us and want to discuss listing the coin, I still say the same thing: CAT is ownerless, or everyone says it is decentralized and community-based, I don't care. Like Satoshi Nakamoto, if the trading platform wants to list the coin, it can do it directly without contacting us. We try to keep it decentralized, rather than controlling or pushing it to the exchange through us.

So the development of CAT20 and the trend of the $CAT coin price are basically independent. We are mainly focused on promoting the development of the protocol, rather than paying too much attention to price fluctuations. To put it more extreme, even if the price of $CAT goes down to zero tomorrow, our development will still continue.

We hope that $CAT can demonstrate its value through practical applications, not just a meme coin. Now everyone may think that it is more of a meme coin being hyped, but in the long run I hope that more people can see its potential in applications and demonstrate its value by using it. I believe that such a long-term and stable development model will be better, rather than a rapid decline in popularity after listing on the trading platform, which is not a good thing for the long-term development of the entire protocol and the coin price.

BlockBeats: I'll ask more directly, what are your personal expectations for the CAT20 protocol? Will it surpass Ordinals, BRC-20 and Runes and become the mainstream protocol in the Bitcoin ecosystem?

CAT20:If I hadn't experienced the history of BCH and BSV, I would definitely say that CAT20 is a "dimensionality reduction attack", but after so many years, the years of BCH and BSV forks, purely from a technical point of view, BCH and BSV should surpass BTC, because what Bitcoin can do can be done on BCH and BSV, and it is done better, adding the functions of tokens and smart contracts. So from a technical point of view, CAT20 has smart contracts, but Ordinals, BRC-20 and Runes are still only at the level of "engraving" on Bitcoin, and it is certain that they will surpass them.

From a technical perspective, CAT20 does have the potential to "strike at dimensionality reduction", because with a simple OP_CAT opcode, we can achieve many things that we couldn't do before. This is the result of our years of accumulation and exploration. So, from a technical perspective, I think CAT20 can not only do what BRC-20 and Runes can do, but can even do things they can't do, and it has the characteristics of unlimited scalability and complete de-licensing.

Of course, after going through so many things, I answer this question again, and my answer is, it's really hard to say, it's not certain. Because I understand that technical advantages do not necessarily mean market success. Many people still use the current asset issuance methods on Bitcoin, although these methods are somewhat "incomplete", such as simply writing data to the chain and then parsing it through indexes instead of executing it through smart contracts. However, this is because Bitcoin lacks support for the OP_CAT opcode. If this opcode is turned on, everyone will find that these indexes are no longer needed.

However, as to whether the market will buy it, we will have to wait and see. I think CAT20 is a very good thing and I also prefer it, so I personally expect that CAT20 has the opportunity to dominate the Bitcoin ecosystem because it solves the limitation of no smart contracts in other current protocols. If the market recognizes its advantages, in the long run, it may become the mainstream coin issuance protocol in the Bitcoin ecosystem, and those "intermediate" protocols may gradually withdraw from the stage of history.

OP_CAT theme event during Token2049

OP_CAT is the driving force and leader behind the track

The activation of OP_CAT is seen as a key step for the Bitcoin network to move towards the era of smart contracts. Through OP_CAT, the Bitcoin mainnet will be able to support smart contracts, greatly expanding its application scenarios. This technological upgrade will not only change the future of the Bitcoin ecosystem, but may also trigger the vigorous development of more decentralized finance and smart contract applications. In this section, the CAT20 team will explore in depth the technical implementation and security of OP_CAT, as well as its far-reaching impact on the Bitcoin ecosystem, and answer how ordinary users can benefit from it.

BlockBeats: In your opinion, where is the importance of OP_CAT to the Bitcoin network? For example, smart contracts, everyone is paying attention to this. How do you think OP_CAT technology will change the Bitcoin ecosystem, especially in terms of smart contracts and decentralized finance. Will there be applications such as perpetual contracts?

