October 18, 2024
Bitcoin needs Ethereum VM to reach its full potential — Web3 exec

A Web3 executive believes that Bitcoin (BTC) will only see mainstream adoption if it builds a bridge to the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) — the first entry point for many real-world assets to move on-chain.

Willem Schroé, founder of cross-chain infrastructure company Botanix Labs, told Cointelegraph that Bitcoin “needs to start playing a role in the EVM world” in order to build real-world use cases to increase its adoption and utility.

“Bitcoin is the most technically secure, truly decentralized protocol, and EVM has proven itself to be the application layer of the global financial system,” Schroé said.

While Bitcoin is often used as a peer-to-peer payment system or store of value, Shroy said unless the cryptocurrency can connect to broader financial systems, such as security and commodities markets, its potential will not be realized.

Schroé believes that connecting Bitcoin to Ethereum-based real-world assets, stablecoins, decentralized finance and non-fungible tokens through EVM is the first step in this direction.

“There’s tremendous value and development waiting to happen.”

Schroé’s Botanix Lab aims to connect the Bitcoin and Ethereum ecosystems through its “Spiderchain”, a proof-of-stake layer 2 that implements an EVM-to-EVM bridge so that Bitcoin can interact with EVM.

Staking assets are protected by a decentralized multi-signature mechanism, designed to not require a Bitcoin fork.

Schroé believes that current solutions involving Ethereum and other EVM-compliant on-chain wrapped Bitcoins are problematic, arguing that they are vulnerable to censorship and regulatory scrutiny because they are run by US centralized company BitGo.

A similar proposal to introduce Ethereum functionality to Bitcoin has also been proposed through the “Driven Chain”, also known as Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 300, and Bitcoin developers are discussing the proposal again. If implemented, it would allow the creation of “sidechains” on the network.

On October 9, Bitcoin developer Robin Linus released a white paper titled “BitVM: Computing Anything on Bitcoin”, detailing how to make an optimistic summary smart contract similar to Ethereum on the Bitcoin network.

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Unlike Spider Chain, BIP-300 requires a soft fork of Bitcoin and activation by miners – similar to the Taproot soft fork in November 2021, which paved the way for NFT emulation of Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens.

BIP creator Paul Sztroc said those who support BIP-300 believe it will provide new privacy and expanded use cases for Bitcoin, among other benefits.

However, not everyone likes the idea of ​​expanding the Bitcoin ecosystem beyond current use cases.

Cory Klippsten, CEO of BTC exchange Swan Bitcoin, believe Bringing other assets into Bitcoin’s driven chain and solutions will bring in a flood of scammers.

Saifuddin AmosThe author of “The Bitcoin Standard” opposes the idea of ​​issuing altcoins on Bitcoin, arguing that “good money” is the only token needed.

However, Shroy said that he believes that bringing Bitcoin and Ethereum together can lead to a new set of applications “with decentralization and security as the first principles.”

“EVM is the winning virtual machine, and Bitcoin is the best currency,” he said.

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