BitcoinNon-fungible Token times have changed, and why is Quantum Cats attracting attention?

The most high-profile Bitcoin Non-fungible Token project in recent times is undoubtedly the upcoming Quantum Cats series from the Taproot Wizards team.

Quantum Cats

Aside from the strong influence of the “Great Wizard” in the Bitcoin Non-fungible Token ecosystem and the influence of players who hold “Quantum Cat” to have a better chance of obtaining the “Great Wizard” white list, “Quantum Cat” is a very interesting project. “Quantum Cats” describe themselves as “evolutionary inscriptions” - each “Quantum Cat” will continue to change in a deterministic way over time and the development of the storyline.

What will Quantum Cat look like in a year’s time?

We know that BitcoinMainnet has no Smart Contract, and the inscription is fixed as soon as it is burned, how does Quantum Cat make the inscription image constantly change? After exploring this question, we will also find that Bitcoin Non-fungible Token has entered a new era.

Changes to “Quantum Cat” - recursive + pre-signed transactions

@rot 13 maxi, CTO of Taproot Wizards, mentioned in a tweet that in order to realize the dynamic changes of Quantum Cats, they used the following technologies:

• Recursive inscriptions

• Pre-signed transactions

• Symmetric encryption

• Client load management

The recursive inscription must be familiar to everyone. In short, recursive inscriptions make it possible for inscriptions to refer to each other and get content. There is Java code in the recursive inscription, and when you use the browser to view the inscription containing the Java code, the browser executes the code in the sandbox, and finally renders what you get when you run the code.

It’s easy to understand that the image changes by referencing other inscriptions on the chain, but if the other inscriptions are already on the chain, the quoted content is transparent, and there are no more surprises. This is where the pre-signed transaction comes in - if the reference is an inscription that has not yet been on-chain, the result will naturally be “404 Not Found”. If you pre-sign a transaction that realizes the “open image” action, but do not broadcast it, when the pre-signed transaction is broadcast one day, the quoted content will appear, and the “Quantum Cat” image will change.

Symmetric encryption is designed to ensure that no data is leaked before the user sees the updated image, preventing surprises from being compromised. It should be mentioned here that “Quantum Cat” actually has two insurances. The first insurance is to add an extra layer of mapping, such as background, body, nose and other features are assigned as “layers”, each “quantum cat” will point to a JSON file, its ID will be mapped to a new short ID, and then the short ID will be mapped to the inscription ID of the feature, this JSON file is called “layer connector”. Before the “layer connector” is on-chain, holders can only see that they are referencing the “layer connector”, but they do not know what characteristics will be assigned after execution.

This first line of insurance is to prevent the hassle of direct quotation from the inscription. Even if the directly quoted inscription can be delayed to be kept secret, the characteristic rarity of the “quantum cat” can still be calculated according to the number of citations.

The second layer of insurance is symmetric encryption, which is to prevent the uplink of this JSON file and prevent the possibility of a sudden increase in gas fees after the “open map” transaction is uploaded to the chain. If the transaction cannot be completed in the first time, the code of the JSON file will be leaked before the image is opened. What to do? I had to encrypt each “layer” symmetrically.

As for client-side load management, it is not directly related to the implementation of the dynamic changes of “Quantum Cat”, but only to provide users with a good experience when browsing a bunch of “Quantum Cats”, and prevent network timeouts and browser thread pool exhaustion.

In addition to this approach of “Quantum Cat”, there is also Pizza Ninjas’ recursive + Sat Endpoint method.

Changes to Pizza Ninjas - Recursion + Sat Endpoint

Sat Endpoint is actually a greatly enhanced feature of recursive inscriptions, by using the Sat Endpoint function, it is possible to re-burn on a Satoshi, and you can also call up and display different versions of the inscriptions that exist on a Satoshi. If Quantum Cat’s technological innovation is more about its artistic narrative (a nod to OP_CAT) and artistic behavior (progressive mapping), then Pizza Ninjas using Sat Endpoint is more about creating a breakthrough in functionality.

Not only that, Sat Endpoint actually has a “trust” advantage over Smart Contract.

