- BitVM is intended to scale Bitcoin, not launch Ethereum-like decentralized finance applications on the network.
- The whitepaper for BitVM was released by ZeroSync’s project lead Robin Linus on Oct. 10.
- Super Testnet, a pseudonymous developer, implemented BitVM’s first proof-of-concept and is working on expanding its capabilities.
Contrary to some industry impressions, BitVM is not about implementing smart contracts and altcoins, but rather about scaling Bitcoin.
“The real killer app is scaling Bitcoin. [Robin Linus isn’t] a big fan of smart contracts. He’s not a big fan of increasing Bitcoin’s expressivity. He really is interested in making it so that Bitcoin can process millions of transactions per second.” – Super Testnet
Super Testnet does not want BitVM to be flooded with EVM-like tokens from the Ethereum ecosystem.
“I don’t want to see everything from the Ethereum ecosystem because most of it is Ponzi schemes.” – Super Testnet
BitVM is not an instant death for Ethereum’s altcoins, but it could take some demand away from them.
The developer hopes Bitcoin remains the only monetary unit on the network to avoid floating exchange rates.
BitVM aims to improve payment reliability, which is a shortcoming of the Lightning Network.
“Lightning is wonderful as a system and it’s much faster than probably anything we can make on Bitcoin. But one thing that Lightning doesn’t do well is payment reliability.” – Super Testnet
BitVM is optional and users can transfer BTC or Bitcoin-assets out of the virtual machine as they please.
BitVM cannot compute “anything” as suggested by its whitepaper. Additional functionalities need to be built.
Robin Linus and Super Testnet have been working to scale Bitcoin at the scripting level for around 18 months.
