Ethereum is potential but it doesn't it can replace bitcoin. There should have right way at the right time in order to replace bitcoin. This is not just a candy but it is huge thing to plan and prepared something for the future performance of ethereum to slowly dominate bitcoin. It takes time.
What is a better investment, Bitcoin or Ethereum?
Originally Answered: Which is the best option, Bitcoin or Ethereum?
Out of the choices above, Ethereum.
Before we look at the coins in detail, let's start with the potential ROI (100% = 2x Original Investment).
Bitcoin’s current market cap is $193,165,354,468 in order for you to make 100% this number would need to double to just under $400 Billion.
Ethereum’s current market cap is $44,715,990,083 , roughly 1/5th of Bitcoins. In order for you to make 100% the price would need to increase to just under $90 Billion. - Mathematically this is more probable.
Which cryptocurrencies are investors more likely to put their money into?
Bitcoin
What is Bitcoin?
A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without the burdens of going through a financial institution. Digital signatures provide part of the solution, but the main benefits are lost if a trusted party is still required to prevent double-spending. We propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer network. The network timestamps transactions by hashing them into an ongoing chain of hash-based proof-of-work, forming a record that cannot be changed without redoing the proof-of-work. The longest chain not only serves as proof of the sequence of events witnessed, but proof that it came from the largest pool of CPU power. As long as honest nodes control the most CPU power on the network, they can generate the longest chain and outpace any attackers. The network itself requires minimal structure. Messages are broadcasted on a best effort basis, and nodes can leave and rejoin the network at will, accepting the longest proof-of-work chain as proof of what happened while they were gone.
Peer-to-Peer (P2P): is a technical way of saying computers (peers) that are connected together via the internet.
Timestamps: are a sequence of characters that identify exactly when a certain event occurred, giving the exact time and date.
Hashing: is the process of compacting large quantities of data into smaller fixed sizes (the image below might help)
Proof-of-work: is the verification that the individual peer created the said hash
Nodes: are computers that are connected to the blockchain
Bitcoin is a first generation cryptocurrency, that was created in 2009 with the intention to become the currency of the internet. However, Bitcoin faces several scalability issues.
The Problems with Bitcoin
1. Energy consumption
A study from Digiconomist found that each transaction on the Bitcoin blockchain uses 236 KWh worth of electricity, this amount is enough to power 8 U.S households for an entire day.
Now to put things into perspective, there are over 300,000 transactions per day. At this rate, Bitcoin uses more electricity per year than the whole of Nigeria and this is only increasing.
Read more here:
Proof of work is vastly uneconomic and damages the environment at an alarming rate.
2. Scalability issues
Energy consumption will hinder the scalability issues of Bitcoin, however the other issue that arises with POW mining is that with the increase in cost associated with mining BTC it is less economical to mine Bitcoin. This would limit the distributed nodes (miners) globally and allow a larger percentage of control to the dominant mining pools / farms.
This would lead to a more centralised blockchain, where they can change the rules of BTC as they please.
The supply of Bitcoin is finite, capped at 21 million. Eventually (currently predicted for 2140) Bitcoin's supply will run out. Once this happens, miners will no longer receive rewards for completing blocks but instead will be given fees. The fees will be drastically high in relative terms, and people will stop using the blockchain.
Also, if miners decide that this is uneconomical for them to process the transactions and use their computing power elsewhere the speed of transactions for Bitcoin will drastically slow down, rendering one of the fundamental values of a Bitcoin (speed) useless.
3. The unknown future
Bitcoin is not a superior blockchain, there are hundreds of projects that are faster, cheaper and more valuable than Bitcoin. Bitcoin has market dominance because it is one of the first and most topical cryptocurrency (did you know that the price of BTC has a direct correlation to the amount of google searches). Here are a few things that could really end Bitcoin’s dominant era:
I) Blue chip company coming into the markets
This is more so for all cryptocurrencies, but Bitcoin in particular. It’s not a matter of if but a matter of when a blue-chip company such as Facebook, Amazon or Google decides to implement their own cryptocurrency, they will dominate the market.
The consumer's trust is already with these big companies, and they have the power and capital to influence the entire market.
Another possibility is a potential ‘world coin’ which global governments will all agree on using, this may seem unrealistic but it is definitely not impossible and many benefits would arise from having such a currency.
II) Quantum computing
Bitcoin is said to be Quantum resistant, on the whitepaper it mentions that:
‘To compensate for increasing hardware speed and varying interest in running nodes over time, the proof-of-work difficulty is determined by a moving average targeting an average number of blocks per hour. If they're generated too fast, the difficulty increases.’
This may seem quantum resistant but it is important to understand that the difficulty is changed every 10 minutes and this is more than enough time for QC to mine all of Bitcoin’s remaining coins.
The other issued that QC represents is that there is a possibility of QC calculating people’s private keys for their BTC wallet. I do not know the technical details of how this is done, but from what I have read this is possible.
