The demise of Bitcoin will undoubtedly create a trust vacuum in the short term, but the demand and value that Ethereum satisfies will not disappear as a result.
Author: David Hoffman
Translated by: Deep Tide TechFlow
“If Bitcoin falls, cryptocurrency will perish along with it.”
Bitcoin supporters are deeply enamored with this statement.
My friend Nic Carter recently revived this old cliché—arguing that Bitcoin is the center of the cryptocurrency universe, with everything else merely orbiting around it.
This assertion seems to be a stubborn tone in discussions among Bitcoin supporters, with some Bitcoin advocate occasionally tweeting to reiterate this point in response to emerging hot topics. Subsequently, other Bitcoin supporters flock to like the tweet until its popularity reaches "escape velocity."
However, this general viewpoint is incorrect; it can only come from those who believe Bitcoin is the center of the cryptocurrency universe.
This Bitcoin-centric perspective is as primitive and outdated as geocentrism. It is essential to clarify that, in our solar system, other planets do not revolve around the Earth.
From a fundamental principle, Ethereum has no technical dependency on Bitcoin. As a protocol, Ethereum is completely indifferent to the existence of Bitcoin.
Even if Bitcoin stops producing blocks, for Ethereum, literally "nothing will happen."
The $165 billion stablecoin market, the $65 billion decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem, the $55 million worth of Ethereum (ETH) burned annually, and countless startups, venture capital industries, and developer markets—all of these are unique outcomes nurtured by Ethereum, and they will continue to operate as usual the next day.
This is precisely the original intention of Ethereum.
The Threat of Quantum Computing
In the past week, discussions about the risks posed by quantum computing to Bitcoin have heated up again. Scott Aaronson, regarded as a top quantum researcher, wrote in his blog Shtetl-Optimized:
Given the astonishing speed of current hardware advancements, I now believe that before the next U.S. presidential election, we may have a fault-tolerant quantum computer capable of running Shor's algorithm.
Since the inception of Bitcoin, this has been a topic of discussion—people have long known that the ECDSA signatures used by most early Bitcoin wallets cannot withstand quantum attacks, and Bitcoin's private keys will eventually be cracked by quantum computers, leading to the theft of their Bitcoin by attackers.
In his recent podcast, Nic even mentioned that some negative performance of Bitcoin's price may be related to the market already pricing in quantum risks.
The key point to remember here is that this is entirely a problem that Bitcoin needs to solve. Ethereum has long been protected against the types of attacks that Bitcoin is currently anxious about.
From the very beginning, Ethereum has hidden public keys through addresses (keccak-256 hashes), meaning that your public key will not be exposed before you spend, significantly reducing the attack surface for quantum attackers.
Moreover, since The Merge, Ethereum has transitioned to a validator model, and withdrawal keys are also hidden behind hashes. More importantly, Ethereum's roadmap clearly plans to replace ECDSA signatures with quantum-safe signature schemes (such as BLS variants or post-quantum cryptography alternatives) through future upgrades (like Verkle trees and EOF layer reconstruction).
Ethereum's culture has always been highly forward-looking—sometimes it may even seem overly advanced, as other ecosystems often exploit Ethereum's short-term weaknesses through shortcuts. But when it comes to addressing the quantum threat, Ethereum is certainly not one of them!
In the face of the quantum threat to blockchain security, Ethereum has chosen to confront the challenge, fully aware that quantum computing will one day become ubiquitous.
Default Internet Currency
“If Bitcoin perishes, people will no longer trust internet currency.”
This is not the case.
The demise of Bitcoin will undoubtedly create a trust vacuum in the short term, but the demand and value that Ethereum satisfies will not disappear as a result. This event may instead provide Ethereum with an opportunity to showcase its long-term resilience.
I genuinely hope Bitcoin can overcome the quantum threat, but I also believe that the demise of the "number one currency" in the cryptocurrency space could greatly benefit the "number two currency."
Bitcoin has a significant monetary premium, and Ethereum also has a certain monetary premium. If Bitcoin exits this equation, then Ethereum will have a clear path to become the native currency of the internet. From the perspective of someone solely focused on the value of ETH, Bitcoin's demise due to quantum threats could be the most favorable event for ETH.
Ethereum will continue to produce blocks, transfer trillions of dollars in stablecoins, host the world's most resilient DeFi ecosystem, and continuously optimize its economic model by burning ETH.
Therefore, even though Bitcoin faces a "truly unimaginable monumental task," which is "the largest infrastructure transformation in Bitcoin's history" (quoting Nic Carter from his recent podcast), Ethereum has been contemplating these issues for over a decade and is prepared with solutions for the future.
So, Bitcoin's technical shortcomings are not my problem.
Thank you for your attention to this issue.
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