From digital gold to a versatile public chain?
Author: Mu Mu | Plain Language Blockchain
Over the past year, the development of the Bitcoin ecosystem has been rapid. Many people were pleasantly surprised to hear about the introduction of "smart contracts" in the Bitcoin ecosystem: "If the invincible consensus and stronger network of Bitcoin were to have smart contracts, then there would be no need for public chains like Ethereum or Solana, right?" This viewpoint is quite widespread and has garnered support from many newcomers and even some financial KOLs. But is this really the case?
01
Bitcoin Supremacy
"There are only two types of coins in the world, one is Bitcoin, and the other is altcoins." Bitcoin supremacists have maintained this viewpoint for many years. On one hand, Bitcoin supremacists are satisfied with their viewpoint, while on the other hand, opponents often scoff at it and use it as a form of ridicule.
The reason for such a stubborn viewpoint is that Bitcoin has never disappointed since its inception. Through bear and bull markets, Bitcoin has repeatedly proven itself as the king, seemingly becoming a repeatedly verified fact, which is convincing and has led to a firm belief that the direction of Bitcoin is always right.
Given this, if a powerhouse like Bitcoin were to have smart contracts, it could directly deploy DApps. Why would it still need Ethereum? There would be no need for Solana either! This logic seems completely sound.
Some people argue that Ethereum and Solana represent generations of technological innovation and should embrace innovation. But Bitcoin supremacists have enough reasons to counter: "Innovation also comes with a cost and is prone to failure."
02
It's not that Bitcoin is right, but its direction is right
For most Bitcoin supremacists, their rejection of innovative projects like Ethereum and Solana seems reasonable, but they seem to have overlooked a very important point, which is that Bitcoin, in its early days, was also an innovation compared to traditional financial projects and even some earlier electronic currency projects. Most Bitcoin supremacists were able to benefit from Bitcoin because they embraced this innovation at the time, right?
Why has the innovation that could have been embraced at the time now become conservative and unwilling to embrace innovation? Perhaps it's due to a mentality of "taking profits when things are good." After enduring the ups and downs for so many years, many are reluctant to be swept away by high-risk innovations. After all, they have seen too many star projects collapse overnight, which has made them more cautious.
As mentioned earlier, Bitcoin was not the only electronic currency innovation of its time. Many institutions, organizations, and even some illegal organizations proposed similar concepts, some of which were even the reference objects when Satoshi Nakamoto designed Bitcoin. Even today, some project teams claim, "I can do everything Bitcoin can do, and I can do what Bitcoin can't do," but in reality, it's all talk.
So has anyone thought about why Bitcoin, a simple project, was able to break away from these projects and sustain its development? The same question can be applied to Ethereum and Solana. Why are these innovative projects able to break away and be sustainable?
The reason Bitcoin has gained widespread acceptance is mainly because its core concept and direction have captured the essence of the times and the key points, using incentive mechanisms to allow human beings to participate in large-scale collaboration in an open manner, bringing about a decentralized, free, fair, and transparent value storage platform from the bottom up. This is also the original intention of crypto projects.
In the current landscape, not all projects adhere to the original intention of crypto. Some are purely innovative concepts tailored to cater to the FOMO mentality of VCs and investors. They may use the excuse that sacrificing a bit of decentralization can bring about greater efficiency and value, as making money is the bottom line, which strikes a chord with many people.
The current phenomenon is that when people hear that public chains have a large market and high valuations, they flock to create public chains, as this can attract higher investments, spark more imagination, and allow users to spend more money. So don't ask why some projects with value just can't take off. The fundamental reason is that their direction is wrong, as projects driven by profit ultimately target users as their main source of revenue.
Crypto exists not because of high performance and efficiency or other replaceable features, but because of its decentralization, freedom, fairness, transparency, genuine Web3 demands, and applications that bring real value with real needs that cannot be addressed by Web2.
As mentioned in a previous article, "The hardest Bitcoin bull market in history, is it about to end?," anyone who enters an industry with a "shearing sheep" mentality, without recognizing the industry's value and not pursuing the industry's correct values, is destined to not do well in that industry, even if they initially taste success, they will soon be bitten back by the market. Many people have forgotten the original intention of Bitcoin and the crypto industry, and a distorted value system may lead to serious judgment errors.
With this simple method, you can actually distinguish 90% of the "unscrupulous" projects on the market.