III) Bitcoin bubble
My last point for this section is that Bitcoin is not being bought as a store of value or a currency by most people, for most people Bitcoin is a speculative investment hoping to make a fortune on something they really don’t know much about.
Once the bubble reaches its peak, and people start panic selling, Bitcoin will inevitably crash with that. After all, Bitcoin’s price is determined by demand vs supply.
To conclude, Bitcoin’s price is driven by demand. With the massive publicity of Bitcoin, and the introduction of Bitcoin Futures, this has lead to a massive increase in price.
However as an investment, I believe the scalability issues will hinder BTC’s growth.
Ethereum
What is Ethereum?
Ethereum was created in 2015 by a man called Vitalik Buterin.
Vitalik had the vision of not only having a decentralised cryptocurrency (like Bitcoin) but also allowing decentralised applications to be created on the Ethereum blockchain that use Smart Contracts.
The whole idea of blockchain is to remove the power from the third parties and allow the user to control their own data.
What is a decentralised application?
“Ethereum is a decentralized platform that runs smart contracts: applications that run exactly as programmed without any possibility of downtime, censorship, fraud or third-party interference.
These apps run on a custom built blockchain, an enormously powerful shared global infrastructure that can move value around and represent the ownership of property.
This enables developers to create markets, store registries of debts or promises, move funds in accordance with instructions given long in the past (like a will or a futures contract) and many other things that have not been invented yet, all without a middle man or counterparty risk.” -
To understand this better, I’m going to give an example of how decentralised apps and smart contracts will change the world we live in:
I’ll use pizza as my example, because everyone can relate to pizza!
Say you wanted to order pizza to your house, you have to create an account, enter your banking details and give the app your address to receive your pizza. Many people overlook the risks that are associated with trusting a third party to handle such sensitive data. If this companies' servers are hacked into, the hacker will have your bank details and your address… Scary stuff.
So, you ordered a chicken BBQ pizza, which is everyone’s favorite, and they turn up with a ham and pineapple pizza (wtf), or worse yet they don’t turn up at all! As you have already paid for this pizza, what do you do? The process of refunding this money, is entirely reliant on a third party (often PayPal or your bank) and can take weeks if the refund even happens. Placing your trust in this pizza company is again a risk that is overlooked.
Now let’s use the same example using Ethereum’s blockchain.
You want to buy pizza, you go onto the decentralised app and place your order – your data is stored on the blockchain and you give permission via a smart contract for the pizza company to view your address.
Your order is created in a smart contract and once the order is delivered and verified by you that it is correct, the funds are released to the pizza company.
This may seem minor for a pizza company, but think about more expensive goods and services that users will benefit from this blockchain.
Here’s a few:
A smart contract can be created to pay a worker for every hour they work, they log their hours on the blockchain and then after verification the funds are instantly transferred to them
Buying goods internationally can be tracked and verified – reducing fraud.
Property buying can be facilitated through the contract
Every industry that has a contract in place will be able to use the blockchain of Ethereum
I hope that it is now clear that the technology behind Ethereum will have a real world use and change how business operates entirely.
It is worth noting that Ethereum is also vastly quicker than BTC, average block time being 15 seconds for Ethereum opposed to 10 minutes for BTC.
Ethereum is a second generation blockchain, and the implementation of smart contracts and decentralised applications makes it a far more valuable investment in my opinion.
Thanks for reading,
Devin
If you want to learn more about cryptocurrencies check out my blog:
P.S. If you sign up, you’ll receive an exclusive email that details the top 5 cryptocurrencies I invest in and why.
10.3k Views ·
Originally Answered: Which one should I invest in, Bitcoin or Ethereum?
Both are great investments. Bitcoin started it all, but Ethereum has much better technology. In my opinion, Ethereum is a better investment. If anything is going to bring to the real world, it’s . They are insanely useful.
Ethereum also has a ton of room to grow. At around $300, Ethereum is an absolute steal. With the superior technology, great team and ICOs backing the currency, it seems like Ethereum is very undervalued.
See:
Although I think Ethereum will have much bigger returns than investing in Bitcoin, Bitcoin is much safer. Bitcoin is more established and has the most name recognition of any currency. If newbies are getting into the Cryptocurrency scene, they are going to buy Bitcoin.
Ethereum might be a better investment for the simple fact that is has a much smaller market cap and better technology. If you are looking for the more consistent, safer cryptocurrency, Bitcoin is a better investment. It all depends on what you are looking for.
8.3k Views ·
Originally Answered: Which one should I invest in, Bitcoin or Ethereum?
It depends, what would your starting capital be? And also, do you have high/medium or low risk-tolerances?
Cryptocurrency is a volatile market as of today as tons of new ICO are being launched by the day.
There is as many as 747 new Altcoins or currencies currently in circulation.
