Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has shared information about new developments on the Bitcoin blockchain.
on a july 7th Twitter Spaces sessionButerin spoke with Bitcoin advocates Eric Wall and Udi Wertheimer, suggesting a thing or two that Bitcoin could learn from Ethereum developers.
The co-founder said that the arrival of Bitcoin Ordinals, Bitcoin’s layer for NFTs, revived “builder culture” on the network.
Buterin suggests ways to expand Bitcoin’s functionality without compromising scalability
Buterin praised Ordinals and the BRC-20 token standard, which he sees as a move away from stagnant politics in the Bitcoin ecosystem.
He said that ordinals are beginning to bring back a culture of doing things.
The Ethereum co-founder believes the arrival of Bitcoin Ordinals is a throwback to the “laser eye” Bitcoin Maxi movement, which he believes is a good one. The long conversation focused on scalability issues.
Contributing to the topic, Wall claimed that the Bitcoin Lightning Network is unsuitable for future scalability and often fails to process medium-sized payments.
In response to Wall’s comment, Buterin recommended that developers focus on implementing various layer 2 solutions. He also suggested that developers look for ways to make Bitcoin’s base layer more efficient.
“I think focusing on stacks is good and therefore being open to scaling solutions based on ZK-snark,” Buterin said.
Concurring with Buterin, Wertheimer believed that the introduction of zero-knowledge accumulations could create a beneficial effect on the Bitcoin network.
Wertheimer said that if we adopt stacks for Bitcoin, we also get an execution environment and can add smart contracts.
Bitcoin Maxis Reaction
For context, Wall and Wertheimer are two figures behind Ordinals’ project, Taproot Wizards.
Both Bitcoin proponents have been staunch defenders of ordinals, often pushing to increase the functionality of the Bitcoin network.
However, his stance drew criticism from Bitcoin fundamentalists who claim that smart contracts and NFTs dilute Bitcoin’s core peer-to-peer cash functionality.
These critics include Samson Mow, CEO of Jan3, who believe Ordinals are a waste of block space that could go towards Bitcoin payments.
Reacting to the criticism, Wall explained that Bitcoin could function as a proof system for zero-knowledge proofs, which would not congest the network.
Wall said:
My perspective is that Bitcoiners always wanted to do things adjacent to DeFi, but we wanted the Bitcoin base layer to act as a kind of judge or arbiter of the calculation and not have to run the calculation on chain.
Wall noted that the second layers don’t have to be just for payments, but can serve other purposes as well.
Unsurprisingly, this discussion sparked controversy in the Bitcoin community. Wertheimer criticized Mow and Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream, for opposing the conversation with Buterin.
Wertheimer cheeped saying that these two laser-eyed clowns have been running Blockstream on the ground for the past decade. In ten years, that company was unable to produce a single successful product.
However, they think that they have nothing to learn from Ethereum.
