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Earnestly/naively curious: what are the best first-principles arguments for why Bitcoin should not end up fully superseded by Ethereum? (Please don’t make me regret asking this! This is a truth-seeking q; I have no dog in this fight)

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Eli Dourado

@elidourado

· May 1, 2021

Replying to @BrantlyMillegan

They have completely given up. The narrative now is “hodl,” as if you could ever change the world by sitting on your hands and literally doing nothing.

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Will Townsend

@wtsnz

May 1, 2021

Because the original Bitcoin protocol (from the early days and whitepaper) can do everything Ethereum can, better. BTC disabled all of the exciting things about bitcoin.

Andy Matuschak

@andy_matuschak

Replying to

@wtsnz

? Confused: I just reread to confirm, and the paper matches my memory that there’s nothing about the scripting language in the original white paper, much less a Turing-complete VM. Are you talking about a different white paper? Or what am I missing? bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

7:12 PM · May 1, 2021Twitter Web App

Replying to

You're right in that there is no mention of the scripting language in the white paper. The BTC team have disabled Opcodes that limit the ability to create more complex locking scripts (otherwise known as "smart contracts")

Will Townsend

@wtsnz

May 1, 2021

as well as a bunch more changes from the originally release code that have hampered the protocol. Not sure how much time you have, but Ryan X Charles has a good interview serious from an intellectually curious place

youtube.com

5. Script, Computation, & Turing Completeness - Theory of Bitcoin -...

Bitcoin can compute anything that can be computed. It is Turing Complete in more ways than one: unrolled loops and agents.Learn more from the inventor of Bit...

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