TL;DR
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Thanks to the rise of NFTs and meme coins on the Bitcoin network, some people are proposing to add ZK-Proof functionality to Bitcoin (to speed things up).
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But many in the Bitcoin community are a lot like your dour uncle (they don’t like change) – and adding ZK-Proofs would require a hard fork.
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Think of it like when Coca Cola teamed up with Classic Coke to create New Coke. They released the two and let consumers choose their favorite. The same goes for hard forks.
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The problem is that one side wants to move forward, while the other doesn’t want to just sit there, they want to move backwards and wipe Bitcoin NFTs and meme coins from existence.
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Our estimate of the end result? A stalemate in which change in the network only happens if it is a need have, and not one Nice to have.
Full story
Imagine loading two trucks with cargo.
When loading the first, all cargo has been pre-checked (everything that should be in each box has been reviewed and verified).
But with the second, that ‘pre-check’ of the cargo was not carried out. That means every . single. box.
In crypto, ‘Zero Knowledge Proofs’ (ZK-Proofs) function as the payload on truck #1. Each transaction in the group is pre-verified.
This means that the computers processing them do not have to check whether they are legitimate (zero knowledge is required to prove they are legit).
Without ZK-Proofs, the process is more like truck #2 – a long and tedious calculation process where each transaction is checked one by one.
Thanks to the rise of NFTs and meme coins on the Bitcoin network, some people are proposing to add the ZK-Proof functionality to Bitcoin – to speed things up and ease the crazy congestion experienced lately.
And here the conflict begins…
Many in the Bitcoin community are a lot like your dour uncle (they don’t like change).
Adding ZK-Proofs would require a “hard fork” – meaning creating a new version of the Bitcoin network and looking at what people are leaning towards.
Think of it like when Coca Cola teamed up with Classic Coke to create New Coke. They released the two and let consumers choose their favorite.
The same goes for hard forks.
(And in the past, the miners processing BTC transactions – along with the network’s users – have opted for “Classic Bitcoin”).
But that’s not what the debate is about Real lies…
In reality, one side of the argument is for the change, while the other argues something along the lines of:
“We don’t want to make an effort to make more accommodations for NFTs and meme coins on BTC – we want to make an effort to erase them from existence!”
Here’s the problem with all that:
Making progress in either direction will be difficult.
It feels like too many users have embraced NFTs and meme coins on Bitcoin to be scrapped outright. Meanwhile, a well-supported hard fork feels just as unlikely…
Our estimate of the result?
A stalemate in which change in the network only happens if it is a need have, and not one Nice to have.