Bitcoin is still a small protocol by all means. These teenage years are arguably more constructive than any other time in its short history because the stakes are already so high for a startup project with less than two decades of experimentation and growth. As I’ve watched new investors, developers, users and sellers flock to Bitcoin over the past 18 months, the key reasons why the so-called Bitcoin Renaissance is so important seem to have been given a backseat.
During this time I have been asked many questions such as “What do you think of this new L2?” or “Will this new L2 really work?” In almost every case, my answer has always been, “I don’t know.” Building with Bitcoin is hard, and most people don’t know how. So, it’s hard to know exactly what someone is building, let alone whether it will work, if they don’t know what they’re doing. But this fact did not discourage founders and investors from trying to make a profit.
In short, this new era of Bitcoin activity is largely defined by marketing rather than real innovation.
Engineering First, Marketing Second
My academic and professional background is in mathematics and cryptography, not marketing. I understand the importance of creating a strong brand or winning protocol, but marketing alone is not enough and at worst it is very dangerous. New ideas need solid foundations, not fluff. Satoshi’s last forum post began with words every Bitcoin developer should take to heart: “There is a lot of work to be done. […]” Bitcoin projects supported by marketing will fail and disrespect their users, investors, and society as a whole.
Another sign of this shift is the simple lack of white papers. Although these documents are often boring and seem optional to many people, white papers are intended to be a tool for explaining new ideas as clearly as possible to invite criticism, simulation, and actual implementation. But well-written white papers seem to be an afterthought for most of these new projects that claim to be built on Bitcoin. Instead, the state of the industry is defined by marketing factors.
The signs of this type of project are easy to spot. Expressions such as “bitcoin powered,” “bitcoin aligned,” or “bitcoin hybrid” are often used. In many cases, this language is passed to hide the fact that these agreements are not built on Bitcoin. In some cases, this advertising is used to distract from the fact that no one – not even the founders – know what they are building, but they want to use the Bitcoin brand anyway.
What comes to my mind when I look at this sad fact is a principle from the world of cryptography called security through invisibility. In short, this theory means that no one knows how something works, so it can be really secure. To be clear, this is not something the engineering team is willing to aspire to.
At Botanix Labs, we are building an EVM-like layer with a testnet running on Bitcoin at press time. Instead of launching a new token and chasing an exchange listing, we focused on building a simple and secure protocol. Instead of playing marketing games, we focus on building an ecosystem of independent apps that people want to use.
We started to conceptualize Spiderchain in late 2022.
We launched the testnet in November 2023.
We plan to launch the first version of our mainnet this summer.
We believe that building is the best way to help Bitcoin succeed.
We are the watchers
Analyzing new Bitcoin projects is not a task accessible only to the most experienced software developers and writers. Anyone using Bitcoin can and should ask simple questions, such as:
- “Who has the keys?”
- “Is this Sybil resistant?”
- “Can operators attack hostages?”
- “What are your basic security ideas?”
But all these questions should already be answered in plain English on a white paper. Any project without a clear design, without clearly documented security risks, and without a clearly documented analysis of its tradeoffs and objectives is part of the problem. Unfortunately, this is quickly becoming the norm in the second-layer Bitcoin environment. At Botanix Labs, we carefully describe our protocol architecture, attack vectors, and more in our whitepaper, which is available on our homepage.
Cyperpunks write code. But the proliferation of new second-layer Bitcoin protocols (many of which do not deserve that title) have forgotten this simple fact. Regulators and auditors cannot and should not be relied upon to correct this. We, the Bitcoin community, should always focus on the long-term mission and ignore short-term strategies.
What one builds should be more important than one’s marketing. And in any serious project structure in Bitcoin, marketing has never been more important than security. Making this system common across all corners of the Bitcoin industry is a shared responsibility of every single person in Bitcoin.
The Fight Against Fiat
Bitcoin is an entity, not a currency. And I believe that we can and should do better than the ideas and projects that are being offered to the market in this ongoing Bitcoin Renaissance. Don’t be silent. Do not accept this behavior. Don’t expect the market to remove these bad actors on its own.
We are at war with a fiat regime that desperately needs us to fail to build a decentralized, permissionless financial system that has run on Bitcoin for centuries. But most new projects with the Bitcoin name don’t think more than 12 months into the future.
In what sense does this improve the world or fulfill our mission?
Satoshi Nakamoto exited the world of Bitcoin by writing, “I’ve moved on to other things. [Bitcoin] it is in good hands.” Those hands are our hands, everyone who cares about the future of money should be careful to make sure they stay good.
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