Have you seen a lot of hype about STX, a Bitcoin Layer 2? Well, I don't think it's very exciting at all. To me, this is being way overblown. Why? Because in my opinion STX does not have the best Bitcoin Layer 2 technology in the market. And the way I see it, you're either number one in something like Bitcoin Layer 2 technology or you're irrelevant. To me, STX, what nobody's saying is how irrelevant it is next to Chainkey Bitcoin, which is on Internet Computer Protocol.
Why Chainkey Bitcoin on ICP changes the comparison
Chainkey Bitcoin on Internet Computer Protocol is, in my view, by far the best Bitcoin scaling solution we have anywhere. But even more than that, there's also an Ethereum Layer 2 on the exact same infrastructure, which means if you want to build something on a Bitcoin Layer 2, there's nowhere more attractive to build it now than Internet Computer Protocol, the way I see it.
And that means STX could certainly get some short-term hype and pump and speculation, but to me the technology is just not even exciting at all next to ICP's Bitcoin Layer 2. Because of that, my opinion is that almost anything people are saying about this hype with STX is going to lead to investors getting hurt. Once people discover they can build applications directly on Internet Computer Protocol, fully on chain, and integrate Chainkey Bitcoin, which is held non-custodially, there's no good reason I see to use STX anymore.
Which means, in my opinion, at best it has a bit of a speculative pump and then a dump as everyone else figures out that, hey, why would I hold STX and bet on one single Bitcoin Layer 2 with relatively primitive technology compared to Internet Computer, when I can instead hold Internet Computer, get 15% APR voting rewards, and then bet on ICP's Bitcoin Layer 2, and ICP's Ethereum sidechain, and ICP's fully on chain, and ICP's AI on chain, and ICP's gaming, and ICP's solution to cyber hacking, and ICP's enterprise product, Utopia, which will be interoperable with Internet Computer, and there's a whole bunch more? This is exactly the kind of comparison I keep coming back to across my ICP Crypto playlist.
To me, ICP makes STX irrelevant
To me, ICP is so good that it makes STX completely irrelevant, and the only people who are generally getting excited about STX are people that don't know about Internet Computer. So the more people who find out about Internet Computer and ICP's Bitcoin Layer 2, especially developers, the better — developers aren't going to build stuff on STX once they know about ICP's Bitcoin Layer 2.
We've seen the haters, of course, will be like, well, nobody's using ICP's Bitcoin Layer 2, and that is simply not true. If you go and look at the actual transactions, it has taken months for developers to start really building some apps, but it just took one single app, the Bionic Ordinals Marketplace, and the transactions and the volume exploded just with that one single app. You've got millions of Chainkey Bitcoin transactions already in the last year, and you've got hundreds of thousands in the last few months. This is, to me, the future of all of crypto. It's the same reason I believe Bitcoin's future is being built on ICP, and you can already send people Bitcoin in 30 seconds on ICP using Chainkey Bitcoin.
Look at the bigger picture, not one narrative
So you've got to look at the bigger picture. It's so easy for crypto YouTubers to just be like, oh, look, STX, Bitcoin Layer 2, it's going to pump. You've got to look at the bigger picture, and there's no bigger picture right now in crypto than blockchain singularity. Which blockchain can do everything? Which blockchain is most technologically advanced? Which blockchain has a Bitcoin Layer 2 as just one single narrative out of 40-plus narratives it has?
There's no way I would ever invest in a single-narrative coin again, because, you know, Internet Computer's Bitcoin Layer 2 could easily not work out, but ICP has all this other stuff on it — AI on chain, an ETH Layer 2 — so you can be fairly certain that a few things are going to go very well. Whereas STX is all in. If its Bitcoin Layer 2 doesn't work out, it falls apart.
Why I think Bitcoin Layer 2s generally don't work out
And there are so many reasons why, in my view, Bitcoin Layer 2s generally are not going to work out. Bitcoin Layer 2s compromise the integrity of the whole Bitcoin blockchain by taking value and transactions off the chain. Now, while some of these Ethereum Layer 2s have helped, quote, scale Ethereum, they've also led to lots of people getting ripped off of their crypto, and they make Ethereum much more centralized as these Layer 2s get these huge amounts of Ethereum. They put the whole Ethereum blockchain at risk of having a problem if something goes wrong with them.
They also take activity off the main chain itself, which can then disincentivize — especially in the case of Bitcoin. If you're batching a whole bunch of these transactions up, then the fees that miners are going to get may be reduced drastically. And if the price of Bitcoin doesn't constantly double and double and double to make up for halvings, the miners could easily, the network security could all collapse relatively easily if there's not enough money and fees being paid directly on Bitcoin itself. That means all the Layer 2s would be at risk too.
Why I personally wouldn't hold STX
So to me, STX is very risky — very risky, the kind of thing that in my opinion easily could go to zero and not work out, especially in the long term. By comparison, in my experience Internet Computer's not very risky, because it has the best Bitcoin Layer 2, and it does a bunch more stuff. So under no circumstances would I personally want to hold STX, because not only are you taking the risk that Bitcoin doesn't keep doing as well — if something like Ethereum or ICP ever flips Bitcoin, the Bitcoin Layer 2s are going to easily die off. Once you get everybody on ICP, you don't even need to use Bitcoin at all anymore. And even if, let's say, ICP doesn't end up being the singularity that I think it is — if Ethereum ends up ever flipping, or some other chain ever flipping and getting to be number one, then you don't need Bitcoin anymore either, and the Layer 2s are going to die, and the Bitcoin volume and all that will drop off.
You've got to think: how much are people going to keep using Bitcoin when there are so much better options available? Bitcoin had much bigger pumps in the past because it was used so much to trade altcoins against it, but now you've got all these stablecoins on these other networks that trade, and on exchanges. Bitcoin is becoming less useful consistently, and with Internet Computer out there, and even with something like Ethereum and these Layer 2s that have such huge communities, Bitcoin is always at risk of losing its dominance. That same logic is why I see Fractal Bitcoin as a scaling solution nobody needs.
So there are too many risks for me with STX. There's not enough value proposition or excitement. It's just another case of people hyping up something that, once you know about Internet Computer, doesn't look that good. That's my honest opinion and my own experience as an investor — not financial advice, just how I'm personally choosing to allocate.