CAT20: Smart contracts are definitely the biggest evolutionary upgrade on Bitcoin. Initially, people thought that Bitcoin could only be used for payment and storage, until Ordinals made people realize that it could also be used for asset issuance. Now with OP_CAT, it is equivalent to upgrading from two dimensions to three or even four dimensions. You can implement complex smart contracts, and the possibilities in the future are almost unimaginable.

Looking back at the history of blockchain development, everyone was operating on Bitcoin at the beginning, but then there were other blockchains such as Ethereum because people felt that Bitcoin could not implement certain functions, such as the inability to issue tokens and smart contracts. If Bitcoin can implement smart contracts through OP_CAT in the future, and do what other chains can do through technical upgrades, or even surpass them, then do we still need other chains?

Some people would consider this a Bitcoin extremist view, but I personally feel that Bitcoin is logically capable of doing everything that other chains can do, and can do it better. Since 2017, I have also worked on other chains, like Ethereum and EOS, but in the end I found that only Bitcoin is logically self-consistent and has greater potential. Although there are some limitations on Bitcoin now, such as OP_CAT has not been activated, as long as functions like OP_CAT are activated, Bitcoin can achieve what other chains can do, or even what they cannot do.

The significance of OP_CAT is that it determines whether Bitcoin will move towards Turing-complete smart contracts in the future. This is not a simple small change, but a key choice for the future direction of Bitcoin. If Bitcoin introduces smart contracts, at least from the perspective of programmability, it will be upgraded from 0 to 1. This means that Bitcoin can realize all the smart contract functions on other chains in the future, such as staking, lending, etc. OP_CAT can unlock the unlimited potential of Bitcoin and release its true capabilities.

BlockBeats: In the process of implementing smart contracts, is it enough to activate only the OP_CAT opcode? Or does it require the cooperation of other opcodes? Is it a conservative choice to activate OP_CAT only in the Taproot script at present? If more use cases are needed, should more opcodes be unlocked?

CAT20: This question can be answered in two steps. The first step is to activate OP_CAT itself, which can indeed realize Turing-complete smart contracts. With OP_CAT alone, we have been able to implement almost all the functions on Ethereum. This is not just theoretical speculation, but we have implemented and verified it in the code.

But then again, although OP_CAT can achieve many functions, its efficiency may not be the highest. For example, Bitcoin can't even do multiplication operations now, and many smart contracts require multiplication operations. Although we can implement these functions through OP_CAT, the efficiency may be relatively low. For example, to make an AMM, you need to do multiplication operations, which can be achieved with OP_CAT alone at present, but the efficiency is not high.

So the second step is to consider unlocking more previously disabled opcodes after OP_CAT is successfully activated. These opcodes were disabled in the early days mainly for security reasons, but if these risks have been technically resolved, then we hope to reactivate them. This will not only enable smart contracts in theory, but also improve performance and efficiency in engineering.

However, it should be emphasized that we are not advocating frequent upgrades and revival of any code. We hope to open those that were previously disabled, because there were some reasons why Satoshi Nakamoto temporarily disabled them, but later because the risks were removed, they can be opened, rather than introducing new uncertain opcodes, such as OP_CTV.

BlockBeats Note: OP_CTV (CheckTemplateVerify) allows users to pre-define a set of transaction templates and lock conditions to ensure that transactions are executed as expected. This will help implement features such as batch transactions, lightning network optimization, and complex contract scenarios in decentralized finance. The current Bitcoin Improvement Proposal is BIP-119, which has been discussed for its potential security and flexibility.

BlockBeats: Regarding the launch of OP_CAT on the Bitcoin mainnet, I know it is not easy. It involves many issues such as interest relations and code security. Just like the Taproot upgrade took three years, how long do you think it will take for OP_CAT to be launched? How about security?

CAT20:OP_CAT will definitely be activated on the mainnet, and we certainly hope that OP_CAT will be launched on the Bitcoin mainnet as soon as possible. At the beginning, our experiments were actually conducted on Bitcoin signet (testnet), which already supports OP_CAT. But because signet is just a test network, although it is technically the same as the mainnet, because the coin is just a test coin and has no actual value, many actual impacts cannot be truly tested. That's why we turned to the Fractal platform, which provides a very good testing ground for us to test the performance of OP_CAT in a real environment.

