sCrypt had a big year in 2022, and founder Xiaohui Liu is expecting even bigger things this 2023. The tools he and his team have created for developers are inviting thousands of newcomers to try Bitcoin, and could eventually see Bitcoin SV (BSV) become the Amazon Web. Services for Blockchain Applications (AWS). His goal, he says, is to see developers bring ideas from concept to working applications within months or even weeks.
He said BSV probably benefited from a decline in interest in other chains that happened “suddenly, out of nowhere”. The digital asset market remains in a major slump, with individual companies and blockchains beset by numerous glitches and scandals.
“We don’t have to do anything for Bitcoin to succeed. We just have to survive long enough and all the other blockchains explode before we do anything.”
Just build it, show people what we can do
Xiaohui breaks down its highlights for 2022 into sections. The run up to the Global Blockchain Convention in Dubai, his first Bitcoin conference in years, and a chance to reconnect with many people he hadn’t seen in years.
In Dubai, Xiaohui introduced sCrypt Transpiler (to a standing ovation). Transpiler is a tool that converts Solidity contracts written for Ethereum into Bitcoin-compatible sCrypt code, allowing developers to port any application they write for Ethereum to the BSV blockchain. It also demonstrated that BSV has the ability to run entirely different blockchain networks on its own chain. There is a lot of interest in BSV from other blockchain developers interested in porting their applications.
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Developers and users just want something that works, Xiaohui says, and as long as one network doesn’t favor another, it’s good enough for them to show what Bitcoin can do.
The highlight after Dubai was the realization that Bitcoin can also run Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs), providing cryptographic proof that data exists without disclosure. This is important because it allows users to prove they own pieces of potentially private or sensitive data (such as identifiers, confidential or proprietary information) and use the data without uploading the data itself to public blockchain records.
This is similar to the difference between chess, where all players can see all moves, and games like poker and Battleship, where the game only works if some available information is hidden from the other player. You can’t put this secret information on the public blockchain, but you still need a way to prove it’s true.
ZKPs are “like a mathematical magic box,” says Xiaohui. This is a fairly new concept and difficult to manage on a blockchain network because it involves heavy computing. But BSV can do that, and it opens up a new universe of potential applications for Xiaohui, even allowing Bitcoin to provide Amazon Web Services-level support for blockchain applications.
This way, if a developer wants to build a chained game, all they have to do is write the game logic themselves. All blockchain interactions, such as wallet interaction and transaction broadcasting, can happen with sCrypt toolkits and APIs. The goal is to make it as simple as creating any “Web 2.0” application that dominates the web today.
“I’m very passionate about games for Bitcoin,” he says, because they’re a medium that attracts the attention of the outside world. Also, people should see if the games can be trusted before sending their life savings to some blockchain DeFi platform.
In 2022, sCrypt also held a Zero-Knowledge Hackathon, which encouraged developers to try something new and create working prototypes for a $45,000 prize pool. Xiaohui was impressed by the level of interest and hopes the Hackathon can become an annual event.
Another highlight towards the end of 2022 was sCrypt’s launch of scryptTS, a tool that allows developers to write contract code in the more familiar TypeScript language (which adds types to JavaScript). scryptTS integrates TypeScript/Javascript libraries seamlessly, making creation and debugging easier. Xiaohui hopes this will bring more newcomers than sCrypt’s Transpiler for Robustness.
In 2023, Bitcoin contracts will become easier to draft
Xiaohui is optimistic about 2023, as he says it will mark Bitcoin’s transition from largely technical and theoretical discussions to the possibility of seeing the first usable applications.
By far, one of the most vexing questions in Bitcoin is “how do I do this?” was the question. asks the question. You can make nuclear power by applying Einstein’s theory of relativity, but there are still huge gaps between knowing this formula and building a working power plant. Providing build tools for BSV applications allows developers to come in and test without having to learn the details for years first.
Xiaohui’s biggest wish for 2023 is what you’d expect from a developer, and that’s to focus more on technology, more on people’s work and construction, and less on things like ideological arguments and lawsuits.
“That’s why I say I’m very excited for 2023. In previous years, we were doing some kind of work, but this year we will increase it tenfold, even hundreds of times. “If we’ve done our job right, thousands of new people (BSV) could join in the next year or two.”
See: London Blockchain Conference 2023 – Connect government and enterprise with blockchain
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