Oddbean new post about login | logout What do you all think of BitVM?
I don't understand it fully but gut feeling says it's too unpredictable due to complexity. Would hate some unpredicted nasty side effects!
The 'good' thing is that iirc, this can work NOW and doesn't require a fork or any new code. So whatever damage could be done is already possible. I don't see it working out well for anyone but miners in the 'uncooperative' case, at least in a high fee environment.
Sounds like it's in it's infancy but alot of promise
Very early, lots of research still to do, not a silver bullet (a small application may require GB or TB of storage by each participant), don't trust the shitcoiners who build wrapped bitcoin.
What is it?
It will be a good thing for bitcoin to bring more use cases on bitcoin. The traditional system will be built on bitcoin. So I hope your ready for that. #btc https://image.nostr.build/694a3e3091ec5479279140a6cc797b81edc1b3cb9ee7b0b8b658ce0fa4be134f.jpg#m=image%2Fjpeg&dim=593x507&blurhash=%3B8SF%40Sax_4t7-%3Bt7%25Moft7%7EqogWBWBM%7BfkM%7BayRjRjWBayj%5Bt7ofWBj%5Bj%5B4nofofWB%25Mayt7fQof%3FbWBM%7BofRjj%5BofayRj%25MofRjayWBaxofj%5Bj%5B%25MWBRjj%5BWAayj%5BofofRjj%5Dj%5Bfjofj%40oeayof&x=a46a2f59d3f35ed03cd66103c1283d9311d25c8618d350ec80fcf1b1742baf76
shows lots of promise. I'm all for building additional utility into Bitcoin. Sound money is great, "smart money" is even cooler. Being able to run things like DAOs and voting systems is an amazing use case. Down for anything generally that extends Bitcoin's functionality so long as we don't sacrifice decentralization or spend a bunch of blockspace on it.
I'd rather leave Bitcoin as money and use other systems for other things. Putting too much complexity increases the odds of bugs, security problems, and attack vectors. We need to accept the gift we have and not try to make it "better" in ways that will likely fuck it up.
As I read the whitepaper, it almost seemed like each logical step would need an on-chain transaction. It would be very slow to use as a back-and-forth medium, but it could be used to prove something globally for all of humanity, like the anonymized aggregate result of an election. Useful for proving things that don't need to be fast? Yes. Useful for routine smart contracts? Probably not. I will say that BitVM may be a good option for making more secure side chains without changing the consensus algorithm like would be needed with drive chains.
Has the potential to change a lot of things. If you believe in bitcoin, you should believe in programmable bitcoin.
I kind of forgot but I wrote about it back in October (was actually writing about "recursive inscriptions" which seems to be kind of a BitVM v1.0). https://peakd.com/hive/@crrdlx/recursive-inscriptions-part-3-of-3-future-possibilities
After a quick read, I'm not sure. Maybe after seeing a specific use case for it, it might help me make up my mind. https://bitvm.org/bitvm.pdf
I think the most exciting thing about it is it opens up further the true innovation potential of technical utility that exists in EVM in the BTC ecosystem. Ethereum isn't about money / currency - it's about all kinds of other technical utility (if you can find them in the crazy/ scammy etc) & combining that with the currency layer of btc is an exciting future on many levels
I think BitVM is interesting. But more broadly, I think it shows that innovation on bitcoin, without changing any of its code, is possible. It reminds me of a "quote": Innovation finds a way - Jurassic Park
It sounds like a useful primitive and a logical fit. BitVM seems to be a method of expressing an inviable proof of a contract outcome. An immutable ledger that knows only truth is an ideal place for such a proof.
Worth investigating. No change to consensus, no opcodes needed. Will it work? If Bitcoin is to be the internet of information and value, eventually all worthwhile (and junk) projects will get built on top of it. The alts that need real security and prove valuable will migrate to Bitcoin. If BitVM works as advertised, it's progress. The market will sort out the future Pets.com. Bitcoin Layer 1 will continue to operate with or without BitVM.
We did not transact in gold pre 1971 we did this in currency as you know… we needed infrastructure for us to work with fiat. Fast forward 10 years bitvm and others like sovryn bitcoinOs will be that infrastructure as btc plays her role as gold did.
How different is it from SatoshiVM?
SVM = Scam
BitVM? Scam too?
Well it opens the gateway to scams for sure, just like EVM, Both increase complexity and the initial idea was to keep btc code simple and secure. However, we need to figure out how to make this thing easly usable for gran and grams and there will be infrastructure needed for that.
It's fascinating, but I haven't spent enough time studying it to have a strong opinion. I've only heard a little bit about it on the bitcoin dot review podcast.
The following are some of the limitations of BitVM that the team is still working to overcome: - In its current state, BitVM is only a two-person model. This limitation means it cannot support large-scale decentralized applications with multiple transacting parties. - On-chain verification could still clog up Bitcoin's blockchain. - Off-chain computations will likely involve huge amounts of data. See: https://www.kraken.com/learn/what-is-bitcoin-bitvm
