What about bitbay and halo?
Are they smart contracts enabled? have you looked into these.
I am not saying they are superior to eth or what rootstock has planned but were they not the first decentralised smart contracts enabled platforms? perhaps they are superior but I don't have the technical background to make a comparison.
Yes, I'm aware about these smart contract platforms. They may be the first decentralized smart contract platforms ever designed, and perhaps be more secure than ETH itself, in my own opinion, as it uses a well-known programming language which is tried and tested. Still, I think that even greater security would be achieved with a sidechain running alongside Bitcoin's blockchain.
Anything that runs as a bitcoin sidechain is already a better deal than an altcoin. Don't get me wrong. Ethereum is a cool project and all that, but we have seen what happens when your core software is a complex mess of a non usual coding language, full turing complete and whatnot... very dangerous place to establish a foundations of different technologies.
Satoshi took the right approach: simple main software, complex sidechains on top (well, sidechains are mostly by Greg Maxwell, but satoshi did a good job by keeping bitcoin non turing complete, it's like he saw it coming)
Agree. Ethereum being a complex project and all, it has suffered from many issues and flaws, lacking its ability to become used as a serious platform for developers to create smart contracts on it. At first, I liked the idea of ETH and thought that it was going to be the next Bitcoin, but as time passed and ETH passed through several tests, I've realized that I was completely wrong.
Now, a smart contracts platform like Rootstock running as a sidechain within Bitcoin's blockchain, might be the next big thing and surpass ETH if successful. It was right for Satoshi to design Bitcoin as simple as possible to prevent situations like the ones that has faced ETH, from happening. Just my thoughts.