Bitcoin NFT marketplace Bioniq is an ambitious goal to alleviate network congestion.

A new Bitcoin Intangible Token (NFT) marketplace aims to reduce network fees associated with the advent of Bitcoin Ordinals texts by tapping into the Internet Computer Protocol (ICP).

In the year Built on the back of the creation of Bitcoin Ordinals in early 2023, Bionic runs on ICP and taps into the Bitcoin integration born to power Bitcoin-based Ordinals trading.

Speaking to Cointelegraph on the eve of the platform's launch, Bionic CEO and founder Bob Bodley said the project has been under construction since February 2023. The team has built a marketplace that features Ordinals smart contracts auctions on ICP, a full-chain wallet between Bitcoin and ICP, as well as an embedded device.

“It's only been two weeks since Casey Rodermore released Ord 0.4.0, and I know Ordinals is going to be huge.”

Bionic Group has highlighted the growth of the market capitalization of BRC-20 tokens since its inception in January 2023. The market cap has now surpassed $3 billion, with over 42.6 million ordinals produced to date. This directly affects Bitcoin (BTC) transaction fees, the highest Bitcoin network congestion seen since 2021.

The Bioniq platform provides a smart wallet that allows users to manage private keys using Web3Auth. This allows users to login to the platform using standard Web2 Google accounts while maintaining seamless control over their wallets and assets.

The platform uses Partially Signed Bitcoin Transactions (PSBTs) through integration of ICP's Bitcoin network. This opens up modern contract capabilities for Bitcoin, eliminating the need for users to use centralized cross-chain bridges.

ICP is an “amazing Bitcoin sidechain”.

Building on ICP also allows Bioniq to claim transaction turnaround times of under two seconds, as well as zero gas or network fees. Its architecture offers optimized storage costs, averaging $5 per gigabyte of data per year.

Bodily added that Tonic, the studio behind Biniq, has been building on ICP since May 2021 and has extensive experience in building smart contract wallets, marketplaces, NFT launch pads and NFT lending protocols.

“ICP is now a fantastic Bitcoin sidechain because it has fantastic Bitcoin primitives at the protocol layer.”

ICP explains that it operates a fully on-chain Bitcoin light node, which facilitates reading the Bitcoin blockchain through native smart contract calls. ICP also has an original digital signature algorithm known as Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm. The implementation allows ICP smart contracts to sign Layer-1 Bitcoin transactions and broadcast them to Mempool.

“These protocol primitives also allowed us to build the Ordinals wrapper entirely at the application layer. We didn't need to touch the consensus layer of the protocol. So now it's much faster to build Bitcoin technology on top of ICP,” Bodley added.

Bitcoin users and trusted estimates

Cointelegraph also questioned whether the bionic packaging process could be a barrier to consumer access. Although the process is mostly automated by Bionic Wallet and requires only BTC, there are a couple of issues worth noting for more savvy users, Physically admits.

“Bundling requires a bitcoin transaction. This means you have to pay to bundle. This is a significant barrier. One way we can solve this problem is by integrating open Nostr PSBT lists into Bioniq,” Bodily explained.

This integration means that PSBT lists stored on Nostr will be accessible on decentralized casual marketplaces OpenOrdex or Deezy Place on Bioniq. It added that users can list on Bionic using open PSBTs, thus eliminating the need to wrap Bitcoin transactions.

Perhaps most importantly, Bodily explains that the encapsulation process requires “trust assumptions” on both protocols:

“Blocking to ICP means that in addition to trusting bitcoin, you now trust the Internet Computing Protocol. Some bitcoin users don't want to risk linking assets to another chain.”

Bodily adds that Bioniq will focus on improving the user experience before inheriting the security of Bitcoin, which is guaranteed at the end of Layer-1 transactions. However, he envisions a “good decentralized way” for applications like Bionic.

This evolution includes “reduced reliance on ICP to become Bitcoin's sovereign wrapper,” along with additional trust assumptions from building on the sidechain. The final step sees Bionic as a Bitcoin zero-knowledge rollup (ZK-rollup) on the ICP without any additional trust assumptions, inheriting the full security and decentralization of Bitcoin.

“ICP fits perfectly into this plan because ICP can provide a repeatable execution environment (decentralized blockchain) or legal (additional storage for Bitcoin mining).”

Banking on Bitcoin's price proposition

Several NFT marketplaces already offer Bitcoin Ordinals auctions and trading, which begs the question of what a single ordinal platform will bring to the ecosystem.

He personally believes that “soft pillars” on their platforms are hampered by confusing user experiences for their core offerings. “Developing a dedicated Bitcoin Ordinals marketplace, natively for Bitcoin users” is developing a native cross-chain, BTC-ICP wallet.

Additionally, Bitcoin's unchallenged position as the first and largest by market capitalization is another drawcard for the continued demand for Bitcoin NFTs.

“If you look at the numbers, 89% of the people in the world have heard of Bitcoin, Bitcoin accounts for about 50% of the total crypto market capitalization, and they have made more than $500 million in volume this year – so there is a lot of demand,” he said.

Bioniq joins the ranks as a Bitcoin-only casual marketplace. Gamma is another ordinary marketplace that feeds directly into Bitcoin's Layer-1 chain. Ordswap was an early ordinals marketplace that was shut down after its website was taken over by hackers. Meanwhile, multi-chain platforms like Magic Eden list Bitcoin Ordinals NFTs.

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