It has been two days since the official launch of the Fractal mainnet, and as we reflect on these two days and look ahead to future opportunities, I stumbled upon a somewhat amusing yet concerning issue—
A lot of people still don’t know where to buy $FB…

This issue became apparent when, on the night of September 9th at 11 PM, a new “FT protocol” called FLUX suddenly appeared. Strangely enough, even foreign users have taken notice of what we are most familiar with—the “inscription market.” Some of them are even asking where they can get $FB OTC…
So, before diving into the rest of the content, let’s first look at where you can trade $FB:

• The current CEX (centralized exchange) that supports trading and deposits/withdrawals for $FB is CoinEx, which was founded in 2017. Back in the day, the “Epic Sat” (Epic Satoshi) from the Bitcoin halving was auctioned off in partnership between CoinEx and ViaBTC, so it’s a reliable platform.
• DotSwap has launched a Bitcoin-to-$FB swap pair, allowing you to directly trade $FB on-chain or participate in a liquidity pool for $FB.

Alright, now let’s review what has happened during the first two days of Fractal.

$FB Circulation Update

How much $FB is currently in circulation?

In addition to the 1 million $FB that were airdropped, there has been some movement regarding the allocation of other $FB as outlined in the whitepaper. Specifically, 15% of the $FB supply has been reserved for the ecosystem treasury. So far, 60,000 $FB from this allocation have been transferred, split into six transactions of 10,000 $FB each to six different addresses. This perfectly matches Fractal’s official announcement regarding the six projects that received the Season 0 Grant.

However, among these six addresses, only one has shown any activity, and even with the 60,000 $FB included, the circulating supply remains relatively small. For practical purposes, this portion of $FB can be considered non-circulating for now.

• 10% allocated for community incentives: This portion includes the 1 million $FB that was airdropped.
• 5% for the token presale: This amount is locked for 7 months and hasn’t been moved.
• 5% for advisors: Each year, up to 20% of this allocation can be used, but none has been moved so far.
• 15% for core contributors: This portion is also locked for 7 months and remains unmoved.

Mining: Intense Competition

The current total network hashrate of Fractal stands at 261.604 EH/s.

To put this into perspective, the Bitcoin network’s hashrate is approximately 661 EH/s, meaning that Fractal’s hashrate is about 40% of Bitcoin’s, which is quite significant.

Let’s break this down with an example. The Antminer S21 has a hashrate of 200 TH/s and is priced at $5,400. The largest mining pool on Fractal, MaxiPool, has mined 1,335 blocks, earning 33,375 $FB (1,335 blocks × 25 $FB per block). MaxiPool’s total hashrate is 3,703,010 TH/s, and they are earning an average of 16,687.5 $FB per day.

With this data, we can calculate the payback period for an Antminer S21:

5400 / (200 / 3703010 16687.5 FB 20) = days This means it would take about 300 days to break even without factoring in electricity costs.

Issues with Smaller Miners

Unfortunately, small miners or those using rented hashpower, such as participants in the FSIC (Fractal Staking and Incentive Club), are facing significant losses. FSIC has only mined a total of 259 $FB so far, averaging 0.068 $FB per NFT. If the current conditions persist, each NFT would yield approximately 12.4 $FB per year, which has caused FSIC’s floor price to drop.

The primary reason for this intense competition is the entry of large mining pools, which are simultaneously mining Bitcoin and earning $FB on the side. This has led to some criticism, with detractors arguing that these large pools are essentially “free-riding” on the Fractal network.

As for the leading mining pool, which has a massive hashrate of 101 EH/s, it’s clear this is no small operation. It’s likely a conglomerate of multiple mining pools working together, as there doesn’t appear to be a direct match for this hashrate in current mempool data.

FLUX: The Familiar Inscription Market, Never Late to the Party

On the night of September 9th, around 11 PM, the same day Fractal launched, FLUX made a sudden and well-prepared debut. Each inscription costs 0.05 FB, with a total supply of 21,000 inscriptions, all of which were minted within an hour.

The team behind FLUX has prior experience in the Pipe and Runes ecosystems. While there has been some controversy regarding the similarities between FLUX’s fee structure and overall design to the Pipe protocol, it’s not worth dwelling on this. After all, the OTC price briefly surged to $50. Despite Fractal announcing that inscriptions prior to block height 21,000 would not be indexed, FLUX operates under a UTXO-based FT protocol, which is similar to Runes. This distinguishes it from BRC-20, which is built on the Ordinals protocol.

