Do decentralized applications (dApps) have a future? Will they ever get consistent users? Do they pose any threat to centralized applications? Two people are willing to risk over $500,000 on this.
Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin and Bitcoin developer Jimmy Song disagreed on the future of dApps a year ago. During last year’s Consensus conference, the two outspoken crypto leaders decided to put their money where their mouths were. However, the two never finalized the terms of the bet.
Well, now they have.
As reported by CoinDesk, the two shared the stage again at this year’s conference. And as expected, the bet was one of the main talking points. During the past year, Song has called Lubin out, accusing him of cowering from the bet. He even took to Twitter to remind Lubin that he was still waiting for him to honor the bet.
As Consensus/MCC and other events near, I want to remind everyone of what happened last year. It's been almost a year and @ethereumJoseph is still squelching on this bet that he proposed in public and on stage. Joe, your ego is writing checks your body can't cash. pic.twitter.com/1V1gkidbGF
— Jimmy Song (송재준) (@jimmysong) May 6, 2019
The Bone of Contention
The bet revolves around whether decentralized applications, especially those on Ethereum’s blockchain are viable in the long term. Song believes they aren’t. He stated:
“The only reason dapps exist is to raise money from gullible people or from greedy FOMO people, and that’s essentially what the ethereum platform has done.”
To Song, Bitcoin is the only viable blockchain product and in time, all the other developments will die off.
Expectedly, Lubin stood up for dApps, expressing his firm belief that they are the foundation for the next web revolution. He explained:
“Jimmy’s thesis was that there would be no significant applications on blockchain, and the only thing relevant in blockchain was bitcoin. My thesis is bitcoin is awesome, and there’s a narrow set of use cases built on bitcoin and that’s wonderful. We love that, but decentralized applications are also really useful.”
The Terms
The terms indicate that should applications on the Ethereum blockchain be doing well in four years, Song will pay Lubin 810.8 ETH. At the current price, thee tokens are worth $167,000. If the dApp ecosystem will have fizzled out, Lubin committed to paying Song 69.74 BTC. At the current price, this is worth $560,000.
Depending on how well either Bitcoin or Ethereum performs, the loser could end up paying millions of dollars come 2023.
The terms also indicate that for Lubin to win, there must exist at least 15 unique dApps, each achieving at least 10,000 daily users and 100,000 monthly active users for any six calendar months up to May 23, 2023.
The bet was first made in May last year. However, since then, there have been variations in the value of the tokens at stake. Bitcoin was trading at $8,577 then, and so the difference is slight compared to today’s prices. Ethereum, on the other hand, has seen great declines. At the time, it was trading above $720. Currently, it’s at $207, a 73 percent decline in value.
Further, Song made it clear that he wanted the bet to cause maximum pain to Lubin, if Song wins. With some other bets in the past, the proceeds have gone to charity, but not this time. Song insisted that he wanted Lubin to send him the BTC personally, a term Lubin was fine with.
And as always with crypto, it ends in a friendly tone. The two hugged it out at the end, with each promising to honor the bet.
Only time will tell.