While I get that there’s global demand for digital U.S. dollars, I still think Tether (USDT) on Bitcoin and Lightning is ultimately bad.
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/takes/i-still-dont-like-tether-usdt-on-bitcoin-and-lightning
Discussion
It seems taproot has been a net negative for bitcoin. Am I wrong!?
Not necessarily. Bitcoin will need more Layer 2s and Taproot enables that.
Bitcoin doesn’t need anything (except to be maintained, a patch for the Y2K bug and to deal with any lethal threats down the line like quantum computing)
As of today Taproot has only enhanced & enabled shitcoinery on lightning. I haven’t seen anything that currently validates that taproot was a good decision.
At this point in time taproot has done more harm than good. I hope that changes but until something good emerges from taproot I will be against all BIPs that promise to be a scaling solution.
The Botanix Layer 2 looks promising and it doesn’t require a BIP. And the only reason it doesn’t is because of Taproot.
I’m perplexed by for reasoning here Botanix
I don’t know what that means.
Either do I lol. I think I was mashing buttons together and accidentally sent.
If we were to look at the outcomes from taproot and divide into pros and cons as it sits today, years after the fork it would be consider hands down a net negative.
Taproot has enabled and enhanced the ability for ordinals, brc20 tokens and taproot assets on Bitcoin all of which would fall into the “cons” list.
I haven’t heard much about Botanix but it appears to be more shitcoinery enabling staking on Bitcoin
I agree. Definitely feels like a net negative to me, too.
It depends on how you look at it. With Botanix you can build on-chain financial markets on top of Bitcoin. Some people want that, some people don’t. I think it’s better than they’ll exist on-chain as an option versus only have the option to use centralized entities for Bitcoin-related finance.
I get it. Suits want to monetize bitcoin. Developers want their code merged in the bitcoin core repository so their name can live forever. But most are happy with what we got, the mempool has been clearing frequently, hash rate is at ATH. Life is good.
That wasn’t my point, but okay.
You are trying to justify that bitcoin needs more than it has
No, I wasn’t.
But on that note, to scale, it absolutely does. Turning certain OP Codes would also help with this.
And my point was that people have different visions of what Bitcoin is. Some think it’s a platform, some just view it as money. Now that Taproot assets is already enabled (I don’t know that I would have pushed for it when the debate around it was happening), it has the potential to take the shitcoinery, if you want to put it that way (I personally think there’s potential value in having things like Polymarket come to Bitcoin), off of the base layer and Lightning and to put it in an L2 that doesn’t require a BIP or soft fork.
I addressed that people want different things from bitcoin, that’s why I bucketed these different views into personas (suits,devs, and the majority)
During the signaling processes prior to taproot’s activation. Taproot was being sold as a privacy upgrade to bitcoin which hasn’t materialized. Now the goal post has been shifted to the smart contract narrative. Taproot is no different than a shitcoin -it has become a solution in search of a problem.
Not sure why you are saying we need taproot to be able to create a polymarket that uses Bitcoin. Anyone can create a polymarket with bitcoin as the currency without taproot. No matter what something like polymarket will have to have a level of centralization and an oracle. polymarket can’t really be 100% automated user input is required. Btw we should not be making base level changes to the bitcoin protocol for a “native bitcoin polymarket”
My point is there hasn’t been anything built that solidifies that the taproot activation has been a net positive so far. I personally don’t think it will ever be justified because the negative implications like tether on lightning will outweigh any good that taproot does.
