Worldwide Debut: Bitcoin Unified Asset Protocol 'Goldinals' Chinese Release

Article Source: Nubit

On January 10, 2025, Nubit, a Bitcoin project deeply involved in native technology development within the Bitcoin ecosystem, released a Bitcoin asset protocol named "Goldinals" (Protocol Whitepaper Link: https://www.nubit.org/Goldinals.pdf).

According to the official statement, the Goldinals concept was proposed by Domo, the founder of the Ordinals protocol's first token ($ORDI) and BRC20, and was implemented by the Nubit team to achieve technical implementation. This protocol aims to introduce trustless asset management and programmability to the Bitcoin ecosystem, addressing the lack of interoperability between existing Bitcoin asset protocols (such as BRC-20, Runes, Ordinals, etc.), which has led to fragmented liquidity and security risks.

Goldinals' slogan is "The Unified Protocol for Bitcoin Assets," emphasizing its role as the "Bitcoin Unified Asset Protocol."

In other words, Goldinals has provided a unified standard for Bitcoin assets, compatible with existing protocols, while supporting more efficient asset creation, management, and interaction capabilities. It will be an important step for the Bitcoin ecosystem to advance into the asset programming field.

Nubit was founded by Professor YU FENG from the University of California, Santa Barbara, aiming to build "the Trustless World Computer for Bitcoin," achieving Bitcoin's open scalability and programmability through Bitcoin's native technologies such as BitVM. Nubit enables developers to build any Bitcoin-native application, bringing global users into the Bitcoin ecosystem.

Goldinals Design Principles Overview

Goldinals is a Bitcoin native asset protocol designed to break free from Bitcoin's technical constraints while providing functionality similar to mature asset standards on other blockchains (such as Ethereum's ERC-20).

In Ethereum, developers can leverage the ERC-20 standard to deploy, transfer, mint, and burn tokens through a simple API. However, while the current Bitcoin-based BRC-20 protocol also aims to achieve similar functionality, it heavily relies on off-chain indexers and additional trust assumptions, limiting its decentralization and security.

The Goldinals Asset Protocol offers a revolutionary solution to trust and security issues by providing a direct on-chain implementation of a similar API on the Bitcoin network, including:

· Deployment: Initialize the protocol's global parameters and create a new token instance.

· Minting: Increase the token's supply by allocating newly minted tokens to a specified address.

· Transfer: Transfer tokens between addresses while ensuring validity checks such as balance verification.

· Burning: Decrease the token's supply by permanently removing tokens through on-chain operations.

Although the logic of the above APIs is similar to ERC-20, implementing these functionalities on Bitcoin requires overcoming the limitations posed by its stateless design and Turing-incomplete script language. To address this challenge, Goldinals has designed a meticulous three-stage state machine process to ensure the legitimacy, transparency, and trustlessness of operations.

Through the three-stage state machine, Goldinals cleverly adapts to Bitcoin's technical constraints by breaking down each operation into multiple steps, combining on-chain data with zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) to ensure the security and trustworthiness of the final confirmed state. This design not only overcomes Bitcoin's native limitations on complex operations but also eliminates reliance on centralized indexers, enabling every token operation to occur in a trustless environment. Below are the specific steps of Goldinals' three-stage state machine:

1. Preparation Stage:

In this stage, users declare their operation intent (such as token transfer, minting, or burning) through on-chain transactions. Transaction details include the target address, operation type, and parameters, which are written to the Bitcoin chain via the OP_RETURN field, ensuring permanent and transparent data availability.

This process is like writing a check, where the user specifies the payee, amount, and purpose on the check, but it has not been formally delivered yet.

2. Kickoff Stage:

After a certain number of block confirmations, the user can submit a "Kickoff Transaction," which includes:

1) Submission of Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP): Using mathematical methods to prove the legitimacy of the operation, such as sufficient balance or compliance with protocol rules.

2) Validation Data: Used to prove relevant information about the on-chain state.

3) State Update: Clearly stating the requested operation's impact on the protocol's global state.

The Kickoff Stage is a core step in operation confirmation, similar to a notary verifying the legitimacy of a check. During this process, all operation conditions are strictly validated on-chain while leveraging the computational power provided by BitVM to perform complex computation validation.

