Why Ethereum Is Outpacing Bitcoin (venturebeat.com)

Even as Bitcoin hits its all-time high, people's interest in other cryptocurrencies hasn't waned, especially Ethereum. But what makes Ethereum popular among some? From an article on VentureBeat: Despite its recent appreciation in value, as a technology, Bitcoin has stagnated over the last three years. Two rival factions have emerged with violently opposing views on what should be done to allow the Bitcoin network to handle more transactions than it can right now. While Bitcoin has been paralysed by indecision, Ethereum has raced ahead with technology that not only does everything Bitcoin can do faster, in higher volume, and at lower cost -- it does a lot more besides. [...] Bitcoin is really only useful as a store of value. Even then, its usefulness for actually transacting value is limited. In a world where people are used to online payments being confirmed instantly, Bitcoin transactions can take anywhere from tens of minutes to several hours, depending on how busy the network is. It's also expensive -- especially if you're only sending small amounts. The average transaction currently costs about $1.50. Ethereum, on the other hand, was never intended as a Bitcoin competitor. Ethereum is actually a platform for new kinds of decentralized (often financial) applications (dApps) that run on a peer-to-peer network of computers. These dApps are designed to disintermediate the kinds of relationships and transactions for which we have traditionally required things like banks, public registries, and the legal system. For technologists, this is exciting stuff, and a vibrant community of software developers has enthusiastically embraced it. Hundreds of projects, startups, and companies at every scale -- including the likes of Intel, Microsoft, and Samsung -- are building software using Ethereum.

Comments

Re:so many statements...

[Orgasmatron]

even though AFAIC USD is inherently flawed and failing as money, it is still more stable in intraday trading so far, it doesn't jump up and down by 20% in a day

Then again, there was that one day when the dollar lost nearly 70% of its value.

But that was an intentional act of government. Shifts in the value of bitcoin happen by market forces.

The "price" of bitcoin is the result of people trying to buy and sell it. Naturally, the bigger the market, the less effect any one transaction has on the price. Dollar markets are gigantic, so the value doesn't move a whole lot from day to day. Bitcoin markets are small, just barely big enough to be considered small by the standards of financial professionals. A few million dollars can push the price around a fair bit. And because the markets are small, people don't have the capital to allocate to price points much beyond the expected range, so a breakout can overrun quite a bit before settling back down.

In short, the swings in the price of bitcoin are the result of you being born when you were, and not because bitcoin has any sort of inherent instability. If you had been born a few decades later, either you'd see a much larger and more stable bitcoin market, or you'd only ever see the name in the history books.

Ethereum seems to be different, by the way. I haven't been following it closely, but it isn't just another Dogecoin or other clone-of-bitcoin-with-different-magic like used to pop up so often. It is trying to do something completely different, and in my opinion, it is far too early to tell if it will succeed in doing so, or for that matter, if that different thing is a good idea or not. There have been problems encountered along the way, to be sure.

How much of the interest in Ethereum is because it is special, and how much is because it is new(er) - I have no idea.