Many people are discussing risks now. Will there be risks if OP_CAT is used on the mainnet? Will there be MEV? I think what we are doing now is also the best proof. We hope to prove that OP_CAT is safe and stable through the actual application of Fractal. If various applications can be run stably on Fractal for a long time without additional risks, then this will provide stronger support and evidence for OP_CAT to be launched on the mainnet, and give everyone more confidence.

As for the time when OP_CAT will be launched on the mainnet, we cannot control this. We can only enhance the confidence of the community and developers through these experiments. It makes it easier for everyone to see that this is not so dangerous, and the risks are all known and controllable. It runs well on Fractal, so it is safe to activate OP_CAT on the Bitcoin mainnet.

BlockBeats: What everyone is complaining about is that the transaction volume of CAT20 is relatively large. What is the reason for this? Is there room for optimization and upgrade in the future?

CAT20: Regarding the issue of transaction volume, we first need to clarify what the "large volume" is compared to. Compared with BRC-20, CAT20 transactions are indeed larger. This is because CAT20's verification logic is placed in the Script, while BRC-20's logic relies on indexer or miner processing. In short, CAT20 chooses to run the logic on the chain, so the volume will be larger than BRC-20.

Let me give you an analogy. Just like when you buy a mobile phone, you can choose a simple flip phone or a more powerful one, such as an iPhone. BRC20 is more like a flip phone, which is cheap but has limited functions, but CAT20 is an iPhone. Although the transaction volume is larger and the cost is higher, it provides more advanced functions, such as the ability to integrate complex applications. Just like in real life, many people are willing to spend more money to buy an iPhone because the functions and experience it brings far exceed simple mobile phones.

However, from an engineering perspective, CAT20 still has a lot of room for optimization. For example, we can reduce the size by improving the compiler, optimizing the way contracts are written, or partially using more efficient scripts. In addition, Bitcoin's client can also further reduce the size through engineering optimization without modifying the protocol itself.

BlockBeats: How does the CAT20 protocol "abandon" the centralized indexer? What are the technical solutions and principles here?

CAT20:CAT20 does not use a centralized indexer, but a tracker similar to Bitcoin. In the Bitcoin system, all transaction issuance and transfers are completed by miners through Coinbase transactions and UTXO verification, and the mechanism of CAT20 is the same.

When using CAT20, users still need to find their own UTXO (unspent transaction output) to spend, but this does not require relying on a centralized indexer. Miners will complete the verification process when packaging blocks. You can choose to use our default tracker or write a tracker yourself. Logically, CAT20 and Bitcoin are completely decentralized, and you only need to find your own UTXO and read the status.

BlockBeats: What is the difference between the CAT20 protocol and CATNIP, the OP_CAT token protocol promoted by Quantum Cat, and BitVM, which launched a very popular white paper last year and hopes to run everything on Bitcoin?

CAT20:The biggest difference is that the CAT20 protocol is real, while CATNIP and BitVM do not exist yet. It sounds a bit extreme, but this is my personal opinion. CAT20 is actually usable and you can play with it today, while CATNIP and BitVM are still in the conceptual stage.

I often use a straightforward analogy: it's like I tell you that a restaurant is delicious and you can go and try it. Another restaurant is still in the planning and preparation stage, and the slogan says that this restaurant may be great in the future, but you can't try it now. So the comparison between the two is unfair, you can't compare something that exists with something that doesn't exist yet. I can boast that the restaurant of the future will be the best, but this is all hypothetical, and we can only truly evaluate its quality when it actually appears.

BitVM has been launched for a year, but it still hasn't landed, and no user has used it to develop any application of practical value. In contrast, CAT20 is already running and has solved the actual needs of users. This is a very objective comparison.

