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Bitcoiner bringing Ethereum like contracts to Bitcoin
The Bitcoiner community has introduced BitVM, which incorporates Ethereum-like smart contracts into the Bitcoin ecosystem. The architect behind BitVM, Robin Linus, based its design on Ethereum’s optimistic outcomes, recent developments in Merkle tree technology, and anti-fraud measures. This innovation was unveiled in Linus’s whitepaper titled “BitVM: Computing Everything on Bitcoin,” published on October 9th. BitVM enables complete Turing Bitcoin contracts without altering Bitcoin’s consensus rules.
A Turing Complete system theoretically can answer any computational problem. With BitVM, the “logic” of Bitcoin contracts can execute off-chain, while verification remains on the Bitcoin blockchain, similar to Ethereum’s optimistic rollouts.
BitVM’s architecture relies on fraud proofs and a challenge-response model where “provers” can file complaints, and “verifiers” can provide fraud proofs to penalize the prover for false claims. Linus explained that the current Bitcoin implementation is limited to basic operations like signatures, timestamps, and hashing, but BitVM opens the door to a wide range of applications, including games like chess, Go, or poker, as well as validating legitimate claims within Bitcoin contracts.
However, Linus acknowledged that the model has limitations, particularly its reliance on a two-party setup involving provers and verifiers, along with significant computation and off-chain communication to execute programs. The next milestone is a full BitVM implementation alongside Tree++, a high-level programming language for writing and debugging Bitcoin contracts. BitVM was activated through the Taproot soft fork in November 2021.
Linus drew inspiration from Ethereum research on optimistic rollups and a study on Merkle Trees, contributing to his extensive 8-page whitepaper.
Prominent Bitcoiner Eric Wall expressed his satisfaction with BitVM’s concepts, stating they had been “vetted” and looked forward to real-world testing. Bitcoin analyst Dylan LeClair also praised BitVM’s whitepaper. However, Adam Back, a Bitcoin Core contributor, advised caution about excessive excitement over this development.
A blockchain space builder known as “dotta” noted that there is evidence of the concept on GitHub. Another Twitter user, Sam Parker, attempted to ease the common fear among Bitcoin maximalists by explaining that BitVM wouldn’t force Bitcoin into these “locked” smart contracts.
In the end, it’s a matter of choice and participation. If you don’t trust your funds to be locked in fully Turing-complete contracts, you don’t have to lock them into such smart contracts. One of the advantages of the UTXO system is security.” Others, like “psage,” believe BitVM will be an addition to the list of factors driving Bitcoin’s price upward in the next bull market.
Charlie Munger said: “Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as worthless and foolish”.
Despite the developments in the world of Bitcoin, billionaire value investor and Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, Charlie Munger, continues to view Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as worthless and foolish.
In a recent conversation, Munger reiterated his strong opposition to cryptocurrencies, stating that he believes most investments in cryptocurrencies “will go to zero.” Speaking at the Zoomtopia conference hosted by Zoom, Munger referred to Bitcoin as the “most foolish investment” he had ever seen and explained that he thinks “most of those investments will go to zero.”
Munger is a well-known critic of cryptocurrencies. In November 2017, during an event at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, where he was a guest speaker, he referred to Bitcoin as “totally asinine” and added that he believed it was “even dumber if you stop to think about it… It’s just disgusting, bong bong, bad ideas, luring people into the concept of easy wealth without much insight or work.”
In a phone interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” in January 2018, Munger also called Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies a “bubble.” A month later, at the annual shareholder meeting of the Daily Journal, he expressed his dislike for cryptocurrencies, referring to Bitcoin as “noxious poison.”
Munger continued to criticize Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in April 2018, telling Yahoo Finance that those who buy them are gambling, not investing. His critical remarks have persisted over time.
During the 2021 annual meeting of the Daily Journal, journalist Julia La Roche from Yahoo Finance presented questions from Daily Journal shareholders to Munger, and some of them were about Bitcoin.
In his response, Munger revealed that he does not believe Bitcoin will become a means of exchange for the world, noting that it is “too volatile to serve well as a means of exchange.”
According to him, cryptocurrencies are “an artificial substitute for gold, and since I’ve never bought any gold, I never bought any Bitcoin, and I recommend others to follow my ways.”