03
Bitcoin's ecosystem development, Ethereum, Solana, and others can still thrive
1) Diverse Needs
Before the existence of Ethereum and Solana, Bitcoin was not alone; there were many early altcoins actively accompanying it, driven by the market's diverse needs. Of course, each project has its own value, and we can at least categorize these projects into three types:
Digital Gold
The only project that can be called digital gold is Bitcoin. In the global context, the demand for digital gold is self-evident.
Durable Goods
Ethereum and sustainable DeFi, as well as other Web3 infrastructure and applications, have solved problems that Web2 cannot. When EVM becomes a standard feature for most smart contract public chains, Ethereum has become an indispensable part of Web3. These projects have long-term value and can be considered durable goods.
Fast-Moving Consumer Goods
Meme allows emotional value to be stored, but many emotions, including some new concepts, come and go quickly, like a piece of paper with a certain lifecycle. They cannot be expected to provide long-term value.
The first two can be considered medium to long-term targets, while the latter can only be used once, otherwise it's easy to get stuck and unable to exit.
2) Technological Innovation
The Bitcoin ecosystem has not been the first to propose the introduction of smart contracts. There were many attempts in the early days of Bitcoin (such as colored coins), and exploration has continued to this day.
There were many technological bottlenecks in the early days, and at that time, it was almost impossible for Bitcoin to directly introduce powerful smart contracts without abandoning its original technical roadmap. After all, if the code and roadmap were drastically changed, developers would have scattered, and the strong consensus we see today would not have been possible.
Originally, Vitalik Buterin proposed the idea of introducing smart contracts in the Bitcoin community, but it was opposed by the Bitcoin core. This led Vitalik Buterin to start his own project, which later became Ethereum.
In recent years, Bitcoin has maintained a stable technical roadmap, while Ethereum has brought many innovations, such as smart contracts, POS, EIP1559, and especially Rollup Layer2, which has solved scalability issues.
In the current Bitcoin ecosystem, apart from Lightning Network and Stacks, most projects have directly adopted the Rollup technology solution from Ethereum. Has anyone considered whether this is really applicable?
Taking ZK-Rollup as an example, it was originally designed as a Layer2 solution for smart contract platforms like Ethereum. After computing zero-knowledge proofs off-chain, ZK-Rollup submits them to the Ethereum chain for direct verification and settlement. However, Bitcoin itself cannot directly verify zero-knowledge proofs. Some project teams have found ways to add an intermediary layer, such as an oracle, to forcefully run this process. However, this behavior is no different from sticking a horn on a horse's head with tape and forcibly turning it into a "unicorn."
04
Bitcoin Itself Does Not Support Smart ContractsSmart contracts in the Bitcoin ecosystem are currently slogans of related projects. Smart contracts are implemented through ecosystem projects, and Bitcoin itself does not support smart contracts and is unlikely to upgrade to support them in the future. This is because "you can't have your cake and eat it too." To be a pure digital gold, there cannot be smart contracts.
First, the UTXO data structure itself cannot achieve the complex state like the account model of Ethereum. Second, as a smart contract platform, while the ecosystem develops, it also continuously reduces inflation, leading to increasingly expensive BTC as fees, which can inhibit the development of the ecosystem.
As mentioned earlier, when referring to Bitcoin smart contracts, it means smart contracts of Bitcoin ecosystem projects. However, smart contract projects implemented through layering do not have the same security, reliability, and scalability as the Ethereum ecosystem. The Ethereum ecosystem has always been the biggest "destination" for Bitcoin, with WBTC, tBTC, and Coinbase's cbBTC entering the Ethereum ecosystem in different forms to participate in DeFi. From a layering perspective, Ethereum is already the largest and most widely used sidechain of Bitcoin. In fact, the innovation in the Ethereum ecosystem, including scalability, interoperability, and account abstraction, has long been at the forefront of the industry, while many "copycat" projects in the Bitcoin ecosystem can only follow behind.
05
ConclusionThe Bitcoin ecosystem, Ethereum ecosystem, Solana ecosystem, and future innovations, as long as they maintain the original intention of crypto and create real value around the values of Web3, all have their legitimacy. You take the sunny road, I take the single-log bridge, and everyone has a bright future.
Original article link: https://www.hellobtc.com/kp/du/08/5369.html
免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。
