NEWSLETTER
Opinion of: Alisia Painter, Director of Operations of Botanix Labs
Without ethereum, the industry would not be where it is today in terms of giving life to decentralized finances (DEFI), which makes programability a key blockchains and demonstrating the value of intelligent contracts at scale. The ethereum virtual machine has become the reference platform for developers, with the ecosystem and the largest tools.
However, as it matures, it is worth asking: is ethereum the best basis for the future of financial innovation? Well, the answer could be bitcoin.
With almost $ 6 billion in total value blocked as of March 2025, decentralization, liquidity and resilience of bitcoin position it as the natural home for the next era of the finance of the chain, and although the flexibility of ethereum has allowed an explosion of experimentation, that same flexibility has arisen with compensation.
From vulnerabilities in intelligent contracts that we have seen in renowned hacks until ongoing debates about scalability, ethereum's experimental spirit has left cracks in its foundation. On the contrary, bitcoin offers a solid and proven infrastructure in battle where he defines can flourish in a sustainable way and cross the abyss of Degens to conventional adoption.
ethereum contribution and limitations
ethereum was responsible for being a pioneer on what we know is defined today. This innovation and development served as a test field for what bitcoin is capable and, ultimately, can achieve. Its programability has trained developers to create everything, from automated loan platforms to sophisticated derivatives. These products exist only due to ethereum's smart contract capabilities.
With that flexibility they arrived serious compensation, and we have seen them play in real time. The Dao Hack in 2016 exhausted $ 50 million and almost killed ethereum in his childhood. The Wormhole 2022 exploit cost $ 325 million in recent years, and the Ronin bridge trick took $ 620 million.
These were not just bad luck: they are the predictable result of ethereum's open programability. Smart contracts are powerful, but they are also complex. Complexity generates vulnerability. The solidity was simply not safely designed as the main consideration.
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At the same time, ethereum's scale challenges have made it more and more inaccessible.
Network congestion and gas rates rise to hundreds of dollars during peak periods have effectively blocked average users. Seasoned users will be very accustomed to listening gas rates required only to make basic exchanges in high networks. Layer 2 solutions such as optimism and referee have made great progress, but fragment liquidity and introduce their own assumptions of trust.
This does not mean that ethereum is failing. That is not. As he matures beyond his experimental phase and becomes more conventional in global finances, we must ask if it makes sense to continue building in this base or consider a more resistant alternative.
Why bitcoin?
bitcoin design philosophy is radically different. It is not a platform for unlimited experimentation; It is a stability strength. His spirit of conservative development and his consensus of proof of work make bitcoin the safest block chain that exists. This security translates into a trustee, a critical ingredient for applications that handle billions of dollars in value.
Liquidity is another advantage offered by bitcoin. With a market capitalization that Ether (eth), bitcoin (btc) is the most liquid cryptocurrency, which makes it an ideal base layer for defi. The increase in technologies such as bitcoin's Lightning Network and lateral technologies such as Spiderchain are already unlocking bitcoin's potential for intelligent contracts, offering the programability that developers need without sacrificing safety or scalability.
Not all bitcoin projects are created the same
Many called bitcoin L2 and Sidechanes claim to be “bitcoin natives”, offering applications the promise of taking advantage of intrinsic security properties of bitcoin.
Let's leave the record: Many are not truly native to bitcoin.
Without pointing with the fingers, these projects often depend on multiple custody configurations, bitcoin chooses ethereum or other chain, and then build rolls at the top. While there is nothing inherently bad in this approach, and there will be cases of use that work with this set of assumptions of trust, it is not the same as being built natively in bitcoin.
The true bitcoin L2S are directly designed in bitcoin, taking advantage of their liquidity, security and resistance, qualities that have resisted the test of time. If we want to expand the abilities, we must build them in bitcoin. It is a direct question, but it is worth reiterating it, since we see the main players that explore roads that may not completely align with bitcoin's potential.
The way forward
The debate should not be framed as ethereum versus bitcoin. That is a false binary. ethereum's innovation approach has been crucial to demonstrate what is possible, and remains an essential experimentation center by Defi. bitcoin offers something that ethereum does not have: a basis that has already gained the confidence of the broader financial world.
Users should not have to choose between safety and functionality. bitcoin's resilience is combined with sophisticated financial tools similar to the pioneers by ethereum. Part of the most exciting work that happens now is at this intersection.
In order for Defi to fulfill your promise to create a fair, open and inclusive financial system, you must go beyond your experimental phase. It must be sure enough for average people to use without fear of losing everything to an exploit. It needs liquidity deep enough to support the financial activity of the real world. And requires the type of institutional trust that only bitcoin has achieved.
The future of finance will be built in bitcoin not because ethereum failed but because bitcoin provides the base that finances demands.
Opinion of: Alisia Painter, Director of Operations of Botanix Labs
This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The points of view, the thoughts and opinions expressed here are alone of the author and do not necessarily reflect or represent the opinions and opinions of Cointelegraph.
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