Bitcoin Forum

Hi there

There was a lot of talk about Bitcoin Sidechains with contracts, that would perhaps kill Ethereum in 2016.
Now beta was released in Beginning of 2018 and nobody gives a fuck?
What happened

at the end of the day smart contracts are awesome but they are not used!
lets be frank, so far the concept of smart contracts have been around for many years, and ethereum was released in 2015. in all this time the only usage of them have been to create some shitty ICO and raise money! which is why I believe RSK and by extension majority of other smart contract platforms are not used that much. there is a shitton of them on Ethereum network because people want the hype of ETH to raise more money in their ICO and get richer.

part of the problem may be because RSK is a sidechain of bitcoin but there is no two way peg between your coins there and your actual bitcoins. so if you wanted to convert your RSK back to bitcoin you would have to go through "Federated Parties" www.rsk.co/blog/sidechains-drivechains-and-rsk-2-way-peg-design and some say it centralizes things.

I've actually asked this several times across several threads. Maybe it's my imagination but RSK seems to be picking up mentions again, even last week mentioned alongside a LN guide (albeit as yet another 2nd layer).

I somewhat agree with Pursuer in that smart contracts are awesome but not really used but I wonder if that's simply because of the lack of standards associated with smart contract security. Even the most active developers can't seem to escape from some smart guy eventually finding a flaw or exploit. Ethereum's been constantly battered because of these incidents, even if it really doesn't have much to do with the network itself.

For me, a longstanding interest is in simple Bitcoin smart contract for escrow. There's quite a few Ethereum ones around and they seem to work well enough. RSK itself mentions it several times in 2017 even but I haven't come across a simple and tested contract for that.

The best analogy I can think about is seeing a campaign van, thinking is cool, stuffing a fridge a tent a grill in your SUV and then realizing you don't like camping at all.

This ethereum killer has nothing left to kill, kitties have done the killing before it.

I can't stop thinking of the stupidity in thinking a country will use smart contracts on a chain that can be clogged by kitties or pandas, just imagine Maduro at a press conference blaming the tax hike and the delay in payments on people playing lemmings on the chain....common

It doesn't have the  ability to do it, even for a hype it acquired there are only many that have been ended scam or fraud by it, I really think for people thinking this is a good deal then they are the ones that will really kill Ethereum for they are a simple minded ones that just go with the flow in every Cryptocurrency they see just taking it up without further research about the project, Well for them because Ethereum now does lack the value it gain before they will tend to go on a variety that is new.

It goes to show you how market sentiment works.

The smart contract hype was just that: hype. It was part of the whole 2017 bubble. Ethereum rode it to astronomical highs. Some of it competitors (like EOS) were able to follow in its footsteps.

The beginning of 2018? Or really, all of 2018? That's 100% bear market time. That's a horrible time to expect Rootstock (or anything else) to get hyped.

Seems to me it is better not to have smart contracts on top of bitcoin blockchain, It just seems unsecure enough right now. I dont know what to think, they seem cool but not yet they are not ready.

and what part of it is it exactly that you find insecure?!
bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency that is completely secure in all aspects compared to others. not to mention all the exploits that has occurred in other platforms and the bugs and lots of issues they all possess!

That's what he means. All these exploits you're talking about in other platforms are likely all the smart contract hacks/exploits on the very popular Ethereum blockchain. I'm also getting similar readings from NEO (hard to understand the language but a few similar kitties clones on NEO are getting exploited quite regularly).

Smart contracts are simple enough to code, it seems, but along with that is the risk of having average coders not able to backstop enough or have enough foresight to close all backdoors and exploits.

Bitcoin itself is secure, there's no question. But put a smart contract on it, one that hasn't gone through the same rigourous vetting and review process... and you get a wildly unpredictable variable.

OP, sidechains were also told to be the "altcoin-killer" because some Bitcoin maximalists believe that once sidechains are released and possess the features of the altcoins, the users will no longer hold or trade altcoins.

They think scientifically but they do not think realistically. Users' greed will always create a "need" for altcoins to trade, to hold, to profit, and to lose in the market.

I agree. While I see most altcoins going to 0, I don't believe all of them will. I believe pareto's law distribution will impose itself and put Bitcoin back into 70 to 80% market dominance, but once BTC is worth several trillions, that 20% of remaining altcoins will have enough liquidity to keep traders busy.