Therefore, we don't actively compare with other protocols. We prefer to decide which protocol is better through the market and the real experience of users, because ultimately whether it is excellent is determined by users. Just like different restaurants, there are many choices, and customers will choose to go to places with good reputation and good experience, which is the strongest evidence.

The "new king" is crowned, is the era of Ordinals coming to an end?

The birth of Ordinals marks a key turning point in the Bitcoin ecosystem from closed to open, and various new protocols have emerged. As the "new king" of the new round of protocol competition, CAT20, which can realize smart contracts, has reached a new dimension in terms of functionality. However, the success of the protocol not only depends on technology, but also requires extensive support and promotion from the community. The activation of OP_CAT has not only attracted the attention of developers, but also gathered the consensus of miners, project parties and other parties. In this section, the CAT20 team will explore the driving force behind the revival of OP_CAT and how ordinary community users can contribute their own strength at this historic moment.

BlockBeats: How many teams do you know currently that are doing development related to OP_CAT? How are these teams progressing? In addition to the Great Wizards team, which groups have a consensus on the resurrection of OP_CAT? How do miners, mining pools, core developers, etc. promote the resurrection of OP_CAT? The Bitcoin ecosystem used to be relatively closed. Is it more open now and welcomes these technical explorations?

CAT20:First of all, I think Ordinals is an important watershed in the openness of the Bitcoin ecosystem. Before the emergence of Ordinals, most of the ways to play Bitcoin were to buy coins, deposit coins, and wait for the price of coins to rise. Few people actually used Bitcoin for other applications. Ordinals broke this limitation and made people realize that Bitcoin is not only a store of value, but also an asset issuance tool. Protocols such as BRC-20 and Runes also began to appear. This attracted more users and developers to enter the Bitcoin ecosystem, making the entire system more open.

Of course, there are still some so-called fundamentalists and Bitcoin maximalists in the Bitcoin ecosystem. They believe that Bitcoin should not change too much, and some even suggest that these so-called "junk data" should be blocked. But overall, with the changes brought about by Ordinals, especially the participation of more users and developers, the entire ecosystem is much more open than before, and the activity of developers and project parties has increased significantly.

At present, we have also seen a lot of voices supporting OP_CAT. Well-known companies and developer groups such as Blockstream and StarkWare are promoting the activation of OP_CAT, and miners and project parties are also the main force of active support. Although some early opinion leaders may oppose for various reasons, from a technical point of view, OP_CAT has been running on some blockchains such as BCH and BSV for a long time without any security issues. Therefore, I think many objections are more out of political considerations rather than the technology itself. Technically, I don’t see any negative impact.

BlockBeats: If OP_CAT is activated on the mainnet one day, will the consensus on the implementation of FT and NFT on the mainnet split? Will the OP_CAT technology ecosystem such as CAT20 and CAT721 dominate the world, or will it split into two, with Ordinals continuing to occupy the NFT market and OP_CAT taking the FT market?

CAT20: I personally believe that the functions of OP_CAT can cover all FT and NFT fields, and the reason is simple: the emergence of protocols such as Ordinals and BRC-20 is because Bitcoin lacks OP_CAT and there is no way to develop smart contracts. If Bitcoin has protocols like ERC-20 or ERC-721, why do people still use those simplified protocols that rely on on-chain engraving? Ordinals is simply a "subset".

We are about to launch CAT721, and when you use it, you will find that CAT721 can not only realize all the functions of Ordinals, but also increase the advantages of smart contracts. We can do what Ordinals can do, and in addition, we can do more functions that it cannot achieve, such as verification of smart contract logic and complex interactions.

Ultimately, the market will decide which solution is more popular, but from a technical point of view, the protocol based on OP_CAT will undoubtedly be the better choice. Ordinals and BRC20 do fill the gaps in the lack of Bitcoin smart contract functions, but in the long run, they are transitional products, and smart contracts based on OP_CAT will become mainstream.

BlockBeats: In the development process of OP_CAT, is it possible for CAT20 to repeat some of the old paths of Ethereum's development at that time? For example, from the ICO craze to DeFi, chain games, Layer 2, abstract addresses, etc., from only some simple meme coins to a situation where applications are flourishing?

