Blockchain pioneer argues Bitcoin has to explore more if it wants to go beyond payments.
On a Twitter Spaces this week, Vitalik Buterin remarked, “I think if we want Bitcoin to be more than payments, it needs more scaling solutions,” referring to the many experiments Ethereum has been conducting over the last several years.
However, he sees political issues as the primary challenge. When asked about his feelings on Bitcoin, he remarked, “Bitcoin has really weird politics,” adding that he “doesn’t vibe with them.”
The three addressed a significant issue plaguing Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market cap: the necessity for layer two scaling options to boost the speed with which Bitcoin transactions are processed.
The topic of scalability came up often since there is where Buterin, Wall, and Wertheimer believe Bitcoiners can learn the most from the rumoured competing chain.
“I think if we want Bitcoin to be more than just payments, it will need scaling options like Plasma or ZK Rollups,” stated Buterin, referring to experiments with these features on Ethereum. Indicating a definite preference, he noted that Optimism and Arbitrum are two successful instances of “rollups” that might serve as case studies for Bitcoin and that it would “be good to have an open mind” with respect to ZK-snark-based solutions.
The Ethereum network has tried many different approaches to scaling over the years, and the newest upgrade, EIP-4844, offers blob blocks that can support up to 100,000 transactions per second.
Wall advocated for Bitcoin to investigate these experiments because of concern for the future security of the Bitcoin ecosystem. However, Buterin noted that the move is likely to spark “controversy with security hawks.”
Wall, who has recently taken the spotlight with the Taproot Wizards, discussed the security concept and limit of 21 million for Bitcoin. Buterin said he had been puzzled about this same issue, but he defended Ordinals as offering a fair fee market to compensate for the declining block subsidies and accompanying security worries. And he feels the “return to builder culture” that Ordinals brought in “is very good.”
Buterin also looked for 10 similarities between the two ecosystems. He cited the immutability promises made by both chains and the fact that they both had layer-1 privacy flaws. Buterin said that the successes and failures of Ethereum and Bitcoin highlight the challenges inherent in developing decentralized consensus frameworks.
The Ethereum co-founder closed on a positive note, maybe in an effort to unite the two groups. “I think a world where there is at least one of these chains is better than one with none,” he said.
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