Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson calls for an end to Bitcoin mining
Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson explained why he believes Bitcoin mining should be stopped and all existing units of the assets should be converted to wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) in a Twitter post on October 3rd. broadcast.
Wrapped Bitcoin is BTC on smart contract enabled platforms like Ethereum (ETH), Cardano (ADA) and others.
Bitcoin’s PoW is the “gold mine” – Charles Hoskinson
According to Hoskinson, if Bitcoin’s network is shut down, the flagship digital asset could continue to exist as wrapped Bitcoin on other networks. In his view, the industry would not need the proof-of-work consensus mechanism because it is the “gold mine” to get the asset.
Hoskinson pointed out that the Bitcoin blockchain is currently only optimized for the mining process. According to him, efforts to build on the blockchain have met with little success because it was not designed for that purpose.
The Cardano founder highlighted that Bitcoin’s “gold mine” consumes a lot of energy, considering that the number of BTC left to mine is less than what is already in circulation. He stated that the continued operation of Bitcoin mining is not a good investment of energy.
Meanwhile, Hoskinson admitted that Bitcoin maximalists would not agree with his idea because they would argue that “[PoW] is the source of truth and a counterweight to banks.”
Wrapped Bitcoin will expand BTC usage.
Hoskinson stated that moving all mined Bitcoin to the wider crypto ecosystem through repackaging could help expand its use and adoption.
Referring to El Salvador’s adoption, Hoskinson said that while Bitcoin is digital gold with real utility and can act as a good store of value, the asset is not a good medium of exchange and unit of account due to its volatility.
So, wrapped Bitcoin can be used to create stable coins that can serve as a medium of exchange and unit of account because they are on other smart contract-enabled networks built for these purposes.
Hoskinson said:
“[Wrapped Bitcoin] can be used in all kinds of Dapps and smart contracts and potentially used by nation states to create a medium of exchange and a unit of account to actually have a stable currency that they can use with sound monetary policy.”
According to him, the wrapped Bitcoin is still Bitcoin because it will still have all the properties and functions of the asset.
Hoskinson predicted that more wrapped Bitcoin would be on other blockchain networks in the next five years.
