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>If an alternative blockchain's only reason to exist is "Like Ethereum - but with lower fees!" I would be leery. Do you think that taproot on the bitcoin chain

by jerry1979 5y ago

>If an alternative blockchain's only reason to exist is "Like Ethereum - but with lower fees!" I would be leery. Do you think that taproot on the bitcoin chain could fill that role?

seibelj 5y ago
The bitcoin culture is very religious and getting even minor changes into the protocol are very difficult. Bitcoin is not trying to be like Ethereum, no one speaks for bitcoin, and everyone can have their own opinion on what it is. The fact it takes so long to make changes is a good thing from my perspective - the risk to the entire crypto space if BTC were to have a serious problem is catastrophic, so slow-and-steady is a smart tactic. For me, bitcoin is a store of value, like digital gold. I don't purchase BTC for the same reasons I purchase ETH. Taproot will enable better privacy on bitcoin and more efficient transactions. It will not enable an EVM-like smart contract system.
- atweiden 5y ago
  > Taproot will enable better privacy on bitcoin and more efficient transactions. It will not enable an EVM-like smart contract system. You can already price EVM transactions in Bcash: https://smartbch.org/ https://smartbch.org/ (Notably Bcash has chosen to do “Ethereum on Bitcoin” using a sidechain, rather ironic from a historical perspective)
dsr_ 5y ago
Remember that there are lots of reasons to prefer OSI over TCP/IP, it's just that TCP/IP focused on interoperability and being useful.
- dboreham 5y ago
  Not so much. OSI actually sucked. You had to pay to read the specs. Their stream protocol (CLNS) was a straight copy of TCP. There was no defined API (see: BSD Sockets). The layers were arbitrary, following Conway's Law vs the number of committees in the ISO organization. In addition as you note there was no interop and production deployment was rare.
  - dsr_ 5y ago
    All of those are reasons to prefer OSI! Assuming you were a high-ranking bureaucrat in a national postal-telegraph-telephone organization.

>If an alternative blockchain's only reason to exist is "Like Ethereum - but with lower fees!" I would be leery. Do you think that taproot on the bitcoin chain could fill that role?

seibelj 5y ago

The bitcoin culture is very religious and getting even minor changes into the protocol are very difficult. Bitcoin is not trying to be like Ethereum, no one speaks for bitcoin, and everyone can have their own opinion on what it is. The fact it takes so long to make changes is a good thing from my perspective - the risk to the entire crypto space if BTC were to have a serious problem is catastrophic, so slow-and-steady is a smart tactic. For me, bitcoin is a store of value, like digital gold. I don't purchase BTC for the same reasons I purchase ETH. Taproot will enable better privacy on bitcoin and more efficient transactions. It will not enable an EVM-like smart contract system.

atweiden 5y ago
> Taproot will enable better privacy on bitcoin and more efficient transactions. It will not enable an EVM-like smart contract system. You can already price EVM transactions in Bcash: https://smartbch.org/ https://smartbch.org/ (Notably Bcash has chosen to do “Ethereum on Bitcoin” using a sidechain, rather ironic from a historical perspective)

dsr_ 5y ago

Remember that there are lots of reasons to prefer OSI over TCP/IP, it's just that TCP/IP focused on interoperability and being useful.

dboreham 5y ago
Not so much. OSI actually sucked. You had to pay to read the specs. Their stream protocol (CLNS) was a straight copy of TCP. There was no defined API (see: BSD Sockets). The layers were arbitrary, following Conway's Law vs the number of committees in the ISO organization. In addition as you note there was no interop and production deployment was rare.
- dsr_ 5y ago
  All of those are reasons to prefer OSI! Assuming you were a high-ranking bureaucrat in a national postal-telegraph-telephone organization.