Although the inscription is immutable, Sat Endpoint can make use of reburn to enable the inscription to be upgraded with the owner’s permission. The right to change the Smart Contract is in the hands of the project party/developer, but on Bitcoin, the situation is completely different - it can be understood that a software will release multiple versions, and users can choose to keep their favorite/more stable old version, or upgrade to the latest version, because the holder of the Non-fungible Token has the power to reburn. Also, a Non-fungible Token with a different version of “Smart Contract” (which is actually a .js file) will remain in the same set in its entirety, and will not split a Non-fungible Token series into multiple as Ethereum due to contract changes.

The schematic diagram of Pizza Ninjas illustrates this very well - the developer publishes different versions of the .js file, and the holder chooses which one to (burn) themselves

Of course, more importantly, Sat Endpoint actually turns a simple artwork into a token-gated Programmability small computer, which implements the CRUD (create, read, update, delete) of the application in the way of reburning, and then checks the inscription through various inscription browsers to directly make the code on the inscription run. We’ve seen the classic game “DOOM” burned in the early days of Ordinals, and with Sat Endpoint, there’s a lot of creativity and imagination on a single inscription. Taking Pizza Ninjas as an example, the team designed custom Java code to provide holders with an emulator of Nintendo’s classic game console SFC, and holders can re-burn SFC’s game ROM into it to turn their Pizza Ninja into a game console running on Bitcoin.

With the continuous exploration of various gods in the Bitcoin ecosystem, there will be more geek explorations like Non-fungible Token game consoles. Pizza Ninjas came up with a concept called “Art as Application (AssA)”.

Conclusion: Bitcoin Non-fungible Token times have changed

The many new features brought about by the update of the Ordinals protocol and the influx of funds have made the barrier to entry for Bitcoin Non-fungible Token “entrepreneurship” higher and higher. It can be said that the era of “grassroots entrepreneurship” in which you had to download pictures on your own website and had a fair and free narrative is over. The most intuitive feeling for everyone may be that the quality of the pictures is getting higher and higher, but if you look closely, there are actually two main development directions.

Narrative scarcity

The existence of the inscription number makes Bitcoin extremely cruel in the “narrative” competition, such as the emergence of Nodemonkes, which crowds out the “first native 10 K PFP” narrative that originally belonged to Bitcoin Frogs. Rare Satoshi, Ancient Satoshi, etc. have also almost become the standard configuration for wanting to make a head Non-fungible Token project on Bitcoin.

Technological innovation

From the most famous “Quantum Cat” and Pizza Ninjas, to the lesser-influential Shadow Hats and Fomojis, one of the main reasons why these projects have become widely discussed in the English-speaking world is that they bring new discussion points/artistic charm and interactive fun to users through technological innovation based on recursive inscriptions. Although the current inscription still looks like a picture, it is actually engraved with code, and what you see is only the result of code execution or rendering. This cannot be done without a technical team familiar with Bitcoin.

Of course, human resources can also be said to be a matter of money in the final analysis. “Quantum Cat” cost $66,000 to burn its 3,333 cats, and even if grassroots entrepreneurs have the technical ability, it is difficult to shell out such a large sum of money to put the inscriptions on the chain.

Even so, the development of the Bitcoin Non-fungible Token ecosystem is still in its early stages. The aesthetic of “technological innovation” is actually quite “high and low” - like generative art, it requires us to explore the story behind it in detail to appreciate the deeper charm. However, it is difficult to tell a story in the same direct and beautiful words as generative art, and it is all code, code, and code, and its appeal to non-computer enthusiasts is still relatively limited. Providing new gameplay methods like Pizza Ninjas that are easy for users to perceive is the correct solution in my opinion, and “Quantum Cat” is more supported by the extremely high expectations of the “Great Wizard”.

In addition to these two tracks, the construction of community and culture is also a track where there are still opportunities on Bitcoin, such as Bitcoin Puppets, which has been used by some players to benchmark against Milady.

It is the rapid development of Bitcoin Non-fungible Token that has created the changes of the Bitcoin Non-fungible Token era. As a regular gamer, I’m still excited about the new things that keep coming up, even though I’m overwhelmed by the higher and higher launch prices of Bitcoin Non-fungible Token new items.