Bitcoin is still a young protocol by all accounts. These teenage years are arguably more formative than any other period in its short history because the stakes are already high for a pioneering project with less than two decades of testing and growth. As I've watched new investors, developers, users, and marketers flock to Bitcoin over the past 18 months, it seems that the fundamental reasons why the so-called Bitcoin renaissance matters have been given secondary importance.
During this period, I was asked countless questions such as “What do you think about this new second language?” Or “Will this new Level 2 actually work?” In almost all cases, my answer was: “I don't know.” Building on Bitcoin is difficult, and a lot of people don't know how. Thus, it is difficult to know exactly what someone is building, let alone whether it will succeed, if they themselves do not know what they are doing. But this reality certainly did not stop the founders and investors from trying to make a profit.
In short, this new era of Bitcoin activity is largely defined by marketing rather than true innovation.
Engineering first and marketing second
My academic and professional background is in mathematics and coding, not marketing. I understand the importance of developing a strong brand for a successful product or protocol, but marketing alone is at best insufficient and at worst extremely dangerous. Innovative ideas need strong foundations, not fluff. Satoshi's last post on the forum began with the words every Bitcoin creator should consider: “There is more work to do (…)“Marketing-backed Bitcoin projects are doomed to fail and harm their users, investors, and society as a whole.
One symptom of this dynamism is a slight lack of white leaves. While these documents are often boring and seem optional to most people, white papers are intended to be a tool for explaining new ideas as clearly as possible to invite criticism, imitation, and actual implementation. But well-written whitepapers seem to be an afterthought for most of these new projects that claim to be based on Bitcoin. Instead, the industry landscape became defined by marketing materials.
Signs of this type of project are easy to spot. Rhetoric such as “Bitcoin powered”, “Bitcoin compatible” or “Bitcoin hybrid” are often used. In many cases, this language is communicated to hide the fact that these protocols are not actually built on Bitcoin. In other cases, this marketing is used to distract from the fact that no one — not even the founders — knows what they're building, but they want to capitalize on the Bitcoin brand anyway.
What comes to my mind when I think about this unfortunate reality is a principle from the crypto world called security through obscurity. In short, this idea means that no one knows how something works, so it may actually be safe. To be clear, this is not something a serious engineering team would aspire to.
At Botanix Labs, we are building an EVM equivalent layer with a testnet running on Bitcoin at deployment time. Instead of launching with a new token and chasing exchange listings, we are focusing on building a simple and secure protocol. Instead of playing marketing games, we're focused on building an ecosystem of autonomous apps that people want to use.
We started conceptualizing the Spiderchain in late 2022.
We launched a testnet in November 2023.
We plan to launch the first version of our mainnet this summer.
We believe that building is the best way to help Bitcoin succeed.
We are the guardians
Vetting new Bitcoin projects is not an activity accessible only to the most experienced software engineers and cryptographers. Anyone using Bitcoin can and should ask simple questions, such as:
- “Who has the keys?”
- “Is this Sybil a resistance?”
- “Can operators carry out a hostage attack?”
- “What are your basic security assumptions?”
But all these questions should already be answered in plain English on a white paper. Any project without a clear design, without clearly documented security risks, and without a clearly formulated analysis of its trade-offs and objectives is part of the problem. Unfortunately, this seems to be quickly becoming the norm in Bitcoin's second layer scene. At Botanix Labs, we carefully explain our protocol design, attack vectors, and much more in our white paper, available on our website Homepage.
Cyberpunks write code. But the boom in Bitcoin's new Layer 2 protocols (many of which don't even deserve that title) has forgotten this simple fact. Regulators and auditors cannot and should not be relied upon to correct this. We, the Bitcoin community, must stay focused on the long-term mission and ignore short-term scams.
What someone builds should be more important than how they market it. For any serious Bitcoin project, marketing is no more important than security. Normalizing this principle throughout all corners of the Bitcoin industry is a responsibility shared by everyone in Bitcoin.
The battle against Fiat
Bitcoin is a movement, not a money grab. I believe we can and should do better than the ideas and projects being brought to market in the ongoing Bitcoin renaissance. Don't stay silent. Do not accept this behavior. Don't expect the market to remove these bad actors on its own.
We are in a battle against a prescriptive system that desperately wants us to fail to build a decentralized, permissionless financial system that has been running on Bitcoin for centuries. But most new Bitcoin-branded projects don't think more than 12 months ahead.
In what sense does this improve the world or fulfill our common mission?
Satoshi Nakamoto exited the Bitcoin world when he wrote: “I have moved on to other things. (Bitcoin) is in good hands.” Those hands are our hands, and everyone who cares about the future of money must be vigilant to ensure they remain healthy.