Tensions between the Bitcoin and Ethereum tribes have been stirred by a trend outsiders might see as a sign of harmony.
Throughout June, the amount of tokenized bitcoin on Ethereum, the bulk of it in WBTC, a special ERC-20 token known as “wrapped bitcoin,” soared from 5,200 BTC to 11,682 BTC – now worth around $108 million – according to btconethereum.com.
As is their wont, each faction described the growth of WBTC tokens, whose value is pegged one-to-one against a locked-up reserve of actual bitcoin, as proof of their coin’s superiority over the other. The Ethereum crowd said it showed that even BTC “hodlers” believe Ethereum-based applications provide a better off-chain transaction experience than platforms built on Bitcoin, such as Lightning or Blockstream’s Liquid. Bitcoiners, by contrast, took it as confirmation that people place greater value in the oldest, most valuable crypto asset, than in Ethereum’s ether token.
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Beneath the rivalry on Crypto Twitter, the bitcoin-on-Ethereum trend says more about complementarity than competition.
The data simultaneously highlight that bitcoin is the crypto universe’s reserve asset and that Ethereum’s burgeoning “DeFi” ecosystem is crypto’s go-to platform for generating credit and facilitating fluid exchange.
Real-world parallels
Though it’s too early to know who the eventual winners will be, I believe this trend captures the early beginnings of a new, decentralized global financial system. So to describe it, an analogy for the existing one is useful: bitcoin is the dollar, and Ethereum is SWIFT, the international network that coordinates cross-border payments among banks. (Since Ethereum is trying to do much more than payments, we could also cite a number of other organizations in this analogy, such as the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) or the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC).)
So, let’s dismiss claims like those of Ethhub.io co-founder Anthony Sassano. He argued that because bitcoin token transactions on Ethereum deny miners fees they would otherwise receive on the bitcoin chain, bitcoin is becoming a “second-class citizen” to ether. You’d hardly expect people in countries where dollars are preferred to the local currency to think of the former as second class. And just as the U.S. benefits from overseas demand for dollars – via seignorage or interest-free loans – bitcoin holders benefit from its sought-after liquidity and collateral value in the Ethereum ecosystem, where it lets them extract premium interest.
Still, to declare bitcoin the winner based on its appeal as a reserve asset is to compare apples to oranges. Ether is increasingly viewed not as a payment or store-of-value currency but for what it was intended: as a commodity that fuels the decentralized computing network orchestrating its smart contracts.
That network now sustains its financial system, a decentralized microcosm of the massive traditional one. It takes tokenized versions of the underlying currencies that users most value (whether bitcoin or fiat) and provides disintermediated mechanisms for lending or borrowing them or for creating decentralized derivative or insurance contracts. What’s emerging, albeit in a form too volatile for traditional institutions, is a multifaceted, market for managing and trading in risk.
This system is being fueled by a global innovation and development pool bigger than Bitcoin’s. As of June last year, there were 1,243 full-time developers working on Ethereum compared with 319 working on Bitcoin Core, according to a report by Electric Capital. While that work is spread across multiple projects, the size of its community gives Ethereum the advantage of network effects.
Whether DeFi can shed its Wild West feel and mature sufficiently for mainstream adoption, the code and ideas generated by these engineers are laying the foundation for whatever regulated or unregulated blockchain-based finance models emerge in the future.
Complexity vs. simplicity
There are legitimate concerns about security on Ethereum. With such a complex system, and so many different programs running on it, the attack surface is large. And given the challenges the community faces in migrating to Ethereum 2.0, including a new proof-of-stake consensus mechanism and a sharding solution for scaling transactions, it’s still not assured it will ever be ready for prime time.
Indeed, the relative lack of complexity is one reason why many feel more comfortable with Bitcoin Core’s security. Bitcoin is a one-trick pony, but it does that trick – keeping track of unspent transaction outputs, or UTXOs – very well and very securely. Its proven security is a key reason why bitcoin is crypto’s reserve asset.
Base-layer security is also why some developers are building “Layer 2” smart contract protocols on Bitcoin. It’s harder to build on than Ethereum, but solutions are evolving – one from Rootstock, for example, and more recently, from RGB.
And while Ethereum fans crow about there being 12 times more wrapped bitcoin on their platform than the mere $9 million locked in the Lightning Network’s payment channels, the latter is making inroads in developing nations as a payment network for small, low-cost bitcoin transactions. Unlike WBTC, which requires a professional custodian to hold the original locked bitcoin, Lightning users need not rely on a third party to open up a channel. It’s arguably more decentralized.
Toward anti-fragility
At the same time, the inclusion of bitcoin in Ethereum smart contracts is inherently strengthening the DeFi system.
Decentralized exchanges (DEXs), which allow peer-to-peer crypto trading without centralized exchange (CEX) taking custody of your assets, have integrated WBTC into their markets to boost the liquidity needed to make them viable. Sure enough, DEX trading volumes leapt 70% to record highs in June. (It helped, too, that June saw a surge in “yield farming” operations, a complicated new DeFi speculative activity that’s easier to do if you maintain control of your assets while trading.)