CAT20:Yes, I think it is very likely to be the case, because when something comes out, everyone just uses its so-called most basic function at the beginning, such as issuing meme coins, speculating on meme coins and other simple applications, and then staking, trading markets, etc. But later we also hope that everyone can use CAT20 to make things that could not be made before, such as more decentralized applications, not just speculating on coins, but real empowerment, so that I think the ecosystem will be healthier.

And as you just said, I think it is very likely that after everyone discovered that there are smart contracts on Bitcoin, they also began to try to make some very useful apps that have been proven on other chains, such as Uniswap, Maker Dao, AAVE... I think at the beginning, everyone may be imitating these apps implemented by smart contracts on other chains, especially those that have been tested by the market. This is the earliest batch of gameplay.

But I think the most interesting thing should be that after everyone has played through the entire CAT20, they will make some things based on Bitcoin's unique UTXO that cannot be made or is difficult to make on other chains, or that are not easy to use after being made. Such more innovative gameplay.

BlockBeats: If we do not regard CAT20 as a simple asset issuance protocol, but as a token standard like ERC-20, is there a possibility that CAT may have a relatively complete governance mechanism like Ethereum? For example, for some major protocol-level changes, will there be on-chain governance such as proposal voting?

CAT20:Yes, this is possible. For example, I saw some people speculating on Twitter that $CAT is more like a meme coin now, but we can also make it into an on-chain governance token and vote on the chain, which is completely feasible. This is what I said before. For the CAT20 protocol, we prefer to make it open and listen to the opinions of the community, rather than unilaterally controlling the direction of the protocol. If there are upgrades or changes in the future, we also hope to hear the opinions of these communities.

BlockBeats: After OP_CAT is activated, will there be more competition similar to the FT protocol on the Bitcoin mainnet? Similar to the competition between BRC20 and Runes?

CAT20: I think it is very likely. Once OP_CAT is activated, everyone will see its powerful functions, and various token protocols based on OP_CAT will surely emerge. This kind of competition is a good thing, because only with competition can more innovation be stimulated, allowing developers to continuously launch better protocols and products.

However, back to CAT20, I don’t think the current version will be the final form. The protocol and technology will continue to evolve, and we will continue to improve CAT20. But in any case, competition can bring more choices, which is very beneficial to the entire ecosystem. We very much welcome developers to use OP_CAT to make more innovative applications.

BlockBeats: The threshold for developing OP_CAT is very high. Do you think that the future competition will only be concentrated among experienced development teams like the CAT20 team?

CAT20: Absolutely agree. Compared with Ordinals, BRC-20, and Runes, the technical threshold of OP_CAT is indeed much higher. Let me give you an example. There may be less than 10,000 people in the world who truly understand how Ordinals, BRC-20, and Runes work, while there may be only 100 people in OP_CAT. This is why many people feel that CAT20 is like a sudden innovation, because it requires a deep understanding of the underlying Bitcoin protocol and rich experience in all opcodes.

So I think at the beginning, there should be competing protocols, but there shouldn't be many, unlike the SRC-20 and BRC-420 variants after the birth of BRC-20. I think these are just minor changes in the code. But for OP_CAT, if it really wants to continue to advance, the technical threshold should still be very high.

As time goes by, more and more developers will be able to understand the mechanism of OP_CAT in depth. By then, the development of the entire ecosystem may also have a greater leap.

BlockBeats:You have also worked in BSV for a long time before, and now you are focusing on Fractal. BSV and BCH have not made much significant progress in the past few years, and the ecological heat does not seem to be high. And this year, many people think that Fractal is the 2024 version of BSV or BCH. What do you think of this statement? Why do you think Fractal can succeed in the current environment? Is this about timing? Also, what is the difference between Fractal and BSV and BCH? If Fractal continues to develop, do you think it is possible to surpass BSV or BCH in terms of consensus or market performance?

