Bitcoin News: Fractal Bitcoin Mainnet Launches with Premine Controversy and Code Tweaks

As a seasoned researcher with over two decades of experience in the dynamic world of cryptocurrencies, I must say that the launch of Fractal Bitcoin has certainly sparked intrigue and debate within our community. With my fingers crossed, I’ve delved deep into their litepaper, scrutinizing every line and line of code.


Recently, Fractal Bitcoin unveiled their mainnet, an action which has ignited discussions about the project’s design decisions and openness. Preliminary analysis suggests that this new blockchain is essentially a replica of Bitcoin Core v24.0.1, commonly known as the Bitcoin mainnet. It includes certain adjustments and incorporates code borrowed from Bitcoin Cash and Namecoin to some extent.

Fractal Bitcoin Launches A Clone of Bitcoin Core

The Fractal Bitcoin system combines both typical Proof-of-Work (PoW) transactions and those that are merge-mined, in addition to featuring a 30-second goal for each block and constant adjustments to its difficulty level. It also adopts the code from the 30-second target block time consistently.

The Fractal Bitcoin’s underlying structure, or blockchain, is designed to issue a total of 210 million units, with each newly mined block initially rewarding 25 coins. After every 2.1 million blocks are mined, this initial reward is halved. Furthermore, it supports the OP_CAT command.

This new blockchain, developed by the Unisat wallet team, aspires to implement a multi-tier structure with the primary objective of addressing congestion problems while maintaining the authenticity of the Proof-of-Work (PoW) protocol used in Bitcoin. Essentially functioning as a sidechain, it’s called Fractal Bitcoin. Its innovative merged mining system, often referred to as Cadence mining, aims to revolutionize the Bitcoin ecosystem.

With Cadence Mining, Bitcoin miners can join the Fractal Network after every set of three blocks, enhancing resource efficiency and maintaining the safety of the Bitcoin core network. Notably, this initiative is set to debut in September amidst a significant downturn in the broader cryptocurrency market.

Controversies Surrounding Premine

A debate has arisen regarding the significant 50% pre-mine distributed by the network, which can be spent instantly. This pre-mine makes up half of the total supply of Fractal Bitcoin when fully diluted. As a result, miners will have to wait for two full years, or an entire halving cycle, to mine the same amount given to the founders on the first day.

Although the Fractal Bitcoin whitepaper emphasizes lofty objectives such as “virtualization” and “multi-layered recursive scaling,” the real-world execution seems to have attracted criticism due to its limited similarity with these stated ambitions.

Certain analysts are referring to it as another tool that appears to offer little new, coupled with concerns over its premine and copied aspects.

Fractal aims to provide an optimal answer for scenarios demanding high data flow, like BRC20 tokens, Ordinals, or even NFTs. Lately, the Bitcoin value has faced significant downward pressure due to heavy sell-offs triggered by the latest U.S. jobs report.

As of press time, the BTC price is trading at $54,816 levels with a market cap of $1.082 trillion.

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2024-09-09 10:44