“Basic” sounds to me like you’re saying “base layer”.  So, yes:  The Bitcoin blockchain is a rock-solid base layer that does one thing excellently:  Global, decentralized BFT transaction ordering, resulting in a single global ledger with a unit of account that provides the sound-money properties which JayJuanGee described.  (It also does some other things less-excellently; but I don’t really care about that, and it is irrelevant to the point I am addressing.)  Thereupon, we have a single global, public reference from which to synchronize private off-chain ledgers such as Lightning channels.


Hard forks are a risk, and also raise the question of just who has the authority to call for one.  I want to be conservative with risks in the base-layer handling of my money; and although I do hope that ongoing hardfork research can work out a good way to do a hardfork in a decetnralized system, the problem is so great (including its centralization risk) that I am automatically suspicious of anybody who even suggests a hardfork.

Segwit was a stroke of genius, because it added features necessary for Lightning (plus fixed some bugs) with only a softfork.  From there, I think it’s clear, the solution for most needs is to build on top of the blockchain layer, not to add to it.


Because he couldn’t do the fantastically stupid high-risk project of bolting a Turing-complete VM onto Bitcoin?  I guess so.

Imagine if the Ethereum DAO (to give only one example) had happened with Bitcoin.  Horresco referens.

I am currently entrusting the majority of my life savings to Bitcoin—yes, almost all my liquid wealth (excepting some small fiat cash reserve—as small as I can keep it).  I would not risk that on Ethereum, just on a technical level of asking myself, “What if this piece of oh so innovative technology loses all my money?”  The prudence of putting money I cannot afford to lose into Bitcoin is financially questionable.  However, I do think it is absolutely prudent to take that technical risk on the reliability of Bitcoin Core and the Bitcoin consensus rules.

then you should be considering that those systems are better built upon bitcoin, to the extent that they are going to be secure.