The age-old question, What comes first? The chicken, or the egg? Can be applied directly to mainstream adoption of Bitcoin. What comes first? Bitcoin development, or Bitcoin adoption?
We all know that development brings adoption, but it is also true that adoption inspires development. This is clearly evident in what has been happening to Bitcoin this year. While it has been the number 1 cryptocurrency in terms of market cap since it was created. There is no denying that development on Bitcoin has been moving at a snail’s pace. Taproot was the protocol’s first major upgrade in several years since SegWit was implemented.
Part of the reason for this is how decentralized Bitcoin is. For any protocol change to be implemented; it must be unanimously approved. But there is also another reason for this slow development that has appeared throughout the years. The Bitcoin blockchain has grown to an enormous value, is considered pristine, and must be protected at all costs. This means that any development is heavily tested, and debated before it is even considered to be approved. Developers don’t want to risk damaging Bitcoin.
However, due to this approach development and improvement of Bitcoin have been hamstrung. For years Bitcoin’s Layer 2, Lightning, saw very little growth and many had considered it to be a failed project. Only in the last few years has adoption finally begun.
This begs the question. Is it better to take the slow and cautious approach, or quickly move forward and fix things as they break?
At the beginning of 2023, Bitcoin Ordinals (NFT inscriptions) began being executed on Bitcoin. This completely changed what everyone thought was possible on Bitcoin. A few months later we are now seeing BRC20 being created as well. Suddenly there is great demand for Bitcoin block space which could help solve one of Bitcoin's biggest problems. How they can pay the miners once the Bitcoin halving has caused mining rewards to drop? Currently, transaction fees are nearly equal to newly mined Bitcoin. All of a sudden one of Bitcoin's biggest problems could have a solution.
People have been complaining about rising transaction costs, and how they are pricing out normal people from using the chain. The Lightning Network does solve this, and it has begun to see unprecedented usage. Due to the increasing demand for cheaper Bitcoin fees, BINANCE has even announced that they will be implementing Lightning onto the exchange. Something that they had been avoiding for years. All of the new adoption this year from people with ideals that aren't normally associated with Bitcoiners have helped speed up the development of not only Bitcoin but also Lightning by several years in a matter of weeks.
In this case, adoption has increased the development.
Life finds a way. Sometimes we are only motivated to fix a problem when the problem actually occurs. We won't do it until we need to do it for survival.
If this is the approach that works the best, then developing fast and fixing things as they break would be the strategy that you want to use. However, it is important to note that the value of Bitcoin is several hundred billion dollars. It was even worth more than a trillion dollars at its peak. The entire cryptocurrency industry is currently dependent on Bitcoin. If Bitcoin development were to move too fast, a deadly bug could appear that not only could result in the end of Bitcoin, but also be the deathblow of the cryptocurrency market. While we would all be thrilled if Bitcoin developed as quickly as other cryptocurrencies. We must also remember that it is playing a different game too. Bitcoin is here for the long term, and attempting to oust government fiat currencies and become the new world reserve currency. For this to happen the most critical thing that needs to be protected is the Bitcoin code.
How about you? Do you prefer Bitcoin's fast or slow development
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