All along, many people outside the block chain and [Bitcoin] (http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MzUyNzE4MDM2MA==&mid=2247490637&idx=2&sn=eff877ee6f82f85a00b0c68201f9f49d&chksm=fa022b6acd75a27c62f0fb4792eea5f44efbbf529eb19282c6874fa1f34404b8dd8b9dbd53b6&scene=21#wechat_redirect) confused , I think that Bitcoin is a blockchain, and a lot of "consensus" has also been formed. In fact, many people only know Bitcoin, and they rarely hear about the existence of other cryptocurrencies. Once they hear someone speak an unfamiliar name, their first consciousness is naturally to think that it is a "cottage".

However, as time goes by, more and more competitors come into people's sight. Will one day suddenly a "Pandora's Box" is opened to correct and break this "consensus"?

01 Bitcoin's own shackles

It is recognized that the genius design of Bitcoin, the payment system, has brought many unprecedented outstanding features.

However, under the very limited Internet infrastructure 10 years ago, the ingenious design made many restrictions to ensure that the system is sufficiently secure and decentralized, causing its scalability to be almost locked. In other words, the design of the Bitcoin system is actually subject to the mutual constraints of the infrastructure and technical conditions at the time.

for example:

When human beings first invented the car, the road was very narrow, and the design of the wheels, body, engine power source and the technical conditions of the car greatly restricted its speed. Thus, the speed of the first car in 1886 was only 15 kilometers per hour. However, in modern times, there are no problems with technical conditions. The roads are very wide and the infrastructure is also very developed. Many countries no longer have speed limits on highways, and people’s needs are becoming more and more diversified. Vehicles for various purposes have begun to serve. Humanity.

In the context of the technological revolution where the underlying technology of the blockchain has been excavated, people expect that the blockchain technology can meet the urgent needs in various fields. Although some people think that Bitcoin only needs to be its digital gold, it turns out that whether the entire Bitcoin community or the forked community, they are all worried about the future of Bitcoin. This is already It is an indisputable fact. The biggest worry for the Bitcoin community is the shrinking of Bitcoin's share of the entire cryptocurrency market value.

In fact, the Bitcoin community has long realized that the current technical solutions 10 years ago are not enough in terms of performance or scalability. If it does not seek to change, its leading edge will gradually be replaced by latecomers. It is precisely because of the anxiety of the community that there is a segregated witness to pave the way for the Lightning Network with limited expansion and improved scalability, and a BCH fork that supports large block expansion.

The second layer of Bitcoin, in addition to [Lightning Network] (http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MzUyNzE4MDM2MA==&mid=2247493877&idx=2&sn=90e37759486f79e53422649405131cb8&chksm=fa01dfd2cd01677656c4d90scenescenescene&chksm=fa01dfd2cd01677656ebedirect26edirect26eedc#21,167,600,29,99c, #fa01dfd2cc One of the more well-known side chains is RSK. The vision is to build a smart contract platform running on the Bitcoin network to meet the needs of more people. It was also called a "king of heaven" project that year.

Although RSK has roughly completed the technical implementation in the white paper, it has been developed for more than 3 years and the progress is quite slow. What we see is that developers don’t seem to buy it, and there are very few people using RSK network at present, because it is only talented. Just after the development, the Ethereum side is already preparing to switch to PoS 2.0. Ethereum has used personal experience to prove the [PoW consensus mechanism](http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MzUyNzE4MDM2MA==&mid=2247491618&idx=2&sn=e89a3f619530703aa321701fdf9a3f619530703aa321701fdf9a3f619530703aa321701fdf9a3a3a0d&chksem=fa01978bde16765e32e16 directly chased on chachae218978bde8a23e16241916161618 [Smart Contract] (http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MzUyNzE4MDM2MA==&mid=2247492547&idx=2&sn=4bf672ff2ffac28b9a1b82548d6cc6e7&chksm=fa01d4e4cd7765e is the error of the platform of the scene direct&chksm=fa01d4e4cd7765eeb5ebce4e4e4d6dfescene_scene=fa01d4e4dd6df2b365ebe4e4e4e4e4m

It took 3 years to make it, but it still couldn’t solve any problems, so RSK had to set up a RIF laboratory, and built a third layer of RIF OS based on the second layer of Bitcoin RSK to improve performance, and this layer How long do I have to work again? unknown.

From RSK's years of experience, we can find that Bitcoin is successful as a digital gold, but due to scalability constraints, it is still quite difficult to make smart contracts to meet more needs. Perhaps 10 years ago, Satoshi Nakamoto never thought that Bitcoin would do so much in the future.

In summary, Bitcoin's many limitations cannot meet everyone's needs. Even if they can, they need to be implemented in the second and third layers. This is obviously very difficult. It is a drastic effort to make a big deal with the original system supported by strong consensus. The possibility of upgrading is very small.

Some projects that designed scalability to the bottom layer at the beginning of development, such as ETH2.0, [Nervos project specially optimized to expand the second layer,](http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s? __biz=MzUyNzE4MDM2MA==&mid=2247497622&idx=1&sn=da59c70bae2a3b6cf3a055d53e844a8d&chksm=fa01c0b1cd7649a7d858507e23d7b8f470f5e08cf69a37121005e559da1ef. The success rate will not be low.

02 Unpredictable future

Let me tell a story first:

Just when the domestic Internet was just emerging, there was a search engine company that broke out of the siege, relying on Internet traffic portals to occupy a large area of ​​the Internet, "You will know when you click Baidu", and it has become a word of mouth among hundreds of millions of netizens for many years. consensus. At that time, Baidu was infinitely beautiful, ranking first in BATJ in the Internet era where traffic was king. Over the years, no matter how many new and old search engines compete, it still occupies more than 70% of the search engine market share.

