AL #63: Were Rollups Meant to be on Bitcoin All Along?

The article asks whether Vitalik Buterin would have built Ethereum as a separate chain had Bitcoin rollups been possible in 2013, and suggests the answer may be no. It explains that rollups move execution off the main chain while keeping transaction storage and settlement there, and it describes Bitcoin's roadmap of SegWit (2017), Taproot (2021) and OP_Cat (expected review in 2025). It also notes that StarkWare has proposed adapting Starknet to settle on Bitcoin with OP_Cat, and that Bitcoin rollups are likely to converge on a different equilibrium than Ethereum's because of differing values around execution, staking, privacy and trustlessness.