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Bitcoin will likely stay the dominate singular cryptocurrency for a long while, but Etherum has already surpassed it in terms of network effect, and will likely

Bitcoin will likely stay the dominate singular cryptocurrency for a long while, but Etherum has already surpassed it in terms of network effect, and will likely have more value held on it's blockchain than bitcoin in a matter of years. Bitcoin has shown it is uninterested in being anything but digital gold.

pkulak 6y ago
Which is exactly what everyone who has it wants it to be. :/
- stcredzero 6y ago
  In retrospect, it was pretty much designed to become that!
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    It was designed to be digital cash. That's the title of the whitepaper. It is very bad at that.
- X6S1x6Okd1st 6y ago
  I hold Bitcoin and the day that I sell the vast majority of it and move to something on the ETH chain grows closer every day.
stcredzero 6y ago
Etherium has already surpassed it in terms of network effect, and will likely have more value held on it's blockchain than bitcoin in a matter of years. Etherium is more oriented towards transactions than Bitcoin. In the longer term, the value of Blockchain will be in facilitating transactions. In this, it's 100% analogous to the Internet. The current crop of blockchain is dot.com, where we're still figuring things out. People will look back on it and think it quaint for analogous reasons. I think Harry Dent has a section in a book about this idea. An even bigger explosion of value will be created with the next wave analogous to "Web 2.0." No more multi-day dead tree transactions for settling checks, equities, real estate transactions, etc...
- 300bps 6y ago
  Etherium is more oriented towards transactions than Bitcoin. Maybe Bitcoin is so much horrendously worse that makes what you said true but Ethereum is pretty terrible. Unless I’m missing something? If I want to send .001 ETH (i.e. $1.81) from my MEW wallet to my Coinbase wallet, I am charged $7.388 in fees if I want it confirmed in three minutes. If I’m not in a hurry and pick the slowest option that goes down to the low low price of $6.133. To send $1.81 from me to myself. These are network fees, not Coinbase (who will then charges me fees again to either sell or transfer the money). I love that there’s a link right on the transfer page of MEW that says, “Why are the fees so high?” that basically tells you it might get better someday but for now it’s how it is. I’ve been using Crypto since you could mine BTC with a GPU but I still don’t get what the use case is outside of illicit purchases and “buy it because it goes up.” Maybe I’m stupid.
  - X6S1x6Okd1st 6y ago
    Etherum gas fees are horrendous right now, totally agree. In my opinion the work that is being done on scaling is much better on Etherum than on Bitcoin, and bitcoin really has a very limited capacity for smart contracts compred to bitcoin. In my opinion bitcoin, by not taking scaling seriously, has declared it's self as only good for store of value, L1 bitcoin seems like it won't really become any more efficient and essentially all L2 systems require 2 tx on L1. Etherum will scale L1 a bit more with allows overfull blocks and then much more when PoS rolls out.
    - rstuart4133 6y ago
      > essentially all L2 systems require 2 tx on L1. True. But once an L2 channel is anchored on L1 using those 2 L1 transactions it can support an unlimited number of L2 transactions, they take milliseconds to do, and an unlimited number can happen in parallel - all without any more L1 transactions. L1's main use is to become the place L2 channels are created. Creating 7 entire channels per second sounds like it should be more than enough.
- arcticbull 6y ago
twox2 6y ago
"Bitcoin has shown it is uninterested in being anything but digital gold." That still makes it very relevant here. Bitcoin is the reserve, while Eth is the settlement layer.
- X6S1x6Okd1st 6y ago
  Except that bitcoin has a settlement layer, arguably the most well protected one. Etherum is so much more than a settlement layer. In my opinion the biggest potential for bitcoin is to displace gold. It's only ~6x away from eclipsing gold's market cap. After that I think the growth story of it growing faster than index funds starts to get kind of tenuous.
- LeoPanthera 6y ago
  > Bitcoin is the reserve, while Eth is the settlement layer. I think that's a Bitcoin holder's fantasy. If you're already using one chain for settlements, why use an entirely separate and unrelated one as well? Ethereum can be both. Actually, almost any other cryptocurrency can be both. It's only (original, core) Bitcoin that is so badly crippled.
  - randomopining 6y ago
    But doesn't Bitcoin have an advantage in the "value protection"/digital gold use case because it uses proof of work and has a finite number of coins?
    - LeoPanthera 6y ago
      It does, but its insistence on tiny blocks means all transactions are extremely expensive. Bitcoin Cash adheres to the original Bitcoin design, has moved to larger blocks, but still retains all the other advantages. And it's not the only one, few cryptocurrencies are as expensive as Bitcoin to transact.
    - anonymoushn 6y ago
      I'm not convinced that PoW with prohibitive hardware costs and hashrate concentrated in a single totalitarian dictatorship is better than other consensus mechanisms. Many other things than Bitcoin also have finite supply.
redog 6y ago
I think that both will be made shorter lived by their fee structures. A colleague of mine today moved STORJ and it cost him 15 US dollars to move his crypto into a sell position. Bitcoin's fees are currently worse than eth and their development direction is ... toxic ... Bitcoin cash is currently what I expect to take the lead....though that could be quite a long time. 25-140 years....give or take.
Geee 6y ago
Bitcoin is the most secure store of value and settlement layer. It is digital gold, a maximally secure asset with minimal risk. Other functions such as microtransactions, ft/nft-assets and smart contracts can be built on top of Bitcoin, with different L2 solutions. For example, see https://rgb-org.github.io https://rgb-org.github.io. This architecture separates the base layer from all the risks of experimental technology and speculative utility of smart contracts. This differs from other blockchains such as Ethereum, that try to build everything on L1. This is a problem, because it introduces a lot of risk and uncertainty on the base layer. Even on Ethereum, the most promising solutions seem to arrive on L2, making the premise of Ethereum rather pointless.

