In its definition, Ethereum is not a currency, but rather a global supercomputer that can run applications in a decentralized manner. While Bitcoin could achieve this goal through forks, both developers and the community prefer to keep it as simple as possible.
Because of this, an article published on Monday (9) attracts everyone’s attention. Called BitVMthe solution does not require changes to the code, but Bitcoin does allow it Turing complete necessary case.
“BitVM is a computational paradigm for expressing Turing-complete Bitcoin contracts.”
“This does not require any changes to the network’s consensus rules. Instead of performing calculations on Bitcoin, they are just verified, similar to optimistic roll-ups”points to the summary written by Robin Linus, creator of BitVM. “A fitting room states that a given function evaluates some specific inputs to a specific output. If this statement is incorrect, the verifier may provide summary evidence of fraud and punish the prover.”
“Using this mechanism, any computable function in Bitcoin can be verified.”
“Running a large program on a Taproot address requires significant amounts of off-chain computation and communication, but the on-chain footprint is minimal”ends the summary. “As long as both parties work together, they can perform arbitrarily complex calculations outside the chain without leaving any trace in the chain. Implementation on the chain is only necessary in the event of a dispute.”
BitVM isn’t Bitcoin’s holy grail, but it does excite developers
About two years ago, Bitcoin received its most recent and important update, Taproot. As a result, we saw the arrival of several new applications in Bitcoin, as was the case with the controversial NFTs that flooded the network with useless transactions.
BitVM also uses Taproot as its foundation and promises to transform Bitcoin into one “virtual machine”, suitable for running any application. However, some people have already emphasized that it will not be as good as the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), because it is a slower, more expensive and more complex solution.
Regardless, the system is widely praised by developers. After all, in addition to not requiring any changes to the Bitcoin code, it also has the potential to receive new improvements and no one is forced to use it.
What do experts say about BitVM?
Bob Bodily, co-founder and CEO of Bioniq, brought together various responses from experts on Twitter. Names like Adam Back, Dylan LeClair and Eric Wall appear in the lengthy publication.
“All BitVM does is allow us to divide the execution time of some logic that would otherwise fall outside the bounds of a single transaction into multiple transactions. And that”said Sam Parker, noting that several implementations can become trustless, that is, not dependent on trust in third parties.
“Overload and permission are the two big problems”said Eric Wall. “For now, I’m cautiously excited, waiting to see what the real-world experiments will yield. Perhaps there are elegant and trivial solutions to the two-part limitations of this scheme, perhaps not. Perhaps the overhead is manageable for specific types of computations, such as zero-knowledge proofs (zk-proofs).”
“For people who get (very) excited, this is cool, but it’s actually a generalization of a game between two parties – or so it says in the summary – so it’s a bit like the ZKP example of conditional payments written by Greg Maxwell in 2016”said Adam Back.
“This is probably the most exciting discovery in the history of Bitcoin scripting. It seems to knock down just about any door, giving us access to covenants, sidechains, and powers similar to Liquid or EVM all at once, without the need for forks. I can’t wait to publish my demo”said Super Testnet, which also published a study on its GitHub.
“With BitVM you can spend ALL UTXO with one smart contract. For reliable sidechains, we need to be able to issue PART of a UTXO with a smart contract.”said Rijndale.
For Bob Bodily, who compiled the above comments, BitVM should generate discussion in various conversation circles in the coming weeks, but there is still a lot of research to be done before we come to a conclusion.
Finally, it is impossible for ETH to ever become Bitcoin as Ethereum is heavily criticized for its centralization, including the millions raised for its development. However, solutions like BitVM can ensure that Bitcoin kills Ethereum.
The official presentation of BitVM, only 8 pages long and very similar in aesthetics to the Bitcoin whitepaper, can be found on the project’s official website.
Source: Live Coins

Barry Siefert is an accomplished journalist and author at The Nation View. He is known for his expertise in the field of cryptocurrency, and has written extensively on the topic. With a background in finance and economics, Barry has a deep understanding of the underlying technology and market forces that drive the crypto industry.