The main takeaway here is to not overthink things. A quick comparison between FLUX and Pipe on GitHub reveals nearly identical protocols, hence the sense that FLUX was well-prepared for launch. The “thing” is the same; it’s just happening in a different place.

This is Pipe

This is FLUX

Outside of FLUX, @gm7t2 has already developed an Ordinals explorer for the Fractal network. As of now, it shows that the inscription numbers have reached 50,465. Many familiar faces are back: CryptoPunks, mfers, and Moonbirds, creating a nostalgic feeling reminiscent of the early days of Ordinals.

These inscriptions exist on the network, but they will not be indexed, which makes it unlikely that we’ll see the speculative craze that once surrounded “cursed inscriptions.” For now, it’s just something to observe and enjoy.

In contrast to FLUX, a new project called Cat Protocol has emerged, bringing genuine innovation to the table with the use of OP_CAT. For those interested in learning more, the project has released official documentation.

What Opportunities Should You Watch For?

I believe these opportunities can be divided into two phases.

Phase 1: Before Block Height 21,000 (Before the Activation of the Ordinals Protocol)

In the lead-up to block height 21,000, it’s possible that other projects, like Pipe, will be ported over to the Fractal network. It wouldn’t be surprising if someone rebranded Atomicals or even just directly copied it. However, I’m not overly optimistic about the potential for hype in these projects. The reason FLUX took off was that people didn’t have enough time to analyze whether it had any true innovation. How its price performs once people start understanding it better is still something to watch.

Other than FLUX, there doesn’t seem to be much exciting happening before block height 21,000, although I do hope for something interesting to pop up.

Phase 2: After Block Height 21,000 (Post Ordinals Protocol Activation)

Once block height 21,000 is reached, more interesting opportunities will emerge. Here are a few areas worth keeping an eye on:

1. Meme Coin Mania on Fractal

We could see the emergence of meme token markets similar to those on ETH, Solana, or Base, but on the faster Fractal network. Several platforms are already planning to launch, including Satspumpfun, satx.fun, and BVM—all familiar faces.

• Satspumpfun’s advisory team includes Jack Liu.

• satx.fun seems to be linked to the Moto ecosystem.

• BVM is just BVM—already known in this space.

The key points to watch for are:

1. Which platform is willing to spend big to create the next meme coin phenomenon?

2. Which one can attract quality meme token creators?

Also, keep an eye on whether the Fractal network can maintain its smooth performance once things heat up and the network gets busier.

1. NFT Projects

There are a couple of NFT projects worth following closely:

• honzomomo: This project has been active on Twitter since July and is gaining traction. However, it’s unclear how they plan to guarantee their claim of being the first small-image series on Fractal. This is something to watch.

• Fractal Goose (分型大鹅): This project originally gained popularity on the Fractal mainnet under the name Goosinals. The reason to be optimistic here is that the team has been consistently promoting the “Fractal Goose” concept since August 11th, stating that it will be a free mint for a 10K series, maintaining their “First is First” ethos.

  • Unlike other image-based NFT projects that might struggle to transfer community consensus onto Fractal, Goosinals doesn’t have such issues. The project initially came from a community-driven effort using Dmitri Chernia’s MoMA Postcard Pixel Goose Generator to create pixelated goose images, which were then inscribed as NFTs. The goose images spread across multiple chains, so there’s less of a “mother chain” attachment or dependence on a specific network for its value.

  • Additionally, the Chinese-speaking community plays a significant role in the Goosinals community, and interest in Fractal is particularly high among Chinese-speaking players.

What Can You Prepare for Now?

1. Buy some $FB: It’s a good idea to spread your $FB across multiple addresses. When new projects launch, you can participate from multiple addresses to avoid being stuck due to UTXO delays, which might slow you down compared to others.

1. Fractal Goose preparation: If you’re interested in Fractal Goose, start generating your favorite goose images using the Pixel Goose Image Generator (Goose Generator). Once block height 21,000 is reached, you’ll be ready to mint them. Keep a close watch on the official Twitter for updates. As for inscription tools, UniSat will surely go live when the time comes.

Disclaimer：

1. This article is reprinted from [theblockbeats]. Forward the Original Title‘上线2天，Fractal上你需要知道的一些事’. All copyrights belong to the original author [ Cookie ]*. If there are objections to this reprint, please contact the Gate Learn team, and they will handle it promptly.
2. Liability Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not constitute any investment advice.
3. Translations of the article into other languages are done by the Gate Learn team. Unless mentioned, copying, distributing, or plagiarizing the translated articles is prohibited.