The Birth of BRC2.0: Bitcoin’s Programmable Asset Layer | with Best In Slot CEO, Binari

Programmable BRC20 tokens, dubbed “BRC2.0,” launched a few short weeks ago after more than a year of building and anticipation. This effort was spearheaded by BRC20 lead-maintainer team Best In Slot, who joined the BRC20 core team after their development of open source Ordinals indexer “OPI,” and solidifying their title as a leading Ordinals infrastructure provider. In this episode, I sat down with Best In Slot CEO, Binari, to hear the birth story of “BRC2.0,” and learn how the ground was laid for programmable native assets on Bitcoin within a few short months of BRC20's launch in 2023. Having worked closely with this team and on this protocol via Layer 1 Foundation for almost two years now, this interview is particularly close to my heart. A must-watch for any Ordinals-historians out there, I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on this little-known history of BRC20, and the future of “BRC2.0.” Shouts out in this episode to Domo, UniSat wallet, Sats Names and other key figures in the development of Ordinals-based metaprotocols. In this episode, we cover: - How the idea of programmable BRC20 assets (and programmable native assets in general) was born shortly after the launch of BRC20 in late 2023 - Why Domo connected with the Best In Slot team early on in BRC20’s history, and advocated for their inclusion as core maintainers of the protocol next to marketplace UniSat wallet - The truth about the BRC20 “indexer wars” and why “he who holds the users, holds the power” - Why Best In Slot refused millions in venture funding despite being one of the most highly valued companies in the Ordinals space over the last three years - How BRC2.0 will differentiate itself by focusing on institutional-grade financial use-cases… and not the low-hanging fruit of meme coins. This episode is powered by: - Best In Slot, the leading API for Ordinals and BRC20 data aggregation and indexing - Spark, a statechains implementation leading the path towards institutional adoption of Bitcoin-powered payments - Citrea, the leading Bitcoin Rollup technology and contributor to the BitVM alliance 📍 Timestamps 00:00 Intro 00:52 Bitcoin as a time machine & new way of thinking about time 02:32 Launching BRC 2.0 & building a minimum viable ecosystem 05:00 TLDR: What is BRC 2.0? 05:31 Ordinals & the return to Bitcoin building 08:00 First exposure to Ethereum at Burning Man 10:16 Indexing, NFTs, and DeFi vision for scale 11:57 India trip, Ordinals hype, and rediscovering Bitcoin 15:33 Canonical indexers & why they matter for protocols 21:03 Early BRC 20 experiments & hype cycle 40:02 BRC 2.0 mainnet launch 54:07 Future of Best in Slot & Bitcoin applications ordinals #BRC20