With taproot, the Nostr + Bitcoin stack is effectively Turing‑complete and comes with an instant social graph. In theory it can do everything Ethereum promised—but the truth is, there hasn’t been much demand for on‑chain computation once you strip away token speculation.

Ethereum’s launch seeded a large insider premine while branding itself “decentralised like Bitcoin.” That skewed foundation is a bit like charging eternal royalties on a proprietary database: every layer built on top inherits the tilt. No surprise many apps devolved into pump‑and‑dump schemes.

Bitcoin / Nostr give us a shot at building on a non‑rigged base layer: a genuine free market. Of course, entrenched players prefer systems they can bend. The real contest isn’t technical capability—it’s whether we’re willing to choose open rules over rigged ones.

So far rigged markets dominate.