[Discussion] Taro: A new protocol for multi-asset Bitcoin and Lightning

[fillippone]

The point is recreating all the DeFi in the bitcoin ecosystem, thus leveraging the bitcoin decentralization.

If you want to follow more the RGB project, so you can learn more: https://t.me/rgbtelegram

Interesting.

But we saw how unprepared people are for maintaining DeFi apps by the rate at which they collapse or get hacked on other chains. I am more in favor of a restricted DeFi environment where you need a document similar to a BIP to get approved by a consensus before you can host/bootstrap a DeFi app for all Taro/RGB nodes. Someone should probably tell this to Elizabeth Stark and other Lightning Labs people.

There is no need for a strong consensus. On higher layers it's competition between protocols, implementation of the protocols and so on. It's a survival of the fittest. Risk aversion can be incredibly lower than on base layer. If you implement your protocol, this is going to attract user base and funds. No consensus required for that.

[1715057039]

1715057039

[1715057039]

1715057039

[1715057039]

1715057039

[cygan]

i was at the first german Bitcoin conference in innsbruck/austria in mid september and there was also a presentation about the taro protocol.
you can also watch this presentation again ... unfortunately it's only in german but you can change the subtitle to any language you like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwozFs6ieOY&t=22000s

[d5000]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwozFs6ieOY&t=22000s

Thanks. Unfortunately more than half of that presentation is about the question "why we need assets [tokens] on bitcoin?", which is not Taro-specific but could have also been said by a Counterparty/Omni speaker in 2013 or so (It's particularly funny he starts talking about "how to bring Tether to Bitcoin", if Tether started as an Omni asset on the Bitcoin chain!).

At 6:13:30 at least he speaks a bit about the technical side. It seems that in Taro transactions a merkle tree is included which can include dozens of token transactions (more specific: in the tree the balances are stored, so transactions seem to be "balance changes" according to some rules). This is very different from the coloured coin approach where each "asset tx" is represented by a Bitcoin tx of a few satoshis, which is nice; if I understand it right, then the Taro protocol would allow better scaling even on-chain (i.e. without using Lightning).

I'm one of those who think that protocols like this make definitively sense, they allow for example to use Bitcoin for crowdfunding/crowdinvesting purposes with ICO-style mechanisms, and thus connect "real values" from the real economy to the Bitcoin ecosystem. This could contribute to improve Bitcoin's liquidity and thus to its stability as a currency.

[illusive_moose]

I have created a web wallet for Taro that you can find here
https://testnet.tarowallet.net/

You can use it to test your taro nodes.

The wallet is now only active on testnet but will move to main net as soon as I can.

I have also created a Taro NFT faucet that you can find here
https://testnet.tarowallet.net/walletapp/faucet/?currency=nft
(went with tarot cards as NFTs, sorry I know it is lame)

as well as some standard fungible asset faucets
https://testnet.tarowallet.net/walletapp/faucet/?currency=294
https://testnet.tarowallet.net/walletapp/faucet/?currency=293

Hope it helps you with testing and development.

[digaran]

IMO, this kind of stuff is not healthy for bitcoin right now, this will devalue the bitcoin itself as the money goes to things other than bitcoin. This could be useful when there are no more BTC to mine, in the future people could mint coins, use NFT to incentivize the nodes to keep mining the transactions. It is also worth mentioning that Satoshi made a NFT out of his post on P2P foundation forum.

[dkbit98]

I have created a web wallet for Taro that you can find here
https://testnet.tarowallet.net/

This wallet is still in alpha experimental stage of development, but why do I need to create online account with username and password, instead of downloading wallet and installing it on my computer?
I am not interested in creating and using any altcoins or nft with this wallet, but I would consider using it as alternative for stable coins.
Another problem I have with this wallet is that I can't find any information about license, so you might want to add this on website.

[n0nce]

IMO, this kind of stuff is not healthy for bitcoin right now, this will devalue the bitcoin itself as the money goes to things other than bitcoin.

