Over the past few months, there has been a fair amount of discussion as to whether or not Bitcoin and Ethereum are direct competitors. While people were still trying to figure out which side of the fence they were on, several developers have created BTC Relay, which bridges the gap between the Bitcoin blockchain and Ethereum smart contracts.
Several people are probably wondering what good it will do to bridge the gap between Bitcoin and Ethereum, but there seems to be a clear use-case for this concept. BTC Relay has been launched on the mainnet, which now lets Ethereum smart contracts verify Bitcoin transactions without intermediary involvement.
The BTC Relay, which is developed by the Ethereum team and Consensys, wants to bring Bitcoin transactions to the Ethereum blockchain. Until sophisticated smart contracts can be duly executed on the Bitcoin blockchain, this solution may go a long way in creating agreements between Bitcoin users without requiring intermediaries to oversee the transactions.
But there is more to this decentralized approach, as BTC Relay can easily be integrated into Ethereum applications or smart contracts. This opens up exciting opportunities, as app developers can attract a bigger audience, regardless of which of the two cryptocurrencies they prefer to use.
There is still the question as to who would use this service specifically, as it may not make sense for everyone in the world just yet. BTC Relay is designed primarily for developers who want to verify Bitcoin transactions in a trustless manner, or those who seek interoperability between Bitcoin and Ethereum.
In fact, anyone in the world can be an integral part of BTC Relay, regardless of whether they are a developer. Those users who become a relayer for this service can earn small amounts of fees every time. The only prerequisite is running an Ethereum client, unlocking an account with some ETH, and setting up RPC connectivity.
Source: Twitter
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