Lightning Labs has announced the release of Taproot Assets v0.2, a core set of features for developers looking to issue, send, receive and discover assets on the Bitcoin blockchain. Currently on testnet, the multi-asset protocol is designed to efficiently handle arbitrary asset issuance and transference over the Bitcoin blockchain, with mainnet support coming soon. Features include sending and receiving with Virtual Partially Signed Bitcoin Transactions (vPSBTs) for maximum chain-space efficiency, and a multi-asset mint system. The release also features universes, which downloads and verifies the issuance and transaction data, enabling users to validate the provenance of assets. Lightning integration will soon be available, enabling instant, high-volume, low-fee transactions. The Taproot Assets protocol leverages the existing network effects of Bitcoin and the Lightning Network along with the infrastructure built over the last five years.