That's wrong on a few levels.
For one: technologically (my main field), there is nothing wrong with NFT or other experiments on L2, since it doesn't touch (i.e. bloat, spam, block, sabotage in any way) the blockchain.

Secondly, Bitcoin's value (in terms of dollar valuation) is not dependent on development money at all. No matter whether there is more or less development going on in a certain time frame and whether or how high that development is funded, the dollar valuation fluctuates completely independently.

Lastly, it is not guaranteed that 'money going into Taro / higher layer protocols' reduces 'money going into Bitcoin L1 development'. People investing into Taro / NFTs on L2 development are actually most probably not the same ones who donate to Bitcoin Core developers.
Even though that's not a guarantee either, it is far from guaranteed that 'the money goes to things other than bitcoin'; there is not one 'the' money.

[digaran]

...snip....

Maybe this could be a sweet dream for miners when more people adopt NFT/ smart contracts on bitcoin, but this could also become their nightmare. Using block space to store contracts related to some marketplace and their business conduct, just because they pay the fees for it is not gonna cut it. If we could e.g. move 500KBTC and use 4MB of block space paying the normal fee, why should we allow someone to send a few 100 $ worth in bitcoin paying the normal fee and occupying the same amount of space?

Why on earth should the bitcoin community allow centralized third parties to use our buses to get home faster while leaving us waiting longer and longer, paying more and more as time passes? After all we only get 1 bus every 10 minutes. We need to either shut up and get used to it ( not happening ) or *we should do something about it.
There are countless shitcoins out there, if people are interested in NFT/ smart contracts, they should start hugging them instead.


*= either stop this before it's too late, or scale up the network.

[illusive_moose]

I have created a web wallet for Taro that you can find here
https://testnet.tarowallet.net/

This wallet is still in alpha experimental stage of development, but why do I need to create online account with username and password, instead of downloading wallet and installing it on my computer?
I am not interested in creating and using any altcoins or nft with this wallet, but I would consider using it as alternative for stable coins.
Another problem I have with this wallet is that I can't find any information about license, so you might want to add this on website.

Hi,

thanks for your reply.

Yes. Right now it is a CUSTODIAL web wallet. Developing a non-custodial Taro wallet is possible but it would require more implicated approach. I know that privacy-wise there are MILES to go. I am planning to expose an API and release a web app but this is what we have for now.

As for the license - yes I will add this to my TODO list. You are correct this is kind of crucial.

As for username and password - I decided to only go with the basic necessities. I am intentionally not collecting emails.

[n0nce]

...snip....

Maybe this could be a sweet dream for miners when more people adopt NFT/ smart contracts on bitcoin, but this could also become their nightmare. Using block space to store contracts ^{[emphasis mine]} related to some marketplace and their business conduct, just because they pay the fees for it is not gonna cut it.

Hey hey hey, hold our horses! Check your facts mate. Taro and RGB are built on Lightning and not on L1. There are no contracts filling up the blockchain in any of this, that's the whole beauty of it.

Just something to get you started..

Today we’re excited to announce Taro, a new Taproot-powered protocol for issuing assets on the bitcoin blockchain that can be transferred over the Lightning Network for instant, high volume, low fee transactions.

RGB is a protocol to issue and transfer assets and more generic rights through the use of customizable off-chain smart contracts.

The protocol leverages the paradigm of client-side validation to keep all the RGB specific transaction data off-chain, using the Bitcoin blockchain only as a commitment layer to protect from double spending. This enables greater scalability, as the blockchain usage is reduced, better privacy, as no data is visible to the blockchain observer, and more flexibility, as the protocol is not constrained by the data structure of Bitcoin transactions.

[OmegaStarScream]

Hi,

thanks for your reply.

Yes. Right now it is a CUSTODIAL web wallet. Developing a non-custodial Taro wallet is possible but it would require more implicated approach. I know that privacy-wise there are MILES to go. I am planning to expose an API and release a web app but this is what we have for now.