pkulak 6y ago

Which is exactly what everyone who has it wants it to be. :/

stcredzero 6y ago
In retrospect, it was pretty much designed to become that!
- arcticbull 6y ago
  It was designed to be digital cash. That's the title of the whitepaper. It is very bad at that.
X6S1x6Okd1st 6y ago
I hold Bitcoin and the day that I sell the vast majority of it and move to something on the ETH chain grows closer every day.

stcredzero 6y ago

Etherium has already surpassed it in terms of network effect, and will likely have more value held on it's blockchain than bitcoin in a matter of years. Etherium is more oriented towards transactions than Bitcoin. In the longer term, the value of Blockchain will be in facilitating transactions. In this, it's 100% analogous to the Internet. The current crop of blockchain is dot.com, where we're still figuring things out. People will look back on it and think it quaint for analogous reasons. I think Harry Dent has a section in a book about this idea. An even bigger explosion of value will be created with the next wave analogous to "Web 2.0." No more multi-day dead tree transactions for settling checks, equities, real estate transactions, etc...

300bps 6y ago
Etherium is more oriented towards transactions than Bitcoin. Maybe Bitcoin is so much horrendously worse that makes what you said true but Ethereum is pretty terrible. Unless I’m missing something? If I want to send .001 ETH (i.e. $1.81) from my MEW wallet to my Coinbase wallet, I am charged $7.388 in fees if I want it confirmed in three minutes. If I’m not in a hurry and pick the slowest option that goes down to the low low price of $6.133. To send $1.81 from me to myself. These are network fees, not Coinbase (who will then charges me fees again to either sell or transfer the money). I love that there’s a link right on the transfer page of MEW that says, “Why are the fees so high?” that basically tells you it might get better someday but for now it’s how it is. I’ve been using Crypto since you could mine BTC with a GPU but I still don’t get what the use case is outside of illicit purchases and “buy it because it goes up.” Maybe I’m stupid.
- X6S1x6Okd1st 6y ago
  Etherum gas fees are horrendous right now, totally agree. In my opinion the work that is being done on scaling is much better on Etherum than on Bitcoin, and bitcoin really has a very limited capacity for smart contracts compred to bitcoin. In my opinion bitcoin, by not taking scaling seriously, has declared it's self as only good for store of value, L1 bitcoin seems like it won't really become any more efficient and essentially all L2 systems require 2 tx on L1. Etherum will scale L1 a bit more with allows overfull blocks and then much more when PoS rolls out.
  - rstuart4133 6y ago
    > essentially all L2 systems require 2 tx on L1. True. But once an L2 channel is anchored on L1 using those 2 L1 transactions it can support an unlimited number of L2 transactions, they take milliseconds to do, and an unlimited number can happen in parallel - all without any more L1 transactions. L1's main use is to become the place L2 channels are created. Creating 7 entire channels per second sounds like it should be more than enough.
arcticbull 6y ago

twox2 6y ago

"Bitcoin has shown it is uninterested in being anything but digital gold." That still makes it very relevant here. Bitcoin is the reserve, while Eth is the settlement layer.

X6S1x6Okd1st 6y ago
Except that bitcoin has a settlement layer, arguably the most well protected one. Etherum is so much more than a settlement layer. In my opinion the biggest potential for bitcoin is to displace gold. It's only ~6x away from eclipsing gold's market cap. After that I think the growth story of it growing faster than index funds starts to get kind of tenuous.
LeoPanthera 6y ago
> Bitcoin is the reserve, while Eth is the settlement layer. I think that's a Bitcoin holder's fantasy. If you're already using one chain for settlements, why use an entirely separate and unrelated one as well? Ethereum can be both. Actually, almost any other cryptocurrency can be both. It's only (original, core) Bitcoin that is so badly crippled.
- randomopining 6y ago
  But doesn't Bitcoin have an advantage in the "value protection"/digital gold use case because it uses proof of work and has a finite number of coins?
  - LeoPanthera 6y ago
    It does, but its insistence on tiny blocks means all transactions are extremely expensive. Bitcoin Cash adheres to the original Bitcoin design, has moved to larger blocks, but still retains all the other advantages. And it's not the only one, few cryptocurrencies are as expensive as Bitcoin to transact.
  - anonymoushn 6y ago
    I'm not convinced that PoW with prohibitive hardware costs and hashrate concentrated in a single totalitarian dictatorship is better than other consensus mechanisms. Many other things than Bitcoin also have finite supply.

redog 6y ago

I think that both will be made shorter lived by their fee structures. A colleague of mine today moved STORJ and it cost him 15 US dollars to move his crypto into a sell position. Bitcoin's fees are currently worse than eth and their development direction is ... toxic ... Bitcoin cash is currently what I expect to take the lead....though that could be quite a long time. 25-140 years....give or take.

Geee 6y ago

Bitcoin is the most secure store of value and settlement layer. It is digital gold, a maximally secure asset with minimal risk. Other functions such as microtransactions, ft/nft-assets and smart contracts can be built on top of Bitcoin, with different L2 solutions. For example, see https://rgb-org.github.io https://rgb-org.github.io. This architecture separates the base layer from all the risks of experimental technology and speculative utility of smart contracts. This differs from other blockchains such as Ethereum, that try to build everything on L1. This is a problem, because it introduces a lot of risk and uncertainty on the base layer. Even on Ethereum, the most promising solutions seem to arrive on L2, making the premise of Ethereum rather pointless.