"...see the world's most popular blockchain retooled with functionality long synonymous with ethereum and its more expressive code executions."
I began to look into Bitcoin and Ethereum and wanted to get a clear difference as to which has the most potential in doing better, outliving and outperforming value-wise. Bitcoin has clearly solved a financial problem to which is just a matter of adoption. But Ethereum is still left wanting. There have been some organisation using it and trying it out, but nothing grand so far. But you can't blame ETH, they are still anchored at the harbour.
Segwit comes along and releases the floodgates. Many thought it had to do with the block size, but it's more than that. It's like asking TCP/IP to increase its block size because we need to use it on a more scalable way. But bitcoin doesn't need to or can do so very slowly, because this is less about transaction fees and more about what you can do with that one transaction. Developers wanted it in for more than one reason.
Take MAST for example. Merkelized Abstract Syntax Trees. One of a double handful of smart scripting features coming to bitcoin, possibly by the end of the year. I left a link for the article below to understand how it works, but think of it like a sidechain script. You run the code on your own wallet and it executes on the chain.
This is amazing. You may not have captured that but think of it as decentralized smart contracts. Ethereum does not have that. You need to reveal the contract to everyone so they can approve it and run it. So you can see ALL the ethereum pay to addresses in the script. Not so with MAST in bitcoin: "MAST also enables better user privacy, as it stores transaction data in a new way and doesn't reveal unused scripts to the public blockchain. "
This is why the team behind the coin is vital. Bitcoin has the largest, most active developer crypto team on the planet. They have continued to forge ahead and do amazing things like this. So much more is coming to which I would love to post about. Satoshi did right to leave the project in everyone's hands. Having a face like Vitalik Buterin in ETH does not help, it gives a centralized idea and team approach to the project.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Bitcoin has smart contracting.
"These two features together are enough to enable a range of applications such as tree signatures ... and a generalized MAST useful for constructing private smart contracts."