As for the license - yes I will add this to my TODO list. You are correct this is kind of crucial.

As for username and password - I decided to only go with the basic necessities. I am intentionally not collecting emails.

Is there something wrong with generating invoices? I filled in the description and clicked the button, but I wasn't given anything and the page just keeps refreshing every few seconds.

[illusive_moose]

Hi,

thanks for your reply.

Yes. Right now it is a CUSTODIAL web wallet. Developing a non-custodial Taro wallet is possible but it would require more implicated approach. I know that privacy-wise there are MILES to go. I am planning to expose an API and release a web app but this is what we have for now.

As for the license - yes I will add this to my TODO list. You are correct this is kind of crucial.

As for username and password - I decided to only go with the basic necessities. I am intentionally not collecting emails.

Is there something wrong with generating invoices? I filled in the description and clicked the button, but I wasn't given anything and the page just keeps refreshing every few seconds.

Hi,

thanks for the feedback.

Right now some operations can be kind of slow.

It is because at the time I wrote the web app tarod would crash if you tried to mint and generate invoices at the same time.

It would also break if you try to mint multiple assets in the same block.

So the web app waits with generating the invoice until all minting requests are processed.

It is a very shitty UX I am sorry and have added this on my list of things to fix.

Also thanks a lot for giving this a test ride - very helpful.

[OmegaStarScream]

-snip-

Thanks for the response. I've also tried to send BTC from the wallet, and apparently, there's a problem decoding the address (tb1....):

Code:

Invalid character '0'

Or should the address be a taproot one in order for this to work?

[illusive_moose]

Hi,

sorry, I am now only supporting the testnet legacy adresses (P2PKH) .

Not ideal I know.

[illusive_moose]

For those who are interested here are a few NFTs and currencies that I have minted on Taro represented as summary website pages.

An initial test NFT
https://testnet.tarowallet.net/walletapp/currencies_public/308

A girl investing in Bitcoin NFT
https://testnet.tarowallet.net/walletapp/currencies_public/332

Diamond hands NFT
https://testnet.tarowallet.net/walletapp/currencies_public/328

You can get more NFT for testing of your node here https://testnet.tarowallet.net/walletapp/faucet/?currency=nft

A test fungible currency called Beckycoin
https://testnet.tarowallet.net/walletapp/currencies_public/294
there is a faucet for this currency as well here https://testnet.tarowallet.net/walletapp/faucet/?currency=294

Right now I am including the images into metadata resulting in pretty long genesis_bootstrap_info as well as long invoices. Lightning Labs have a PR to fix this https://github.com/lightninglabs/taro/pull/249 .

[ Sorry the images are not showing here ]

[fillippone]

I have created a web wallet for Taro that you can find here
https://testnet.tarowallet.net/

You can use it to test your taro nodes.

The wallet is now only active on testnet but will move to main net as soon as I can.

I have also created a Taro NFT faucet that you can find here
https://testnet.tarowallet.net/walletapp/faucet/?currency=nft
(went with tarot cards as NFTs, sorry I know it is lame)

as well as some standard fungible asset faucets
https://testnet.tarowallet.net/walletapp/faucet/?currency=294
https://testnet.tarowallet.net/walletapp/faucet/?currency=293

Hope it helps you with testing and development.

This is an incredibly well done work.
I will play on this, and for sure I can see this kind of use being moved up quickly from base layer to L2 solutions, due to fees.
OF course I hope that people will exchange more interesting stuff than jpg's on TARO, but I understand futile uses are a necessity in the first place.