Over the couple of days, Bitcoin has been losing it’s Market Cap to Ethereum due to the launches of many new Altcoins which are based of Ethereum’s blockchain.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin has a market cap of $48,788,719,009 and a transaction volume of $1,665,560,000 whereas,
Ethereum has a market cap of $32,269,196,143 and a transaction volume of $1,175,370,000.
One could see that Ethereum is clear catching up to Bitcoin, and with the number of new ICO increasing daily, Ethereum would be a better choice to invest in the short term. Provided that new the new Altcoins does not lose its value which i believe its hard for all 700++ of them to last, evolve and be intergrated in our daily lives for a couple of years.
Bitcoin would have been a great investment provided you bought it at an earlier stage where supply was abundant as only 21 million Bitcoins will ever be created and we are currently at: 16,386,075 BTC. Also there are news of Bitcoin hard forks and this could be a bearish reversal point as large investors of Bitcoin would try to diversy their holdings and look for alternatives solution. (However this is my on opinion and do not take it as your investment advice).
That being said, read up more about different ways both Bitcoins and Ethereum are being used to get a further understanding before investing. And only invest with what you are willing to lose.
I hope this helps! Good luck
Market Cap information from,
8.9k Views · · Answer requested by
Originally Answered: Should I buy Bitcoins or Ethereum?
Bitcoin vs Ethereum: Which is a better option?
Since its inception, Bitcoin remains the most popular cryptocurrency; however, experts are increasingly tipping its closest rival-Ethereum-to start challenging it for the top position this year., the CEO of says “Ethereum could soon become the king of the blockchain world akin to what Google and Amazon are to cloud computing.” Marcus adds that “Bitcoin will be sacrificed for the sake of the other coins.” This is not entirely unexpected after Ethereum rose by more than 5000% in 2017 catapulted by the boom in ICOs.
Although Ethereum is widely seen as the closest rival, the community behind Bitcoin’s younger sibling-Bitcoin Cash- said they had taken active measures to claim the first spot. Nevertheless- the Lead Systems Designer and CEO of- maintains that Bitcoin will soar even higher and eventually become a ‘secure’ store of value: “We know that the Bitcoin Cash crowd are vying for the title and have taken active measures to overtake BTC. We [also] know Lightning is coming with the promised upgrades in speed and transaction fees. For 2018, Bitcoin will remain king and it should be able to stave-off further attacks on its public standing. In the future, we may see BTC become like gold, as a secure store of value... But for now, Bitcoin is still king.”
Some experts have also cited Bitcoin’s resilience and its proven demand as a significant driver for future growth. , the CTO of holds that “Bitcoin is considered the gold of the crypto-currency space. Although many speculate that Bitcoins days are over, time after time, it came back to surprise us with its rapid and rather dramatic increase in price. It’s not as simple as a yes or no question, what and why do you need it, is the better question. Bitcoin is still considered and will be for a while longer the leading crypto-currency due to its already established demand.”
According to, Founder and Chairman, “We are likely to see Bitcoin becoming the best high-growth investment this year due to the growing adoption and increased accessibility.” The cryptocurrency investor and advisor claims that Bitcoin’s predictable deflationary monetary supply will trigger a positive response in price as demand increases.
Despite the triple-digit returns posted by digital currencies last year,, CFO, insists extreme caution should be exercised when making an investment decision. Mathews cautioned that “You should invest in cryptocurrency if you understand why it is a revolutionary technology and what its implications might be. Before investing your money, invest some time to educate yourself so that you can make better decisions. Do not invest in it if you’re uncomfortable taking financial risks and cannot afford to lose your investment.”
Similarly, some analysts have urged caution warning that investing in any cryptocurrency is a game that looks pretty much like a bubble owing to their extreme volatility. “People who invest in Bitcoin should do so to ride the wave. Investing a small amount to see where it goes. Right now it’s highly speculative, but if it eventually gains more utility, things can get more interesting, indeed,” asserts, the COO of.
It is also important to note that Bitcoin and Ethereum are relatively distinct. Whereas Bitcoin is more of a digital gold and a medium of payment, Ethereum has a few nifty features that give it an edge over its predecessor in some key areas.
So what really does the future hold? Only time will tell.
1.1k Views ·
I personally in favor of Ethereum now!
Bitcoin and Ethereum are the first and second crypto currency in market capitalization respectively: on July 11, 2018, the BTC market cap is approximately $108.5 billion, while ETH was $437.6 billion. The goal of Bitcoin is to become a digital currency, while Ethereum wants to be a decentralized supercomputer.
So strictly speaking, Ethereum and Bitcoin are two distinct blockchains with very different use cases. There seems to be no comparison between the two. Just like Apple and Amazon, How can we compare them as their business goals, business models and products are completely different? But for investors, the creativity of interest can be used as a comparative standard between the two. Investors will in favor of the one which can create more benefits in the shortest time..
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