Dialogue with Core Contributor Rich Rines: Bitcoin is too big to fail, and Core will become the driving force behind unlocking the trillion-dollar Bitcoin ecosystem

Compiled by: Yuliya, PANews

As a value storage asset that manages approximately $2 trillion in wealth, Bitcoin is being considered by various countries as a strategic reserve. Against this backdrop, PANews exclusively interviewed Rich Rines, an early contributor to Core DAO, to discuss in depth how to promote the transformation of Bitcoin from a simple means of value storage to a productive asset through innovative scalability solutions.

Background

PANews: How did you get into the Bitcoin field?

Rich:

I was first introduced to Bitcoin in 2013. Although I had heard about it from a college professor in 2011, I did not truly understand its significance until 2013, when I was attracted by the potential of Bitcoin as a non-sovereign store of value (or digital gold).

By 2017, I had been working in cryptocurrency full-time, working as the head of fund flow engineering at Coinbase for four years. I later joined Core because I saw that no one was solving the scalability problem of Bitcoin. We believed that cryptocurrency had deviated from the original decentralized concept, so we decided to start with Bitcoin, the most decentralized asset, and work on solving its scalability problem.

PANews: Our experiences are very similar. I studied Crypto in 2014, devoted myself to the crypto industry in 2017 and launched PANews. Bitcoin breaking through $100,000 is an important milestone. What do you think drove this achievement?

Rich:

Bitcoin is now "too big to fail". Its legitimacy has been recognized and it has become part of the traditional financial system, no longer just an alternative. It is now mainly used as a store of value asset, managing about $2 trillion in wealth. Bitcoin has now become a 10,000-coin collateral asset, and even countries are considering using it as a strategic reserve. I think its market value will at least catch up with gold in the future, or even higher. Bitcoin has become more accessible through tools such as ETFs, and Core further provides a faster and lower-cost expansion solution.

Motivation for Building Core DAO

PANews: The approval of the Bitcoin ETF is like a watershed moment for Bitcoin. What motivated you to establish Core DAO?

Rich:

Core was co-founded by a group of initial contributors. We have observed that the entire cryptocurrency industry has deviated from the original intention of decentralization. It is worth noting that Bitcoin is the first stop for most people to enter the cryptocurrency field. Even if some people later turn to Ethereum or Solana, Bitcoin is still the common starting point for everyone. We hope to return to the original mission of Bitcoin. But after in-depth research and analysis, we found that it is impossible to implement certain functions on the Bitcoin base layer. Bitcoin as a settlement layer does have the characteristics of being slow, expensive, and inflexible, but it is precisely these characteristics that make it a high-quality value storage tool.

I've bought some very expensive Bitcoins over the past decade. But now, Bitcoin has moved from being a medium of exchange to a collateral asset. People can use it to borrow stablecoins, which is the right way to make Bitcoin accessible to billions of people. Core's mission is to make Bitcoin accessible to billions of people. Although we are still in the very early stages, we are very passionate about it. We believe that the model of using Bitcoin as a collateral asset to obtain stablecoins can truly achieve mass adoption of Bitcoin.

Introduction to CoreDAO

PANews: Can you introduce Core DAO to Chinese readers in a simple and easy-to-understand way?

Rich:

Core actually consists of two main parts. The first part is the Bitcoin staking product, and the second part is the Bitcoin ecosystem built on the EVM. In terms of ecosystem, Core is currently the largest Bitcoin ecosystem on the EVM, with more than $1 billion in total locked value (TVL) and hundreds of thousands of daily active users.

In our ecosystem, there are already more than 100 decentralized applications running, and more are under development and expected to be launched soon. Our goal is to make Bitcoin work and allow users to participate in Bitcoin DeFi. At present, about 80-90% of the TVL of the Core ecosystem exists in the form of Bitcoin. Users can use Bitcoin for staking or use Bitcoin as gas fees. These are typical L1 public chain mechanisms, but our ecosystem is built on Bitcoin.

We launched the world's first Bitcoin staking product in early April 2024. Currently, about $800 million of Bitcoin is earning passive income on our platform. The special thing about this product is that it is non-custodial, and users don't need to worry about multi-signature or trust issues. In November 2024, we also launched a dual staking mechanism, where users can hold CORE and BTC at the same time to obtain higher returns.

We have adopted a gradual approach. Think of passive staking as an "entry product" - users first earn income through passive staking, and then can participate in double staking by holding CORE tokens to earn higher income, which allows users to gradually become more active. Over time, when we launch features such as trustless bridging, users will be able to enter the full Core ecosystem more easily.

For many Bitcoin holders, they may not be ready to fully commit to the DeFi world, and they prefer to obtain passive income through simple staking. For those who are ready, we welcome them to directly participate in the complete ecosystem. The core concept is to make your Bitcoin really work, and Core is providing greater scalability for Bitcoin.

Double Staking

PANews: For many Bitcoin holders, security is their biggest concern. How does Core ensure security?

Rich:

Security is really the most important consideration. We advise everyone to understand the trust assumptions and the sources of income before participating in Core or any ecosystem that provides Bitcoin income products. If you can't easily explain these basic issues, you should not participate.

I have too many friends who have lost money on platforms like BlockFi, Genesis, and Celsius due to custody issues, so giving up custody of your assets is absolutely unacceptable. That's why Core designed its Bitcoin staking product by Bitcoin holders for Bitcoin holders. This means it is completely non-custodial - you only lock your Bitcoin to yourself through a time lock mechanism, and you only have to trust Bitcoin itself. This is critical to our partnerships with institutions such as BitGo and HexTrust.

