The future of finance is built on Bitcoin — Ethereum was just the testnet

Opinion by: Alisia Painter, chief operating officer of Botanix Labs

Without Ethereum, the industry wouldn’t be where it is today in terms of bringing decentralized finance (DeFi) to life, making programmability a key feature of blockchains and proving the value of smart contracts at scale. The Ethereum Virtual Machine has become the go-to platform for developers, with the largest ecosystem and tooling.

As DeFi matures, however, it’s worth asking: Is Ethereum the best foundation for the future of financial innovation? Well, the answer might just be Bitcoin.

With nearly $6 billion in total value locked as of March 2025, Bitcoin’s decentralization, liquidity and resilience position it as the natural home for the next era of onchain finance, and while Ethereum’s flexibility has enabled an explosion of experimentation, that same flexibility has come with trade-offs.

From vulnerabilities in smart contracts we’ve seen in big-name hacks to ongoing debates around scalability, Ethereum’s experimental ethos has left cracks in its foundation. By contrast, Bitcoin offers a solid, battle-tested infrastructure where DeFi can flourish sustainably and cross the chasm from degens into mainstream adoption.

Ethereum’s contribution and limitations

Ethereum was responsible for pioneering what we know to be DeFi today. This innovation and development served as a testing ground for what Bitcoin is capable of and can ultimately achieve. Its programmability has empowered developers to create everything from automated lending platforms to sophisticated derivatives. These products exist solely because of Ethereum’s smart contract capabilities.

With that flexibility came serious trade-offs, and we’ve seen them play out in real-time. The DAO hack in 2016 drained $50 million and nearly killed Ethereum in its infancy. The 2022 Wormhole exploit cost $325 million in recent years, and the Ronin Bridge hack took $620 million.

These weren’t just bad luck — they’re the predictable result of Ethereum’s open-ended programmability. Smart contracts are powerful, but they’re also complex. Complexity breeds vulnerability. Solidity simply wasn’t designed with security as the primary consideration.