The great bitcoin debate: #ossification vs. #innovation

🗣 The #bitcoin community has contrasting opinions on the future of the bitcoin network.

Some people are “monetary #maximalist” and believe that Bitcoin should remain as it is, as it’s already performing the function it was aimed for: transferring value across the world, in a censorship-resistant manner, with close to immediate finality and at a low cost 💸 .

Other people are “platform maximalist” and believe that Bitcoin protocol should extend its functionalities well beyond its monetary use case and that introducing new features is necessary to address #scalability issues, improve user experience, and expand use cases beyond store of value.

⛔ This debate is as old as Bitcoin and it will probably never end.

Advocates of ossification strongly believe in the fundamental properties of #decentralization, #security and #immutability of the network: Bitcoin has these three properties and we should not risk extending its utility beyond its monetary use case.

Any change to the protocol, despite being tested and retested by core developers, might bring unintended consequences and create vulnerabilities and potential attack surfaces to Bitcoin.

The Taproot update was thought to increase privacy, scalability and security, but has created the possibility to create “inscriptions” and to mint ordinals on-chain. 🤡 Monkey jpegs and other valueless NFTs, originally created on other blockchains, started to be written also on the Bitcoin blockchain, driving away extremely scarce and valuable blockspace from transactions to pure gambling activities.

This is a major unintended consequence of a protocol upgrade and represent a risk that ossificators don’t want to face.

Platform maximalists would like Bitcoin to be the everything protocol, where you can directly interact with various decentralized applications (dApps) and smart contracts, similar to platforms like Ethereum 💩 .

They envision a future where Bitcoin serves as the foundational layer for a wide range of financial services, decentralized exchanges, and even social networks, all built on top of its secure and censorship-resistant infrastructure.

👨‍💻 Introducing additional functionalities to Bitcoin's protocol requires careful consideration of trade-offs between innovation and maintaining the network's core principles. There are concerns about potential security risks, scalability issues, and decentralization.

Satoshi gifted humanity the best form of money ever invented. Absolutely scarce, transparent, and immutable money which removes state monopoly on the creation of currency and can grant real freedom to individuals, by allowing them to travel the world with their wealth transported in their minds 🤘 .

🐢 I believe that #innovation in Bitcoin shall come as fast as a turtle with a broken leg. What’s your position?