The Slowness of Bitcoin is a Feature, Not a Bug

Satoshi did not invent Bitcoin to become a general-purpose network — a jack of all trades, master of none. Bitcoin deliberately sacrificed speed and scalability for decentralization and security. But contrary to popular rumor, this is not a barrier to building new applications based on Bitcoin. The slowness is a strength of Bitcoin, not a weakness. And the 'Build on Bitcoin' movement will only succeed if developers embrace and inherit the slow architecture of Bitcoin while still having a 'around the edges' strategy. Don't try to change Bitcoin The latency of Bitcoin greatly affects its security model and transaction confirmation mechanism. Instead of relying on centralized intermediaries, Bitcoin achieves the finality of transactions without trust through the Proof-of-Work consensus (PoW), prioritizing security over speed. PoW is resource and time-intensive, providing computational guarantees to prevent bad actors from altering the transaction history of Bitcoin. Therefore, the 10-minute block confirmation time is one of the core security features of Bitcoin, although this is one of the most basic features. Shorter block times increase the likelihood of orphaned blocks and forks. Meanwhile, slower blocks ensure that transactions are propagated among miners to confirm and agree on the longest chain. This undermines the ability to validate erroneous transactions and hard forks. However, the scalability of Bitcoin has always been a controversial issue. Therefore, developers have been trying to improve the throughput of Bitcoin and make it cheaper during times of high network congestion. A proposal like this is to increase the block size to reduce transaction fees while allowing more data to be stored in a block. The community reacted, with good reason, and this led to the so-called Block Size War. While larger Bitcoin blocks can handle more transactions per second (TPS), making the chain faster and more scalable. It seriously affects the decentralization and security of the network. Larger blocks require more computation, thus running full nodes will be more expensive. This means fewer miners securing the network, increasing the risk of centralization and consolidation in the hands of wealthy elites. That is exactly what Bitcoin was built to address. Lesson learned: you cannot change Bitcoin; Bitcoin changes you. Higher TPS is not the right way to scale Bitcoin. In fact, the core of Bitcoin does not need to scale at all. Past efforts have failed, and future efforts will too. Does that mean Bitcoin is just waiting to become outdated as a foundational network for cryptocurrency improvements? Absolutely not. Developers must stop trying to build directly on top of Bitcoin. Instead, they should leverage the security and resilience caused by slow networks and adopt a layered approach to building on top of Bitcoin Bitcoin has, is, and will be the slow and safe core of the ephemeral and risky cryptocurrency world. Take advantage of the slowness, build 'around the edges' Bitcoin was not designed to have high programmability, complex smart contracts, high throughput applications, and other flashy concepts. Its purpose is to provide a trustless, censorship-resistant, and immutable platform for sound currency and secure financial transactions. Bitcoin can still support very well programmable applications. The 'Build on Bitcoin' movement shows that it is possible to expand the capabilities of Bitcoin while still preserving its security and decentralization. Upgrades like Taproot have improved the functionality of Bitcoin, and enhancements such as smart contracts and bridges will continue to do so in the future. However, the most transformative developments will occur outside the base layer. Innovations based on Bitcoin will occur in the fringes, with scaling solutions like Layer-2, Sidechain, Statechain, Rollup, and a range of interactive protocols. By building 'around the edges', Bitcoin developers can achieve advanced improvements and develop the ecosystem without affecting its core principles. These solutions will open up entirely new use cases for the network and asset types. This will simultaneously make Bitcoin more useful as a means of exchange and collateral asset, while still maintaining the integrity of Bitcoin as the safest financial network. While other chains are adding features to compete for market share, Bitcoin has undergone close scrutiny for any upgrades. The community has refrained from hasty decisions to make the network faster so as not to compromise its unparalleled security. The sluggishness of Bitcoin is the reason this network exists. It forces developers to think of long-term solutions to strengthen rather than undermine the foundation. Developers should not be psychological campaigns chasing fleeting trends or making reckless compromises. Why should they do so when they have a solid, safe, and resilient platform to build on? Just as you wouldn’t dig a basement of a building to construct a third floor above it, you can build amazing things on Bitcoin without altering or obstructing its core. That is the way towards truly decentralized financial systems. Sustainability is something that endures. Bitcoin is sustainable, and the applications built on this ecosystem are as well. The question is not whether developers are willing to adopt the right approach. Those who do will dominate the next decade of Bitcoin innovations. It has begun.