Bitcoin Breaks New High of $120,000, BTCFi Pioneer Merlin Shares Insights

Recently, the price of Bitcoin broke through $120,000, setting a new high, but the Bitcoin ecosystem seems a bit quiet. Nevertheless, there are still some adherents continuing to explore the BTCFi field, and Jeff, the founder of Merlin, is one of them.

Jeff stated that Merlin initially chose to explore BTCFi mainly because he saw a market opportunity. At that time, inscriptions and runes were very popular, and investors not only wanted to hold Bitcoin but also hoped it could have income-generating attributes. Although Merlin has faced controversy due to its high profile, it now seems that many BTCFi project design ideas are similar to what Merlin proposed at that time.

Talking about the current market landscape of BTCFi, Jeff believes that the product form and technology have stabilized, but the biggest bottleneck faced is the yield. For large BTC holders, the current on-chain activity is difficult to generate a long-term effective source of income. Therefore, exploring BTCFi's yield sources and expanding capacity has become the main direction.

The native Bitcoin staking product recently launched by Merlin has been well received in the market. Jeff introduced the main sources of Bitcoin staking yield, including multi-chain liquidity provision, trading arbitrage, and providing AVS services for new projects. He stated that Merlin's goal is to help retail investors participate in BTCFi, mainly including hold, earn, and invest.

In addition to Bitcoin staking, another important product of Merlin is the AI assistant Merlin Wizard. Jeff revealed that Wizard currently mainly provides two functions: trading decision support and trade execution. He believes that in the future, the entry point for crypto trading may evolve into an AI agent model, which would help lower the learning barrier for new users.

Jeff also announced that Merlin plans to launch a new project in early August that will bring RWA into the BTC ecosystem, aiming to give BTC more utility.

Regarding the development history of Merlin, Jeff admitted that the team has experienced a transition from being in the spotlight to the corner of the stage. He emphasized that the most challenging aspect of the project is being able to persist in finding the right direction even when market enthusiasm is not on their side. Jeff stated that as a public chain, Merlin must capture market trends, but more importantly, it is about whether they can persist and deliver what users truly care about.

Finally, Jeff shared his insights: "This cycle of doing projects is hellishly difficult, and the challenges far exceed those of previous cycles. I hope more builders and users will truly join in to build Web3 together."