Ethereum's grand vision of a smart contract executing world computer has been awe inspiring and controversial, bringing it to a market cap second only to bitcoin in the cryptocurrency world. However, it is not the only smart contract platform. Efforts have been made to implement them on other blockchains including bitcoin itself. These efforts have not been fruitless. Counterparty has a solution that uses bitcoin's blockchain and can even run smart contracts written in the same language as Ethereum. Lisk is another alternative which allows developers to create apps using JavaScript and sidechains.
What are your opinions on the future of smart contracts? Will the Ethereum experiment flourish over time, or be superseded by technologies built upon the more established bitcoin blockchain? Will something else come along that's even better and more groundbreaking?
