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It’s not even trying to solve the same problem. Bitcoin is a store of value, Ethereum is an universal computer with a Turing-complete language. I personally u

It’s not even trying to solve the same problem. Bitcoin is a store of value, Ethereum is an universal computer with a Turing-complete language. I personally use Bitcoin because it has a smaller attack surface, and it’s excellent for my needs. The bug in the multisig contract in one of the Ethereum implementations a few years ago was where I decided never to trust Ethereum as a store of value, as multisig is very important for me. Another important difference is that with Bitcoin I can verify the whole blockchain on my computer, with Ethereum it’s much harder. Also the hard forks in Ethereum means that it’s not yet ready to be a store of value.

davidmurdoch 6y ago
To be clear to others, the EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) wasn't the problem, it was a smart contract (software that runs on Ethereum) that had a bug.
- chriswarbo 6y ago
  From my outside perspective, it sounds like Ethereum makes it hard to avoid subtle bugs when writing contracts. Some of its competitors specifically try to avoid this, e.g. https://docs.cardano.org/en/latest/ https://docs.cardano.org/en/latest/
  - xiphias2 6y ago
    The most probable language that’s safe enough to be adopted by Bitcoin is Simplicity. It’s based on algebraic data types, tries to be a superset of the Bitcoin scripting language, but still guarantee a verification time that’s linear to the program length (not Turing complete)
- xiphias2 6y ago
  It was not just that bug that decreased my confidence, but the lack of testing for the smart contract. Even the bug fix commit didn't have any unit tests. We're talking about a type of smart contract that holds billions of dollars for store of value, not some rare edge case. Also for Bitcoin I myself was able to read and verify and understand the whole smart contract code base (a few hundreds of lines altogether in 1 file), which increased my confidence.
- garmaine 6y ago
  But it's also important to be clear that a complex script large enough to have (critical!) security holes was required to do something as simple and as foundational as multi-sig: the basic building block of all distributed or decentralized protocols. How can possibly expect something more complex to be secure? Bitcoin, on the other hand, builds these core crypto competencies into the base layer, so that scripting can exist purely in the application domain.

davidmurdoch 6y ago

To be clear to others, the EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) wasn't the problem, it was a smart contract (software that runs on Ethereum) that had a bug.

chriswarbo 6y ago
From my outside perspective, it sounds like Ethereum makes it hard to avoid subtle bugs when writing contracts. Some of its competitors specifically try to avoid this, e.g. https://docs.cardano.org/en/latest/ https://docs.cardano.org/en/latest/
- xiphias2 6y ago
  The most probable language that’s safe enough to be adopted by Bitcoin is Simplicity. It’s based on algebraic data types, tries to be a superset of the Bitcoin scripting language, but still guarantee a verification time that’s linear to the program length (not Turing complete)
xiphias2 6y ago
It was not just that bug that decreased my confidence, but the lack of testing for the smart contract. Even the bug fix commit didn't have any unit tests. We're talking about a type of smart contract that holds billions of dollars for store of value, not some rare edge case. Also for Bitcoin I myself was able to read and verify and understand the whole smart contract code base (a few hundreds of lines altogether in 1 file), which increased my confidence.
garmaine 6y ago
But it's also important to be clear that a complex script large enough to have (critical!) security holes was required to do something as simple and as foundational as multi-sig: the basic building block of all distributed or decentralized protocols. How can possibly expect something more complex to be secure? Bitcoin, on the other hand, builds these core crypto competencies into the base layer, so that scripting can exist purely in the application domain.