Can Bitcoin’s (BTC) blockchain handle full mainstream adoption as a store of value, without needing layer-two scaling solutions? Konstantin Richter, founder and CEO of blockchain infrastructure company Blockdaemon, seems to think so.
“Bitcoin is the best cryptocurrency suited for store of value,” Richter told Cointelegraph, adding:
“In terms of what the Bitcoin blockchain can currently handle from a latency and throughput point of view, Bitcoin is very strong. If we start talking about using Bitcoin for payments, that’s where the need for layer-2 scaling comes into play, but for people who plan to buy and hold, there’s no need right now.”
Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, produced the digital asset as “A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System,” as noted in the asset’s 2008 white paper. As price and adoption rose, however, Bitcoin’s role seemingly changed from a transactional, cash-like asset, to a gold-like store of value, due to relatively slow transaction times and high fees.
Near the end of the last Bitcoin bull run in 2017 and early 2018, Bitcoin’s transaction fees rose significantly. Since then, teams have worked on various layer-two solutions for moving BTC around, such as the Lightning Network — although as a store of value, Bitcoin’s blockchain may work fine as-is for now, based on Richter’s comments.
“Infrastructure and liquidity provisioning are also converging, allowing for new business models to be tested,” he included, adding:
“Exchanges, custodians and financial institutions are looking for bridges to all major protocols which is possible with horizontally scaling blockchains across a common stack which is where we are actively collaborating with protocols to support these integrations and the growth of the stack.”
Bitcoin still has the largest market cap of any crypto asset, even after a decade that ushered in thousands of new cryptocurrencies.