However, since the outbreak of the mobile Internet era, traffic portals have become diversified. The rise of Weibo, WeChat, and Toutiao have divided up more and more cakes, which has doubled the pressure on Baidu. An era quietly ended, some giants that were once invincible had to fall behind if they did not seize new opportunities. On August 14, NetEase, a former small company, surpassed Baidu in market value, becoming the fifth Chinese Internet company.

The blockchain industry is still in the early stage of brutal development, it is still far from the end, all projects are still running on the track, and new "athletes" are constantly joining in. In the future, innovative technologies such as the Internet of Things, AI, and 5G are coming non-stop, and the future business and life scenarios will inevitably be different from the present.

Even though Bitcoin, like the giant in the above story, has occupied a large market share for a long time, it still faces competition from various innovative technologies brought about by the rapid development of high-tech in the future.

No one can predict the future. Therefore, even if someone says that "except Bitcoin, all altcoins will eventually die", it is just a guess. Nothing is impossible in the face of an unpredictable future.

03 Awesome

Only Bitcoin, no mainstream currency? In fact, the following two pictures can be rejected.

▲ Ranking of the number of platforms on the shelves, the data comes from: non-small

▲ Data from: bitinfocharts

In the crypto market, there is basically a Bitcoin trading platform, so there must be [Ethereum](http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MzUyNzE4MDM2MA==&mid=2247491408&idx=2&sn=cc7ae4ba4368edf6c605117963c37e5e&chksm =fa022877cd75a161a34f0b5da2a7ff1158cdf1cd22742588da934ba69fa689f770f556b9c299&scene=21#wechat_redirect), the platform without Bitcoin may also have Ethereum. Since 2017, the active address of Ethereum has quickly approached Bitcoin, and has surpassed it. This Ethereum, which is only 3 years old, does not seem to be strong enough in many aspects in front of Bitcoin, which is more than 10 years old, but the market tells us that its popularity has begun to match Bitcoin, and even surpass Bitcoin.

In 2017, if someone said that the market value of Ethereum will surpass that of Bitcoin in the future, perhaps most people would believe that it might be the opposite now. In fact, these attitudes only follow the market conditions after all, and the same voice will be heard when Ethereum rises again.

Whether it is Ethereum, the creator of the smart contract platform that unearths more value in the blockchain, or Ripple, which has made many financial institutions feel threatened, it is their emergence that allows people to see the future of the blockchain in addition to digital gold. More possibilities outside. Regardless of the success or failure of these latecomers, more competitors will inevitably appear in the future.

04 Altcoins on the road to innovation

We know that even if the towering trees can madly occupy and absorb nutrients in the water and soil, many flowers and plants can still grow around the towering trees. In a free market, billions of people around the world will not have only one consensus. At present, there are many problems that Bitcoin cannot solve, and the future of blockchain is still very large. Bitcoin is difficult to turn around, and we can see that innovators in recent years are advancing along the direction of solving problems and the space for the future.

Taking a glance at the current altcoins, they have different directions, and various solutions to the deficiencies of Bitcoin are almost pervasive: largest block expansion, off-chain expansion, [cross-chain](http://mp. weixin.qq.com/s?biz=MzUyNzE4MDM2MA==&mid=2247495528&idx=1&sn=b0508894fef3a8a4e48f7e1501eacd8a&chksm=fa01d84fcd765159bef1f4bd9d50a18e75569ac14f065ed9bd602ea067a38509ade42f6d9629&scene=21#wechat_redirect), stratified, [fragment] (https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s? __biz = MzUyNzE4MDM2MA == & mid = 2247496353 & idx = 2 & sn = 1bb7330bcba48078f70f2b970b1f4e30 & chksm = fa01c586cd764c90ce1186d86c65625d253046056efc704094044018e224792d13eea58d8862 & scene = 21 & rd2werd = 1 # wechat_redirect), DAG, mixed consensus [privacy] (http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?biz=MzUyNzE4MDM2MA= =&mid=2247493832&idx=2&sn=6f727663c4a638986a038cf8d51e6e3e&chksm=fa01dfefcd7656f931eb2239bedd45208a61891301824f86950eba090d4ad56cf75065aceccc&scene=21#wechat_redirect), as long as they can be applied in the vertical direction, so long as they can be applied in the vertical direction, and so on.

The innovations brought about by many projects have been recognized by people, and the communities of these altcoins are constantly developing and growing. Who can erase their contributions to the blockchain industry in one sentence?

▲ Bitcoin's market value accounted for as low as 33% in 2018

The reason why many people think that everything else except Bitcoin is not good is mainly because of the recent strength of Bitcoin and the problems of "cottage" itself. If altcoins are regarded as a pot of porridge, then this may not be the porridge broken by a rat shit, but the whole pot of porridge may have less than half of the rice, and most of the rest is rat shit.

Therefore, there is no way to blame the people for not being discerning, but the current industry supervision is not in place, and at the same time, there is a lack of standards, which allows too much rat shit to enter. If the implementation of regulation pushes the industry onto the right track, and the rat shit can be eliminated and eliminated, innovative competitors can be said to be able to see the moon.

05 Innovation is the future

Times are changing, wind directions are changing, and technology is changing at an alarming rate. No Big Mac can last forever.

Revere the future, revere the posterity. In the first half of the initial stage of blockchain development, the barbaric growth also brought more consensus; the future blockchain will be a competitive platform, and those innovators who seize the opportunity of technological change will lead the future .

Source | Vernacular Blockchain