The Bitcoin Layer 2 ecosystem continues to thrive. The Merlin Chain for Layer 2 integrates key modules such as ZK-Rollup network, decentralized oracle network, and Bitcoin on-chain fraud proof, based on Bitcoin Layer 1 native assets, protocols, and products, aiming to continue innovating and unleashing its potential, “making Bitcoin interesting again”. Merlin Chain currently supports Bitcoin protocols including BRC20, BRC420, Bitmap, Ordinals, and will soon support Atomicals, Stamp, Runes, etc. As of March 12th, the total locked value (TVL) on Merlin Chain has exceeded $3.8 billion. Within just 33 days of the mainnet launch, TVL has rapidly increased, demonstrating its ability to attract significant capital. Among them, 88% of TVL consists of Bitcoin ecosystem assets, with BTC accounting for $2.17 billion and BRC-20 assets contributing $450 million to TVL. According to official sources, there are currently hundreds of dApps in preparation or already online. Merlin Chain also recently announced collaborations with 5 DApp projects in an AMA, and this article will briefly introduce the basics of these pioneering projects.

1. Influpia

Project Gameplay: Based on ERC404, a SocialFi project that can convert personal social influence into tangible value. Users can build their influence through two actions: boost and empower. In the second phase of the project, the project plans to launch the Influpad platform, providing exclusive exposure and display, introducing brand parties, and establishing long-term cooperation mechanisms. Through game mechanics, users can earn tokens and enjoy rich reward mechanisms. In addition, there is ERC404 empowerment gameplay, where every ten thousand tokens will be converted into an NFT, and the NFT will additionally enhance a random power attribute. PvP gameplay will also be launched in the future.

Latest Developments and Cooperation Plans with Merlin: Influpia’s airdrop points were launched on Merlin Chain at 5 p.m. (UTC+8) on March 11th, followed by more activities. The native token is $ING, and 7% of the total supply will be used for airdrops. ING adopts a fair launch, without pre-mining, investor or team reserves, only through active community participation for minting.

2. Dragonverse Neo

Project Gameplay: The first game to go online on MerlinChain, aiming to create a 3D open world and metaverse, integrating various gameplay such as Pokémon, fighting, parkour, chicken dinner, and auto chess. In addition, a game engine editor is introduced to help creative players build their own content.

Latest Developments and Cooperation Plans with Merlin: The lightpaper will be released soon to explain the use of assets in detail. In addition, the project plans to develop a Layer 3 specifically for games based on Merilin Chain to address the shortcomings of infrastructure performance, basic game projects, and small player base in the Bitcoin gaming track. This chain will provide exclusive computing and storage resources, enabling large-scale games and multiplayer games, such as Final Fantasy 14, LOL, and PUBG, to run smoothly in the Bitcoin ecosystem.

3.Surf Protocol

Project gameplay: A permissionless AMM derivatives trading protocol, focusing on the BTC2 layer, providing leverage and perpetual contract services.

Overall, there are two ways for users to participate. The first is trading, where users place orders and trade on the platform based on their own judgment. The second is financial management. Users can be the market maker of the platform, be the counterparty of all traders, and receive the traders’ fees. The coins listed in the early stage of the project include BTC, Ordinals, Sats, and Ethereum. Surf Protocol allows single-coin staking to reduce liquidity dispersion issues.

Latest news and cooperation plan with Merlin: The first version of Merlin is expected to be launched on March 11. The incentive plan will be launched in April. Users can experience it as an early bird and make suggestions.

4. BendDAO

Project gameplay: It is an NFT mortgage lending protocol based on the Ethereum layer. It is an NFT mortgage lending protocol using a peer-to-peer pool model, which supports users to mortgage their own blue-chip NFTs to obtain loans to unlock the liquidity of NFTs. At the same time, BendDAO focuses on lending and has also launched two additional functions: selling collateral and purchasing NFT with down payment.

Latest news and cooperation plan with Merlin: In the future, lending protocols will be launched on Merlin, such as the blue box of BRC-420 protocol assets. Users can stake and then get BTC or stablecoins. The BendDAO protocol hopes to serve as the leader of the BTC asset staking track and will gradually support all assets in the entire BTC ecosystem, as long as they can be mapped to the second layer.

5.bitSmiley

Project Gameplay: A stablecoin project based on the Bitcoin ecosystem, supporting BTC native assets, used both in trading and employing an over-collateralization mechanism with leverage attributes.

bitSmiley’s stablecoin serves two purposes: firstly, to fill the gap left by Circle (USDC issuer) on the BTC Layer 2, serving as circulating cash for cryptocurrency transactions. Secondly, due to the over-collateralization mechanism, it possesses leverage attributes. Users can collateralize BTC to mint stablecoins, use these stablecoins to participate in trading and profit. Subsequently, users return the stablecoins, retrieve the collateral, thus enhancing user capital efficiency.

Latest Developments and Cooperation Plans with Merlin:

The native asset bitDisc-Black NFT of bitSmiley has officially joined Merlin’s staking mining activity, Merlin Seal, becoming one of the BTC assets recognized by Merlin’s mainnet activities. bitDisc-Black NFT holders can stake their NFTs on the Merlin Chain to participate in earning Merlin mainnet MPoints rewards. The staked assets will be mapped to M-bitDisc-Black. The bitSmiley team stated that users holding M-bitDisc-Black assets enjoy the same rights as bitDisc-Black holders and can also participate in other bitSmiley activities in the future.

In addition to the above five projects, the official announcement also recently unveiled a series of new dApps, including DEX project iZUMi Finance, cross-chain bridge Meson Finance, Polyhedra Network, as well as Bitcoin native asset applications Bitmap Game and Bitmap War, and BRC-420 native DeFi application Mineral, etc.

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1. This article originally titled “速览BTC 2层Merlin生态的5个龙头项目” is reproduced from [panews]. All copyrights belong to the original author [Weilin]. If you have any objection to the reprint, please contact Gate Learn team , the team will handle it as soon as possible.

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