The Bitcoin ecosystem has been forgotten for a long time. Especially after Magic Eden, once the largest Bitcoin ecosystem trading marketplace, ceased support for the Bitcoin ecosystem and discontinued Magic Eden Wallet services, it has given long-unengaged players the impression that "the Bitcoin ecosystem is over."

But in fact, not only have established Bitcoin ecosystem infrastructure projects like UniSat and Xverse continued to develop, but also new marketplaces such as SatFlow and ord.net have emerged to fill the gap following Magic Eden. Recently, the appearance of a new Bitcoin asset protocol has once again brought the Bitcoin ecosystem into the spotlight.

This new protocol is called Tacit.

What is Tacit?

First, we classify Tacit within the category of “meta-protocols” like BRC-20 and Runes, all of which rely on indexers to confirm assets. The difference is that Tacit’s indexer runs directly in the user’s browser, eliminating the need to trust any centralized server (indexer). As long as two computers run the same code and view the same Bitcoin block data, they will arrive at identical balance results.

What makes Tacit unique is that it is a new Bitcoin asset protocol focused on "privacy." Many users promoting this new protocol compare it to "ZEC on Bitcoin," which is somewhat accurate but not entirely correct, because Tacit only hides the amounts of tokens (including the total supply specified during token deployment and the amount of each individual transfer), not the on-chain address graph.

In other words, Tacit hides the amount of funds flowing but not the direction of the flow.

Nevertheless, it remains a native privacy asset protocol on the Bitcoin mainnet. Here, we’ll explain how it achieves this on the Bitcoin mainnet using a simple analogy.

Regular Bitcoin transactions are like a transparent ledger, where everyone can see each transaction and the amount of funds involved. Tacit, on the other hand, is like placing the transaction inside a "black box" (Pedersen commitment).

Everyone can still see this transaction. Although the amount of this transaction is not visible, you can prove to others that "the money I deposited plus the money I withdrew balances out."

Pedersen commitments and Bulletproofs are used to conceal transaction amounts while proving to the network that you have not created tokens out of thin air (e.g., proving that the transferred amount is not negative and that total value is conserved).

Mimblewimble-style signature proofs verify that the amount sent equals the amount received, ensuring tokens cannot be maliciously minted.

When the sender transfers tokens to the recipient, the amount information is encrypted using ECDH and written on the blockchain. Only the sender and recipient can decrypt and view the actual amount using their private keys; to everyone else, this data appears as random characters.

Finally, the indexer built into the dApp (the user’s browser) reads data from the Bitcoin chain, independently verifies the aforementioned cryptographic proofs, and calculates your actual balance.

Since its launch on May 7, developer ross.wei (@z0r0zzz) has been updating rapidly—Tacit now supports fair launch, has a marketplace, enables token swaps, and includes a mixer.

This mixer is somewhat similar to Tornado Cash, in that greater anonymity is achieved as more people deposit (making it harder to map addresses within the set). However, Tacit’s mixer does not rely on smart contracts—it embeds deposit proofs in Taproot transaction notes, and zero-knowledge proofs for withdrawals are handled by an indexer in the browser.

It is even slightly stronger than Tornado Cash in some aspects, since Tornado Cash cannot obscure the amount being mixed. However, Tacit’s mixer cannot mix native Bitcoin, because obscuring the mixed amount requires first wrapping Bitcoin.

Of course, privacy comes at a cost. According to Github, due to the large witness data required for privacy, the transaction cost is approximately 10 sat/vB, meaning each transaction costs around 25,000–30,000 sat—about 10 times the cost of a Runes transaction.

Who created Tacit?

Developer ross.wei (@z0r0zzz) is a well-known developer on Ethereum. He previously developed ZAMM, which uses a single contract to create new tokens, manage LP, farming, and swaps, significantly improving gas efficiency and user experience.

$ZAMM was once a well-known project on Ethereum, with a market cap reaching tens of millions of dollars, and it received a retweet from crypto KOL Ansem.

Tacit wasn’t something he came up with on a whim—he’s been interested in Bitcoin technology for some time. This new protocol has also caught the attention of Messari’s Enterprise Research Manager, @AvgJoesCrypto.

In the future, the author also plans to implement privacy encapsulation for native Bitcoin (cBTC), silent receiving (generating a brand-new one-time address for each incoming transfer), and concealment of the transferred asset types.

Underlying asset

The token with the highest trading volume on the market right now is $TAC. This token was deployed by the protocol’s creator and recently airdropped based on holdings of the $ZORG staking token on Ethereum, which is derived from $ZAMM. Its current market cap is approximately $4 million, making it unquestionably the leading token.

The first fair launch coin is $FAIR, but trading for this coin is not yet available on the market.

Conclusion

This is indeed an innovative Bitcoin asset protocol. Compared to BRC-20 and Runes, it has already achieved amount privacy and plans to implement even more. Unlike RGB, Taproot Assets, and Liquid CT, it does not rely on off-chain client proofs or sidechains—it operates entirely on-chain.

By reorganizing its own protocol components to create a mixer, the obscuration of on-chain address graphs has also been completed.

Although the cost of use is relatively high, this is indeed a refreshing innovation that hasn't been seen in the Bitcoin ecosystem for a long time.

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