These institutions want to make sure that the product is truly tailored to the needs of Bitcoin holders, not users who may have just switched from other staking assets like Ethereum or Solana, who are used to different trust assumptions. Bitcoin holders will not accept these compromises. That's the first point - you only have to trust Bitcoin.

PANews: The next question for many people is: Where do the benefits come from? How to understand these benefits?

Rich:

This is where double staking becomes important. Core has an 81-year inflation cycle, which is a very slow decay process that is very unique among crypto assets. Because Core was originally designed as Bitcoin's second block reward, this means that the 75% of Bitcoin hashrate currently delegated to Core will continue to receive these rewards, which helps them cover operating costs and help keep the Bitcoin ecosystem secure and decentralized.

This inflation curve is also the source of income, because the same income is paid in both places. We pay CORE tokens, the total amount is fixed at 2.1 billion, no matter how many Bitcoins or Cores enter the system, there will be no increase or decrease.

Now by double staking, you have created another demand driver for the CORE token, which helps increase the yield. Think of it this way:

You are helping to secure the Core chain. If you only use Bitcoin to do this, the yield will be lower. If you secure the chain on both the Bitcoin side and the Core side, you can get a higher yield, and you only need to understand the CORE token.

We put a lot of work into product development to make it so simple, which is why there has been so much adoption because it really meets the needs of users and provides products and services that they want.

Institutional Adoption and CoreFi Strategy

PANews: In addition to retail investors, you mentioned that institutions have also begun to adopt double pledge. We previously reported that a listed company called DeFi Technology launched the CoreFi strategy, which is similar to MicroStrategy's strategy of accumulating Bitcoin. Why do you think this company adopted such a strategy? How does this help the development of Core?

Rich:

They have announced CoreFi, which is scheduled to be launched in early Q1. Although it is not officially running yet, the upcoming launch of this project fully demonstrates the DeFi team's confidence in the Core ecosystem. This is just one example of many institutional collaborations, such as HashNode and other institutions have also publicly expressed support for double staking.

There is now a better understanding of the benefits and sustainability of Core. Previously there were always questions about whether these benefits were real and sustainable, but now the demand drivers are becoming clearer. We are seeing these institutions are now very excited about this new use of the CORE token. It can be understood like this:

CORE tokens can now be used not only for staking, paying gas fees, and governance, but also as a way to generate continuous income from Bitcoin. This is a new feature unique to CORE tokens that no one has ever been able to achieve before.

With these institutions on board, we will drive this narrative forward. CoreFi will use a MicroStrategy-like strategy to acquire CORE tokens primarily to serve dual staking. This will not only drive this narrative forward, but will also increase overall demand for CORE tokens, which will be very beneficial for the shareholders of this entity.

Institutionalization of CORE

PANews: Institutional adoption has always been a key factor in Bitcoin's success. What progress and future plans does Core have in terms of institutionalization?

Rich:

We have recently announced several custodians, including BitGo, Copper, etc., which is very important to solve the access problem. Because many large Bitcoin holders must go through these custodians to do staking operations. This solves the historical access barrier.

On the other hand, institutional investors are evaluating the attractiveness of this strategy. Each fund and institution has its own return goals and focus. We see more and more institutions expressing the desire to make their Bitcoin generate income, but do not want to directly participate in DeFi, then double staking becomes a good option.

They are adopting this strategy on a large scale because it not only provides yield on the Bitcoin base, but also has the potential to generate VC-like returns on Core assets. This is attractive to institutions that are willing to take directional risk. As more institutions understand and participate in this trade, I believe this narrative will continue to develop because it is one of the best asset appreciation opportunities in the Bitcoin ecosystem without compromising the security of Bitcoin principal.

Core DAO's future prospects

PANews: As a member of the blockchain ecosystem, how do you measure the success of a blockchain project? What key indicators does Core focus on?

Rich:

As an infrastructure project, this is a challenging problem. The indicators that the market focuses on may not be completely correlated with actual success. For example, TVL (total locked value) and daily active users - Core is first in both indicators. But these do not fully reflect whether the business is successful.

We are more concerned about:

• User retention rate
• Is the project ecology developing healthily?
• Is there real trading volume and activity?

Many Bitcoin scaling solutions may have high TVL, but are actually "empty chains". So multiple indicators need to be considered comprehensively, because a single indicator can be manipulated. We focus more on product-market fit and adopt a product-oriented rather than a purely research-oriented approach. This approach has worked well so far, and we will continue to develop in this direction.

PANews: What are your expectations for the future development of Bitcoin and Core?

Rich:

The Core community is quite diverse, with builders from all over the world. Our core goal is to find and support teams that are committed to developing substantive businesses on Core. Unlike other L1/L2 projects, Core builders generally focus more on long-term development. It is worth noting that Core does not have a traditional funding program, but adopts an approach that is closer to the Web2 referral program or reward mechanism: to become part of the incentive plan, builders need to obtain corresponding rewards by bringing in actual user volume, TVL and other value contributions.

For Bitcoin, I think technical progress such as Bitcoin core development (such as new OpCode) may be slower than people expect. This is a very political and slow process, although this caution is important to ensure the security of Bitcoin. I don't expect there will be new OpCode in 2025, maybe until 2026. However, I believe that BitVM2 or BitVMX will be launched on the mainnet in 2025, which is very exciting.

Bitcoin has already achieved solid product-market fit as a collateral asset, making it attractive not only to institutional funds but now to countries as well. Core is driving the next phase of development - making Bitcoin a collateral asset for the 3-4 billion unbanked or underbanked people around the world.

We expect to see people using Bitcoin as collateral to access stablecoins and leverage on scaling solutions like Core. This could be the next wave of Bitcoin adoption, allowing Bitcoin holders to grow from millions to billions. This is a mission that will take a decade to fully realize, but we are already moving in that direction.