Differences between Bitcoin's scripting language and Ethereum's smart contracts
Both Bitcoin and Ethereum have one or more programming languages that describe and execute transactions; each is designed for different purposes and differing levels of complexity. Bitcoin has a much less general-purpose scripting language called Script. The Script implemented on Bitcoin intentionally had been designed to be very restrictive, limited to only providing basic functionality like ownership validation and prevention of double-spending. That makes it not Turing complete, since it cannot execute looping, nor can it execute conditional branching. Hence, it is incapable of conducting the most complex computations. This is one kind of simplicity that makes Bitcoin so secure, very risk-averse, and only able to have basic functionality at the transactional levels.
On the other hand, Ethereum is designed to become much more versatile: a platform for decentralized applications-more colloquially referred to as dApps. It uses a Turing-complete programming language called Solidity that can be used for all operations, no matter how complicated. It thereby enables the smart contract capability of Ethereum. Such smart contracts on Ethereum make it possible to automatically conduct complex agreements-from lending and trading in decentralized finance to proving ownership in non-fungible tokens. It also allows loops, condition statements, and wide-ranging computational tasks, making it Turing-complete for great versatility in dApp development.
The reason is that Bitcoin, with its limited scripting capabilities, places most of its resources on security and simplicity, while the flexible smart contracts of Ethereum opened up a set of innovations across many use cases but brought some extra security challenges. Because each set unique goals for itself, Bitcoin aimed at being a store of value, while Ethereum aimed at becoming a platform for programmable decentralized applications.
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