Solana (SOL) co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko says that leading digital asset Bitcoin (BTC) will eventually see all of its users migrate to other platforms unless it switches to a proof-of-stake mechanism.
In a new interview with CNBC host Kate Rooney, the founder of the smart contract platform says that proof-of-work mining systems will be barren in the future, including the top crypto asset by market cap if it doesn’t make the switch.
“I think eventually most of the networks that people use will be proof-of-stake ones. This is probably the most controversial thing you’ll get me to say: I bet that if [Bitcoin] doesn’t switch to proof-of-stake, nobody is going to use it.”
Yakovenko says that engineering logistics and energy efficiency are the biggest factors at play when it comes to predicting what kind of systems future users of blockchains will prefer.
“I think because it’s simply more efficient to build a proof-of-stake system, so from an engineering perspective, it provides the same level of security but it uses way less energy, so why not?”
Yakovenko goes on to say that BTC is more tuned to be a store of value rather than a layer-1 network that can be developed on, and he’s unsure if even that can hold up down the line.
“I think the philosophy and goals of Bitcoin are all about store of value, and that requires maybe the simplest implementation that you could build. Maybe that works for now, but we’ll see what happens in 10 years.”
