Developer 's Dilemma : Bitcoin or Ethereum ?

Ryan Charles X - founder of the decentralized platform collaborative content management Datt and former kriptovalyutny developer of social network Reddit. Charles gives his opinion talking about why it is developing its platform on Bitcoin protocol, despite the emergence of new platforms blokcheyn like Ethereum.

Since last summer, when I announced Datt, social media platforms and applications that run on Bitcoin, one of the most popular questions I received was, "Why do you use bitcoin?".

In the past year, the issue has gained a new form. Now I ask, "Why not use Stripe?" Or "Why not develop a platform on altkoyne?". When actively started to increase interest in the Ethereum, I began to ask, "Why not use Ethereum" ?.

The answer lies in the fact that at the moment Datt only need an Internet money, not smart contracts. Daylight Ethereum would entail a major effort both technical and economic. The result would not be worth such a huge cost.

We have a number of priorities concerning the functions that we provide as a service. When will come the right time - we add smart bitcoin contracts. Ethereum, at the protocol level, and possibly more advanced than the bitcoin. Since it is a Turing-complete programming language, he was able to solve the problem of restrictions scripting language that is built into the bitcoin.

However, the economic infrastructure Ethereum is much more limited than the Bitcoin infrastructure because Ethereum is not so useful for Datt.

Possible ways of development
Since Ethereum protocol Bitcoin protocol is much more complex, companies are very difficult to implement support Ethereum.

Roughly speaking, bitcoin companies have 3 options:

Increase the technical complexity of their platform, adding support to existing Ethereum support Bitcoin
Remove support Bitcoin thus not significantly increasing the complexity of the platform and go to the Ethereum (losing customer base Bitcoin)
To solve non-trivial problems in using Bitcoin, developing complex systems.
Some companies will choose the first item, increasing technical complexity and will support and bitcoin and Ethereum. This is mistake.

Instead of planning for the future, these companies will give their destiny in the hands of speculators and swindlers. I'm pessimistic in relation to the companies that are trying to keep up with 2 rabbits, which essentially offer the opposite vision of the future. Besides exchangers, all these companies will fail.

Other companies choose the second option, abandoning Bitcoin and choosing instead Ethereum. I believe that this may be the right solution for some companies.

If a company never was our considerable value in Bitcoin, perhaps they will be able to find the right niche in the Ethereum. This change will not be easy, but they can win in the long run.

In any case, this path is not easier than the way bitcoin. I prophesy that the company in any case be faced with the same problem - not enough rapid growth of the customer base and, as a result, low attractiveness to potential investors. They still have to solve this problem - only later, and for the smaller market.

The third option - to solve complex problems using Bitcoin.

This path is chosen by companies such as Blockstream, 21, OneName and of OB1, the team OpenBazaar development. These companies believe bitcoin the largest and most secure foundation for the future of financial and information services.

When they encounter problems in their path, they solve them with the help of a code, rather than switching to another platform.

This is the way that I, together with colleagues chose to Datt. For example, since the block size limit of Bitcoin has recently led to an increase in fees for the transaction, we began to implement a solution that is based on the payment channels.

New issues
Daylight Ethereum would Datt problems are not solved - he would have simply brought new problems of another nature, and would have delayed our success.

Most useful, important and revolutionary use of technology blokcheyn - Internet money.

In Bitcoin creator, Satoshi Nakamoto was true goal and he took the right economic solution when designed bitcoin, in particular - the emission limit of 21 million. This encourages and makes bitcoin network attractive for widespread adoption in the long run.

For Ethereum or other platforms is not possible to compete with Bitcoin in its key values.

We Datt, as well as our old colleagues on the shop floor, can see an advantage in servicing the huge market of the future, which will be tied to Bitcoin. And because we're not going to wait until someone decides these problems for us. We will deal with them yourself.

Please note that I have not carefully studied the technical part Ethereum, because I believe in the word of its developers that they have solved the problem correctly Turing-complete language. Nevertheless, I suspect that there are many more not such obvious problems regarding scalability, which remain to be solved. Also, as with Bitcoin.

And because bitcoin is more developed economic infrastructure and have begun to address these issues before, I'm not sure that Ethereum on the ecosystem level, more advanced than the bitcoin, and not sure if he will be able to overtake him.