"Bitcoin evolves on two clocks: slow, consensus-driven changes at the base layer and fast experimentation at the edges. Major upgrades (such as Taproot) arrive through cautious soft forks after long review. Rapid shifts such as Lightning payments and Ordinals happen without changing Bitcoin's core rules, which is why headlines move faster than the L1. The '50-year' line is a cue to look at where change occurs, whether in the core protocol or at the edge, before judging whether Bitcoin has truly changed."
"Schwartz's line works because it highlights a mismatch in how people think about time in crypto. Headlines make it feel as if Bitcoin changes overnight, but the foundations it stands on were built over decades: Bitcoin's 2008 design pulled decades of cryptographic work into a single, operational system. Once a protocol with real value reaches scale, change slows because coordination costs rise sharply."
Bitcoin’s development follows two tempos: deliberate, consensus-driven base-layer upgrades and rapid, experimental activity at layer-2 and application edges. Major protocol upgrades arrive as cautious soft forks after lengthy review and community coordination. Edge innovations such as Lightning payments and Ordinals alter user behavior without changing Bitcoin’s core rules. Many foundational cryptographic components predate Bitcoin by decades, and the 2008 design integrated those elements into an operational system. As network value and scale grow, coordination costs increase and change slows, a dynamic often referred to as protocol ossification. Observers should distinguish core protocol changes from edge experimentation when assessing evolution.
Read at Cointelegraph
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