Nostr Web Client

Ethereum is NOT a protocol, you know things like TCP/IP and HTTP. The crypto world is in a mass psychosis. VC funds have blossomed on the thesis that L1s are the “protocols” for finance.

No, these are language and compute environments.

ETH was the first language to gain popularity for DeFi apps. But it was created before they knew what DeFI needs were.

We have seen this before… COBOL, Fortran, Lisp, C, JS, Rust.

Every language builds from learnings from the past and upon the needs of new domains. Old languages continue to be used, but many wane, new languages gain adoption.

ETH’s Solidity is COBOL.

To be clear:

- A protocol is a standard for messaging.

- A language is a standard for compute.

The former has longer and stronger network effects.

Bitcoin is more of the former while ETH is more of the latter.

There will be a ongoing market for better decentralised compute networks. Like COBOL it’s quite unlikely Solidity will be what we build DeFi apps on in say 20 years.

Capt Stab 2y ago

An interesting side note - COBOL is still in production everywhere, the IRS and many global banks still run COBOL.

The irony is that the programmers who wrote the code are gradually dying and as Willy highlights the trend is for newer languages……. However some of the highest paying roles are for COBOL projects as demand outstrips supply.

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Discussion

Kane McGukin 2y ago

This was my line of thinking. Languages can last for a long time and go in and out of favor depending on the industry. Or they can die quickly.

Continuing to debate BTC/ETH is pointless, just my opinion.

They are two different things working on two different problems. It’s seems to me like bickering about which is better Mayonnaise or Mustard.

For different people each has it’s different purpose for different reasons.