🤔Why Telepathy?

Build The Verifiable Indexer Layer

Inscriptions are the Newtype of crypto assets but have one bottleneck: they are stored in transaction data therefore heavily rely on indexers for processing to keep track of transaction activities. So it's safe to say that indexers are the ledger of inscriptions, the same as a consensus layer in blockchains The question is, how can we prevent indexers from doing evil? As indexers are operated in a more centralized manner, we are now relying on the 'agreed norms' between major indexer operators based on Ordinals standards. Does it work? Yes. Is it perfect? Not so much The following issues remain unsolvable: - Single Point of Failure: what if the indexer is down without sufficient backup capacity? Then all transactions will be halted. - Fork of Indexers: similar to the 'forkability' of consensus(like in BTC - BCH), indexers can be forked if an agreement cannot be reached between different operators. It could be chaotic and disastrous as inscriptions are immutable records of historical transaction data and would be intertwined. - Data Vulnerability: centralized indexers without validations are vulnerable to security breaches. Cases like $sats compromises have proven that the worries are real.

That's why Telepathy is needed, a decentralized network of indexers that serves as the reliable oracle of inscription data. We make the indexing rules on-chain so indexing providers can freely join our network while validators can challenge potential fraudulent indexings to protect the consistency of data. The more indexers & validators join, the safer the network is. Telepathy also provides a settlement and incentive mechanism for the buildup of such a network - safer indexing facilitates markets with wider adoption.

Why Traditional Layer 2 Solutions Can't Fundamentally Solve the Scalability Issue for Inscriptions?

The inherent technical characteristics of BTC present unique challenges that make the transition from L1 to L2 solutions particularly complex. This complexity is primarily due to the fact that all BTC L2 solutions are custodial in nature, which poses significant limitations.

As a result, traditional L2 approaches fall short in effectively addressing the scalability needs for inscriptions – a more advanced and flexible system compared to conventional tokens.

Inscriptions, by their very nature, require a solution that transcends the capabilities of standard token-based systems. They demand a more nuanced and sophisticated approach that leverages the flexibility and advanced features inherent to their design. To truly break through the scalability bottleneck, the integration of off-chain computational power emerges as a key solution.

This approach necessitates the use of both technical methods and economic models to safely incorporate off-chain computing resources.

The introduction of off-chain computing power (like an indexer network) is not just a technical improvement; it's a strategic shift that addresses the core limitations of traditional L2 solutions. By harnessing this power, the scalability and efficiency of inscriptions can be significantly enhanced, allowing for a more robust and dynamic utilization of inscriptions.

Non-L2-Paradigm To Scale Bitcoin

With the architecture of a Telepathy-like indexing network, we can further expand the programmability horizon of networks like Bitcoin over the Ethereum L2 scaling status quo. By deploying applications to a virtual machine to indexers and validating the outputs through Hermit nodes, we can achieve the same level of programmability with solidity as the programming language without relying on a centralized rollup structure. Computing is done off-chain, and only outputs get validated on-chain so an even lower network fee is needed. Unlike Ethereum, assets in our paradigm are not subject to smart contracts so it separates the asset from applications. There will be no worries about 'emergency withdrawal of assets' as we are not a blockchain and do not need a deposit in the first place. So long as one indexer still standing, transactions can go as normal. Therefore we can safely say Telepathy's programmability solution (or scaling solution if you think it that way) has a better decentralization than Ethereum L2s.