231 sats \ 3 replies \ @supertestnet 22 Sep 2023 \ on: Ask SN: Have you used a sidechain? bitcoin
No because I don't see anything compelling yet. Liquid has a cool design but I don't need its confidential transactions because I am satisfied by bitcoin's privacy tools (especially payjoin, which conceals the amount sent, which is the main trick that confidential transactions do)
Rootstock has an even cooler design imo but I don't need its eth-based scripting engine because I am satisfied by the expressivity of bitcoin script
I do think sidechains may be useful for poor people if bitcoin's fees get too high but I prefer working to ensure bitcoin can still be used by poor people even in that situation
Why would you say rootstock's design is cooler? The permissionless peg system?
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It is merge mined with bitcoin and something like 65% of miners run their software. Meaning rollbacks and doublespends on rootstock cost a lot more than rollbacks and doublespends on other chains, including liquid.
I think rootstock is about 90% as good as a drivechain would be -- except it's a clone of eth, which is silly. It would be better if it was a clone of liquid but merge mined with bitcoin.
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Apparently plenty of Bitcoin holders are willing to use eth contracts on eth itself. Over 162,000 BTC are on Ethereum alone via wrapped BTC. Lightning network has less than 5,000.
Wouldn't it be better if we could get the people using Bitcoin that way to actually pay the miners and secure the main chain? If there's demand for people to use Bitcoin this way, why wouldn't we do it?
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