Building the Future on Bitcoin

Asia Blockchain Review
September 24, 2019

This event is for anyone interested in exploring how the key strengths of Bitcoin and Ethereum can be combined to support the development of the next generation of internet, known as the Internet of Value.

If blockchain is a technological monument, then Bitcoin and Ethereum can certainly be viewed as its twin pillars. Back when Bitcoin first emerged in August 2008 and an unknown person or group of persons under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto released the whitepaper for the legendary cryptocurrency, Ethereum was being introduced by Russian-Canadian programmer Vitalik Buterin, who in 2013 presented a proposal which highlighted the need for Bitcoin’s blockchain to accommodate smart contract functionalities. However, unlike Satoshi’s whitepaper, Buterin’s proposal was shunned by the community, and particularly Bitcoin purists, who were up in arms about the idea of hard forking Bitcoin’s blockchain as put forward in the proposal. Fast forward to 2019 and Bitcoin’s blockchain has been hard forked multiple times while Buterin’s idea has materialized into an industry-leading smart contract platform worth more than US$20 billion.

As much as Bitcoin and Ethereum may have been pillars of blockchain development, the use of Bitcoin as a payment instrument has been affected by the high volatility of its market value, whereas the Ethereum network is known to have certain security vulnerabilities. The path to achieving both Bitcoin’s utopian ideals and Ethereum’s Internet of Value vision may therefore lie in the establishment of a platform which leverages the best of both worlds. This is precisely what Rootstock (RSK) is setting out to do with its Smart Protocol, which combines the smart contract functionalities of Ethereum with the security of Bitcoin’s blockchain network to realize the concept of Internet of Value.

With regard to leveraging the security of Bitcoin’s blockchain network, the Smart Protocol  is equipped with Turing smart-contract functionalities and operates as a sidechain to Bitcoin’s blockchain, thereby allowing the protocol to be secured using the anti-double spending and settlement finality mechanisms under Bitcoin’s network. In terms of speed, the Smart Protocol is supported by RSK’s Lumino off-chain payment channel which is fundamentally similar to Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, but utilizes a different solution in the form of an offload scaling mechanism whereby certain nodes would be offloaded from the mainchain in order to save storage space. As for its bridging mechanism, the Smart Protocol’s native token, i.e. Smart Bitcoin (RBTC), is pegged to Bitcoin and this turn facilitated the development of scalable applications on the Protocol using Bitcoin’s blockchain network.

From a smart contracts perspective, the Rootstock Infrastructure Open Standard (RIFOS) is conceptually similar to cloud services platforms such as Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud, although RIFOS encompasses smart contract functionalities not unlike those of Ethereum. While there are similarities between the smart contract functionalities offered by RIFOS and Ethereum, the main difference is that RIFOS aims to help developers focus exclusively on the development of their decentralized applications (DApps) by managing less critical areas such as computation engines, storage layers and naming services. While the similarities between RIFOS and Ethereum are substantial enough to make them competing networks, Ethereum is living up to the spirit of platform-agnosticism by actively supporting the development of the Smart Protocol. 

In April, the Smart Protocol was integrated into the Microsoft Azure platform, which allowed DApp developers to harness the benefits of the Protocol. Similar to how Microsoft heralded the personal computer revolution, RSK may one day lead to the emergence of a futuristic, Bitcoin-driven Internet of Value domain.

BINARYSTAR and Asia Blockchain Review are seizing this opportunity to discuss what  Bitcoin and Ethereum can collectively offer in terms of facilitating the growth of the Internet of Value ecosystem moving forward. Join us in October as we explore the ground-breaking possibilities offered by the Smart Protocol during our flagship event, Unblock Tokyo.

Expect meetups, keynotes, workshops, hackathons, dinners, and parties where we will discuss the hottest topics in the blockchain and crypto space and make lasting connections with people from all around the world.

Sign on with and get 25% off for your ticket price! ?http://bit.ly/UnblockTokyoABR25


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