BITCOIN RAILS EPISODE #16: How Alkanes Are Changing the 'Programmable Bitcoin' Meta—and paving the path for true interoperability with @OylDynamics @AirheadFun founders @taggaOyl & @judoflexchop The founders of Oyl have been obsessively focused on making the Bitcoin trading experience as seamless and flexible as on other chains. This effort has led to a series of experiments, including the creation of Alkanes—one of the first programmable metaprotocol implementations on Bitcoin—and perhaps the only implementation pushing towards interoperability as a goal. In this episode, the Oyl boys and I sat down to discuss: - The real and perceived technical limitations of Bitcoin (and where Bitcoin surprisingly outperforms). - The "Programmable Metaprotocol" Boom and how Proto-Runes & Alkanes change the narrative - Why "composability" and interoperability are the real end game for Bitcoin metaprotocols - Oyl’s collab with @arthurhayes on Airheads and why Ordinals may outperform tokens for fundraising This episode is powered by Best In Slot—the leading API for Ordinals and BRC20 data aggregation and indexing. This episode can be viewed on YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=fD2Xri6f… or Spotify here: open.spotify.com/episode/6XF… TIMESTAMPS: 00:30 What is Oyl Dynamics? 02:30 Alec’s entry into Ordinals 05:33 The need for Bitcoin wallets and indexing 06:50 Indexing with Bitcoin vs Ethereum nodes 09:10 Selling indexing tools to Bitcoin builders 10:10:Metashrew: Spinning up any Bitcoin metaprotocol 12:00 Ethereum vs Bitcoin wallets 12:55 Unisat and OKX dominating the indexer 13:55 The hardest asset should be easy to trade 15:05 How BRC20s and Domo influence Oyl’s design 16:00 Aggregating marketplace data for Runes, Ordinals, BRC20s 18:00 Building a trustless AMM for Bitcoin 18:40 From BRC20s, to Runes, to Programmable Runes 22:20 What does “composable” mean? 25:30 Alkanes: creating interoperability between all of the Protorunes 29:55 The Oyl strategy: ultimate builder support 33:10 Solving cross-metaprotocol interoperability 35:00 The spectrum of programmability on Bitcoin 36:00 Casey’s genius with Runes 37:20 Where did the name “Alkanes” come from? 39:00 Only BTC needed at Alkanes 40:20 Using Ethereum as Bitcoin’s testnet 42:00 Are there unique advantages of building on Bitcoin? 43:00 What is special about Wasm? 44:25 Will Wasm overwhelm EVM’s network effects? 46:10 Is there any downside to building with Wasm? 49:00 Wasm wasn’t ready when Ethereum launched 50:25 Oyl’s Ordinal Collection: Airheads and Arthur Hayes 54:38 Marketing tied to an asset you can trade 55:30 Fundraising and Oyl’s $DIESEL EXP system 01:00:20 How do people mine $DIESEL?