3. Challenge Stage:

After the Kickoff Stage is completed, the process enters the Challenge Stage, where the user's operation undergoes a security verification period. During this period, any network validator (referred to as a challenger) can verify the validity of the zero-knowledge proof submitted by the user:

1) If any illegal operation is detected, the challenger can challenge the legitimacy of the operation through on-chain transactions;

2) If no valid challenges are made, the operation is formally confirmed and updated to the protocol's global state.

This stage is akin to multiple auditors independently reviewing the legality of a transaction, where a single honest challenger can prevent potential fraudulent behavior.

Through multi-stage verification, Goldinals has successfully addressed the limitations of Bitcoin's native technology. It ensures that all token operations can be completed in a fully decentralized and trust-minimized environment, providing an efficient, transparent, and secure solution for complex asset operations.

This design not only allows developers to build powerful and secure Bitcoin-native applications through Goldinals' API but also brings trust and technological innovation to the entire Bitcoin ecosystem.

Revolutionary Innovation Protocol for Unified Bitcoin Ecosystem Assets

The launch of Goldinals may usher in a new era of unity and innovation for the Bitcoin asset ecosystem.

As a full-fledged ERC-20 standard on Bitcoin, Goldinals is compatible with existing Bitcoin asset protocols (such as BRC-20, Ordinals, Runes, and CAT), while supporting future Bitcoin assets and application development.

Through decentralized validation and on-chain programmability, Goldinals breaks the reliance on centralized indexers, enabling the Bitcoin asset ecosystem to truly achieve trustlessness and Bitcoin native features. Post Goldinals, existing Bitcoin applications looking to add new functionality or develop new assets will no longer need to painstakingly create new protocols. By unifying Bitcoin assets, Goldinals will provide the ultimate solution for the upgrade of the Bitcoin asset ecosystem.

Upon initial examination, Goldinals possesses the following significant advantages:

· Trust Minimization: All operations are directly validated on the Bitcoin chain, without relying on centralized indexers or custodial solutions, ensuring full decentralization.

· Inheritance of Bitcoin's Security: Goldinals records every token operation directly on the Bitcoin chain, relying on Bitcoin's finality and data availability, avoiding risks of L2 protocol disruptions.

· Native Programmability: Leveraging BitVM technology, Goldinals supports complex on-chain logic, including multi-signature wallets, conditional transfers, and token gating, expanding the application scenarios of the Bitcoin protocol.

· Efficiency and Scalability: Through the use of zero-knowledge proofs and optimized design, Goldinals significantly reduces transaction costs, while enhancing transaction speed and scalability, providing a better experience for developers and users.

Building upon these advantages, Goldinals is not only an upgrade to the Bitcoin asset protocol but also the foundational framework for the future development of the Bitcoin asset ecosystem.

By exploring Nubit's official social media, we have discovered that Goldinals is continuously expanding its ecosystem, which will encompass areas such as wallets, exchanges, infrastructure, and financial solutions.

Its core partners include Babylon, Lombard, Yala, Succinct, StarkWare, Fractal Bitcoin, Merlin, sCrypt, and more. These partnerships will drive innovation in cross-chain bridges, stablecoins, and Bitcoin-native financial solutions.

In addition, Goldinals has also attracted over 30 Bitcoin ecosystem participants, including Milkyway, Wizz Wallet, Avalon Finance, among others. With Goldinals set to launch soon, developers and the community can engage through the Goldinals website, ushering in a more open, programmable, and decentralized future for Bitcoin-native assets.

Bitcoin 3.0: A New Era of Unity and Decentralization

Goldinals has introduced a novel trust-minimized token standard, injecting powerful decentralization and programmability capabilities into the Bitcoin asset ecosystem, marking a significant leap forward in the Bitcoin asset protocol's evolution. Through compatibility with the existing ecosystem and seamless support for new use cases, Goldinals will provide a broader imaginative space for Bitcoin's application in the global economy.

Whether issuing customized assets, building a stablecoin system, or achieving decentralized liquidity staking, Goldinals will empower developers and enterprises to explore new frontiers of Bitcoin, ushering in the golden age of Bitcoin 3.0.

Goldinals Whitepaper Original Text: https://www.nubit.org/Goldinals.pdf

This article is contributed content and does not represent the views of BlockBeats.