After facing a contentious trademark infringement lawsuit filed by blockchain software development firm Tari Labs last December, Lightning Network infrastructure company Lightning Labs has rebranded its Taro project to Taproot Assets and released a software update. The lawsuit had resulted in an injunction, stopping further development of the project. However, with the rebranding, Lightning Labs resumed working on the primary software for implementing the newly renamed Taproot Assets protocol.
Taproot Assets aims to allow users to issue assets like stablecoins on the Bitcoin blockchain. While the software is currently available on a test network, the Taproot Assets team states that main network support will be “coming soon.” According to Lightning Labs, the protocol includes a new set of core features designed to “bitcoinize the dollar.”
Elizabeth Stark, CEO and co-founder of Lightning Labs, expressed that the company is firmly committed to building an assets protocol for Bitcoin and Lightning, which can scale to serve many people worldwide. She also noted her desire to avoid making the Bitcoin blockchain unusable, referencing last week’s record-high congestion and transaction fees on the Bitcoin network due to a surge in minting BRC-20s – fungible tokens generated through the controversial Ordinals protocol.
Domo, the pseudonymous creator of BRC-20, recommended Taproot Assets as “unequivocally a better solution.” Taproot Assets reportedly creates multiple assets off-chain before settling them through a single on-chain transaction. Along with this, witness data – the type used by Ordinals – is transacted and stored off-chain.
As a next step, Lightning Labs plans to propose finalized specifications of the Taproot Assets protocol to the Bitcoin community via bitcoin improvement proposals (BIPs) and Bitcoin Lightning improvement proposals (bLIPs). The company’s ultimate goal is to enable Bitcoin-based asset transfers over the Lightning Network, a secondary system designed for cheaper and faster Bitcoin transactions.
With the release of the Taproot Assets update, the chapter surrounding the lawsuit stemming from a brand name Tari Labs claimed was too similar to theirs comes to an end. The new protocol opens up possibilities for developers to experiment with and attracts an enthusiastic response from the Bitcoin community. Stark expressed her excitement, stating, “Taproot Assets mainnet is just around the corner.”
Source: Coindesk