[OmegaStarScream]

Bad news for the project. It looks like they're not going to be able to develop the project any further or even announce the next stage of the protocol until this is sorted out:

Lightning Labs’ Taro Project Faces Halt as Judge Issues Temporary Injunction for Trademark Infringement
-snip-
On Wednesday, Judge William H. Orrick issued a temporary injunction forcing Lightning Labs to halt further development of Taro until the project has been sufficiently rebranded. In its complaint, Tari argued that it and Lightning “compete in the same digital blockchain ecosystem, provide similar, and in some instances identical, goods and services, market to similar developers and users, and appear on the same blockchain platforms.”
-snip-

[DaveF]

Bad news for the project. It looks like they're not going to be able to develop the project any further or even announce the next stage of the protocol until this is sorted out:

Lightning Labs’ Taro Project Faces Halt as Judge Issues Temporary Injunction for Trademark Infringement
-snip-
On Wednesday, Judge William H. Orrick issued a temporary injunction forcing Lightning Labs to halt further development of Taro until the project has been sufficiently rebranded. In its complaint, Tari argued that it and Lightning “compete in the same digital blockchain ecosystem, provide similar, and in some instances identical, goods and services, market to similar developers and users, and appear on the same blockchain platforms.”
-snip-

This is ridiculous. Even though there's only 1 character difference (Tari and Taro), it has different spelling and reference (Taro refer to vegetable, while Tari refers to "newly minted coin"[1]). It's a shame both party (Tari Labs and Lightning Labs) works on open source, but Tari Labs decide to attack Lightning Labs.

[1] https://tarilabs.com/faq/

I do not see it as that big a deal, you can continue to develop and test and work on it, you just can't release market it. So development continues without public releases until they come up with a new name. Stupid, but this is why a lot of huge international mega corps spend more time working on naming and branding then they do on some products. Unless they have some other reason to stop development I don't see it being more then a waste of time and money. And having to give money to lawyers.

Lawyers gotta lawyer, but there is a solution: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35rErQtJ6uA  (warning some a lot bad words)

-Dave

[OmegaStarScream]

Someone from the Arabic local board just brought this to my attention[1]: It looks like Taro has rebranded to "The Taproot assets"[2] and released a new update (0.20.0v) a few days ago

[1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5453391.0
[2] https://docs.lightning.engineering/the-lightning-network/taproot-assets
[3] https://github.com/lightninglabs/taproot-assets/releases

[illusive_moose]

As for updates on Taproot Assets:

1.) Yes there has been a change because Tari Labs filed a lawsuit against Lightning Labs that Taro sounds too similar. as a result Lightning Labs decided to rebrand rather than fight the lawsuit.

2.) The Taproot Assets Protocol Deamon tapd that run on top of LND is now pretty stable. It sometimes crashes when you don't wait for one black between making transactions.

3.) Taro Assets now only works on-chain. The part with making lightning channels is not yet started but they have some blueprints on how to do it.

As for Tiramisu wallet:

1.) We deployed a test Taproot Assets store that can be found here
https://tapd-store.tarowallet.net
This can be used for testing of your TAPD node.

2.) We newly track testnet asset prices as you can see here
https://testnet.tarowallet.net/walletapp/currencies_public/3

3.) We support a bunch of faucets also intended for testing
NFT faucet:
https://testnet.tarowallet.net/walletapp/faucet/?currency=nft
Other currency faucets:
https://testnet.tarowallet.net/walletapp/faucet/?currency=7
https://testnet.tarowallet.net/walletapp/faucet/?currency=3
https://testnet.tarowallet.net/walletapp/faucet/?currency=8

4.) We maintain a list of NFTs and fungible currencies that you can sell, buy, send, receive or mint your own:
Currencies
https://testnet.tarowallet.net/walletapp/currencies_public/57
https://testnet.tarowallet.net/walletapp/currencies_public/3
https://testnet.tarowallet.net/walletapp/currencies_public/56
https://testnet.tarowallet.net/walletapp/currencies_public/5
https://testnet.tarowallet.net/walletapp/currencies_public/7
NFTs
https://testnet.tarowallet.net/walletapp/currencies_public/121
https://testnet.tarowallet.net/walletapp/currencies_public/94
https://testnet.tarowallet.net/walletapp/currencies_public/102
https://testnet.tarowallet.net/walletapp/currencies_public/115

5.) Here is our web wallet:
https://testnet.tarowallet.net