CAT20：I think it is very likely that Fractal will surpass BSV and BCH. I thought you would ask me if it can surpass BTC, which may be a little far-fetched, but I think it has a great chance of surpassing BSV and BCH.

Why do you say that? First of all, in terms of computing power, Fractal has greatly surpassed BSV and BCH. Computing power is the foundation. Now Fractal's popularity and transaction volume are growing very fast. It has only been less than three weeks since the 9th, and Fractal's activity has reached a very high level. Therefore, from the perspective of market performance and user activity, I think Fractal has great development potential.

There are many factors that determine the success of a project. For example, some people now say that compared with BSV, Fractal is not much faster or cheaper, but this is not determined by a single factor. Everyone can see that UniSat is the leader in the Bitcoin ecosystem. It has developed the first wallet, the best new IPO tool, and the market trading platform, and it has been very successful.

UniSat's successful model also verifies that the path of importing users into the new chain is feasible. In contrast, if you are an unknown team, simply forking Bitcoin does not guarantee success. The UniSat team has proven that they have the ability to drive users and projects, which is an effective way, rather than simply relying on technical forks of Bitcoin.

BlockBeats: If the Bitcoin mainnet successfully implements OP_CAT, will Fractal Network's competitive advantage still exist?

CAT20: My opinion may be a bit niche. Many people are now discussing various new technologies such as Layer 2, EVM, ZK, etc., which is more of a marketing demand and may not really need so many complex functions. In contrast, Fractal Network seems to have just forked the code and added some minor improvements, which are what users really need. This is a deeper level of design and consideration. It is not the other way around, desperately researching technology for the sake of technology, ignoring products and users.

So at the end of last year, we could see more than 100 or even 200 Bitcoin Layer 2 projects emerging, but we did not participate in them because we believe that these projects are not really for the long-term value of Bitcoin Layer 2. Many Layer 2 solutions are more for hype and making quick money, rather than for truly improving the scalability of Bitcoin.

As for the future of Fractal, it has opened up a whole new track. For example, CAT20 is the first version of smart contracts implemented with OP_CAT. There may be better versions or protocols in the future, but I can't say for sure. I'll give an analogy that there will be a "Dog20", which also uses OP_CAT, but its design may be better and its performance may be higher.

Does this mean that Fractal or CAT20 is meaningless? Not really. I think it is still meaningful because it is a new precedent and a pioneer in this track. Then, with this track, it paves the way for this field, and later comers can improve or even optimize on this basis. Even if it is really replaced, the existence of Fractal or CAT20 has its own historical significance.

BlockBeats: I know that there are actually many friends in the community who may not be able to make many contributions at the level of proxy code. If you want to support OP_CAT or CAT20, what can you do?

CAT20:Everyone can contribute to OP_CAT and CAT20, and this is not just the responsibility of technical developers. Many people have heard of OP_CAT, but may not understand its true meaning and potential. For example, at this time, the bridge role of third-party media and communities like you is particularly important.

You can popularize the logic behind OP_CAT through various channels and methods such as articles, social media, Twitter Space, etc., explain why we want to activate it, and what it means to the Bitcoin ecosystem. Through more discussions and publicity, it can help everyone understand why OP_CAT is worthy of attention and promotion. In fact, Bitcoin Core developers are sometimes relatively passive. If everyone continues to discuss OP_CAT and forms a consensus and market demand, then this will prompt them to pay attention to and speed up the activation process. As I said before, many times it is not a purely technical thing, it is the so-called "politics", which requires more people to enter, participate, and form.

Of course, the rise in coin prices and protocol market capitalization will also attract more attention. But we do not want to make CAT20 a meme coin, but hope to attract more users and developers to pay attention and participate through its practicality and leading effect.

We are not completely sure that OP_CAT activation is a good thing for Bitcoin, but all the evidence we have seen so far shows that OP_CAT activation is beneficial to Bitcoin. It can realize Bitcoin smart contract functions, bring innovations that were not possible before, and so far, we have not found any security vulnerabilities or hidden dangers. These are all pointing to one direction - OP_CAT should be activated as soon as possible.

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