So basically as you said, due greed of wanting to make more BTC via trading shitcoins, they will be kept alive in the markets, which means this demand will give the exchanges an incentive to keep them listed and keep racking up transaction fees.

No matter how much BTC dominates including via sidechains, this demand to trade between tokens will keep some altcoins alive. People love gambling and trading altcoins isn't much different from gambling with penny stocks.

I always thought that theory was half-baked.

If you take things a step further, sidechains are altcoins. A sidechain operates under different consensus rules with a different native currency. Even if a sidechain currency could be reliably pegged to BTC value, they are not interchangeable. It's an altcoin. And all the sidechain tokens that aren't pegged to BTC will trade just like every other altcoin......

But how would a sidechain token not be pegged to Bitcoin? To receive some tokens from a sidechain, you have to back it up with your Bitcoins. Plus the sidechain is not a separate network, it is still Bitcoin.

A sidechain token would be pegged to some value denominated in BTC, yes. Either way, the market shouldn't value them equally because sidechains are theoretically much less secure than Bitcoin.


That is definitely false, and it's a dangerous assumption. Sidechain tokens are not compatible with the Bitcoin network; you cannot send them on the Bitcoin blockchain. They operate under a different set of consensus rules. And they are insecure (https://medium.com/@xenog/sidechains-are-not-secure-98d87dec4e3f). Under no stretch of the imagination are they "Bitcoin."

The alternative is that all Bitcoin nodes and miners fully validate a given "sidechain". But then it ceases to be a sidechain; it's simply part of the mainchain consensus. That's the ultimate problem with sidechains: by definition, they are always less secure than the mainchain.

A better way to think of sidechains is parallel to the idea of cross-chain atomic swaps on two separate blockchains. There are too many theoretical situations where your locked mainchain funds could be stolen by dishonest miners or via trusted setup to consider these networks "Bitcoin." They don't offer Bitcoin's security, not even close!

They are altcoins that can communicate with the Bitcoin protocol.

Yes but it does not give it meaning that the sidechain token "is an altcoin" which is what we are discussing.


But is the sidechain its own network? I believe not. Maybe it is more the same as a Lightning Network "token" but in a sidechain.

the thing used in Lightning Network is not some "token" it is "bitcoin" itself because LN is not a sidechain, it is a second layer that is build on top of and is working on top of bitcoin network. you just transact bitcoin with same rules but on a different layer called Lightning Network.

a sidechain on the other hand has its own "blockchain" and you lock your bitcoin up on the bitcoin blockchain to have the tokens on the other chain. then destroy or freeze those tokens on the other chain to have bitcoin on bitcoin blockchain.
https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/58064/does-a-segwit-based-side-chain-like-the-lightning-network-allow-for-fractional-r

It's a cryptocurrency that acts as a substitute for, or alternative to BTC. It operates on a different network under different protocol rules. What else would you call it? :D

I think the concept of two-way pegging (which allows communication across different protocols, similar to cross-chain swaps) gives people the impression that "sidechains are Bitcoin." But pegging doesn't relate to what sidechain tokens actually are.


Sidechains are protocols with their own networks, yes. They aren't directly compatible with Bitcoin at all, but they can communicate with the Bitcoin network. That's how pegging works.

Technically it does not have its own "layer" or even off-chain. The transactions are stored locally waiting to be broadcasted. But I understand.


But that is the point, a sidechain is not its own network and therefore cannot be an "altcoin". Can a Bitcoin sidechain live without the Bitcoin blockchain?

Bitcoin is indeed the most popular and ranks first in the crypto world, but it is not supposed to carry out intelligent contracts, because due to the programs built by Bitcoin are different from ETHs that are built with the aim of smart contract applications, so smart contracts on Bitcoin will not be very effective.

I think not. because a side-chain is connected to bitcoin chain and is relying on it for its existence but at the same time it is disconnected in a way because you go on another chain and basically convert your bitcoins to new tokens on that chain....
at least that's how I understand it.

The one fact that tells me it's not a hyped pile of crap is the lack of ICO. Throw in the sheer amount of time spent developing it and it's quite possible it will become rather wonderful. Throw again the sheer amount of heavyweight backers and it's about as far from the usual junk infesting this space.

It'll be ready when it's ready.

That is precisely what I have been debating with exstasie. A sidechain cannot be an "altcoin" because it is not in its own network. Although transactions of sidechain "tokens" are recorded in its own "database", it is still not an independent, and "alternative" network.