Building a utility on Bitcoin is an extension of Satoshi’s vision – Core DAO contributor

Now with 2024 here, Cointelegraph's Hashing It Out podcast is focusing on the narratives that will be at the center of the crypto conversation this year.

In episode 45, Rich Rins, an early contributor to the Core DAO – a layer-1 blockchain network on top of Bitcoin management that can host Ethereum virtual machine-compatible decentralized applications – explains how BRC-20 tokens and utility and finance build activity on the Bitcoin network (BTCFi ) applications may be launched in 2024.

Raines explains why there is a place for BRC-20 in the Bitcoin ecosystem despite ideological arguments and technical criticism. He also explains how BRC-20 and BTCFi will build a sustainable economic environment on Bitcoin by teaching decentralized finance (DeFi) implementations on Ethereum and other Layer-1 networks.

Hashing It Out host Elisha Owusu Akiau asked Rines if Bitcoin was boring before BRC-20. Rins explains that Ordinals and BRC-20 brought some innovation and excitement to the lost Bitcoin ecosystem.

It may be somewhat boring to be digital gold, but it provides an important real-world use case that cannot be ignored. For him, Bitcoin was not boring before BRC-20, but BRC-20 brought excitement that was not there before.

In an ideological debate about whether building a utility on Bitcoin was part of Satoshi Nakamoto's vision, Rines argues that Satoshi's first vision was to create a better currency with Bitcoin (BTC). He added that Bitcoin will struggle to become the best form of money because of the scalability challenges that Layer-2 networks can fix.

These new networks create an alternative world where the Bitcoin base layer remains intact to protect billions of dollars on the network, while Layer-2s allow some experimentation and new financial systems within the Bitcoin ecosystem.

Raines believes there are some advantages to existing layer-1 networks like Ethereum and Solana and the DeFi ecosystems built on top of them. However, he thinks the landscape may change, and users may gravitate to other ecosystems built on Bitcoin, such as Layer-2s, once user needs are met.

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