Hacker News Reader

A naïve question for someone who doesn't really understand Ethereum: Why are smart contracts needed here ? Would it not be possible to send specific structures in a blockchain with the icon and the url, and just using a now old-style thing like Bitcoin ? What do nodes need to agree on ?

View on HN

You could do this with Bitcoin too. You would just send Bitcoin to an address, with an OP_RETURN with the coordinates and a hash of the pixel values you put there. Only the first one would "win". The Ethereum contract does have the feature that you effectively get your money back if you're not first - a transaction that tries to take already-taken pixels is invalid. You could implement this today on Bitcoin with HTLCs and zk-SNARKs, but there might be a simpler solution that I'm not immediately thinking of.

It's a different experience.

Ethereum brings a whole development toolchain and ecosystem through the Web3 API which wallets implement, allowing for DApps. Take a look at this GIF, for example: https://gfycat.com/BleakSimilarGermanspaniel

A lot of it could be emulated with Bitcoin through a combination of signed off-chain and on-chain state, but you'd have to convince yours really hard to say it's equivalent.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com