In the world of cryptocurrency, the debate between Vitalik Buterin and Bitcoin developers has always attracted much attention. Recently, a debate about the nature of Bitcoin has once again sparked heated discussions. Some people believe that Bitcoin's primary role is as peer-to-peer (P2P) cash, while others insist that it should be regarded as digital gold. This debate is not just a technical debate, but also a profound reflection on the future development direction of cryptocurrency.

In this debate, Vitalik Buterin and Bitcoin developers represent two different views. As the founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin has been committed to building a more flexible and diverse blockchain platform, emphasizing the applicability of blockchain and the potential of smart contracts. Bitcoin developers, on the other hand, pay more attention to the original design concept of Bitcoin and emphasize its importance as a value storage tool.

Regarding the claim that Bitcoin is first P2P cash, supporters believe that Bitcoin was originally designed to solve the centralization problem in the traditional financial system, realize direct transactions between users, and remove the interference of middle links. They believe that the true meaning of Bitcoin is to build a decentralized monetary system that allows everyone to exchange value freely and safely.

However, on the other hand, those who believe that Bitcoin is more like digital gold emphasize the characteristics of Bitcoin as a scarce and tamper-proof digital asset. They pointed out that Bitcoin's fixed issuance and decentralized characteristics make it more suitable as a value storage tool, similar to the position of gold in the traditional financial system. With the increase of global economic uncertainty, more and more people are turning their attention to Bitcoin as a safe-haven asset, pushing its price up.

This P2P cash and digital gold dispute is not just a theoretical discussion, but is directly related to the development direction and application prospects of the cryptocurrency market. With the continuous maturity of blockchain technology and the expansion of application scenarios, people's demand for digital currency is also increasing. In this context, Bitcoin, as the first generation of cryptocurrency, its future development direction will determine the direction of the entire industry.

It is worth mentioning that whether Bitcoin is regarded as P2P cash or digital gold, it cannot be separated from its essence-the support of blockchain technology. Blockchain, as a distributed ledger technology, provides the basis for the security and decentralization of Bitcoin. It is precisely because of the characteristics of blockchain that Bitcoin can achieve tamper-proof transaction records and decentralized management mode. Therefore, whether emphasizing Bitcoin's payment function or value storage function, it needs to be based on a deep understanding of blockchain technology.

In summary, the debate between Vitalik and Bitcoin developers is essentially a discussion on the essence of cryptocurrency. Whether Bitcoin is viewed as P2P cash or digital gold, it reflects people's different expectations and application scenarios for digital assets in the future. With the continuous evolution of blockchain technology and the continuous development of the cryptocurrency market, we have reason to believe that Bitcoin will play a more important role in the future and become an important cornerstone of the digital economy era.

The four most famous international exchanges:

Binance INTL	OKX INTL	Gate.io INTL	Huobi INTL
China Line　APP DL	China Line　APP DL	China Line　APP DL	China Line　APP DL

Note: The above exchange logo is the official website registration link, and the text is the APP download link.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin got into a Twitter dispute with Bitcoin developers yesterday, arguing that Bitcoin was originally designed as a peer-to-peer (P2P) cash, not digital gold.

Image source: Tuchong

Buterin responded to Blockstream employee Zack Voell's claim that Bitcoin was, is, and always will be digital gold, noting that this narrative has changed since 2011:

"I joined the Bitcoin land in 2011, and at that time I remember a clear atmosphere that Bitcoin was first a P2P cash, and then gold."

Buterin believes that Bitcoin was originally intended to be used as peer-to-peer electronic cash, a view that has been supported by many, and the title of the Bitcoin white paper released by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008 also reflects this.

In fact, the first line of the Bitcoin whitepaper reads: “A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution.”

Why is the debate over digital gold important?

The clash between the two perspectives emerges when one considers the differences between P2P cash and digital gold.

Gold, while scarce and valuable, is difficult to use as a currency for everyday transactions. It is difficult to carry or divide, and is virtually useless for small payments unless managed and supervised by a large, centralized network of processors and sorting offices (banks). In this case, of course, high transaction fees are incurred.

P2P cash, on the other hand, is exactly what it sounds like: a currency that can be traded between two people without an intermediary.

In practice, these philosophical differences manifested themselves in the form of the Bitcoin block size debate. Bitcoin developers refused to increase the block size to scale on the chain, which resulted in high transaction fees and prompted a significant portion of the community to hard fork the code to a new chain, Bitcoin Cash (BCH).

Bitcoin transaction fees

Today, Bitcoin transaction fees are now among the highest in the cryptocurrency space.
On March 1, the average transaction fee was $0.40. By March 20, it had risen to $1.76, according to Bitinfocharts.

In the past 24 hours, the average transaction fee for BTC was 617% to 645,900% higher than other major cryptocurrencies (ETH and XRP, respectively).

Source: Bitinfocharts

However, supporters of the digital gold narrative accept Bitcoin's high transaction fees and see them as a reflection of the high security of the network that comes from Bitcoin's dominant computing power.

Users of "digital gold" are more willing to accept high fees because they usually trade in large quantities.

Likewise, Buterin accepts the reality of Bitcoin’s high fees and says that now that the use case for digital gold has been established, people should use other cryptocurrencies for other use cases:

“This was a contentious fork that was executed without the consent of many participants. It’s certainly reasonable to be upset about this, although yes, now that the fork has happened, if you don’t like it, you should use another blockchain that expresses different values.”

Bitcoin has come a long way since the genesis block, and Satoshi’s original blueprint has been interpreted, reinterpreted and built upon by numerous individuals, entrepreneurs and would-be pioneers.

The beauty of the blockchain mechanism is that differences in philosophical thought can be actually resolved through hard forks. Bitcoin
Core developers insist on keeping blocks small and keeping the digital gold narrative, which may be the reason why this inspires more hard forks, more altcoins, and more greed.