siliconindia | | SEPTEMBER 20228In FOCUSBITCOIN VS ETHER: HOW ETHEREUM DRIVES CRYPTO ABOVE CURRENCYBitcoin is one of the best and oldest cryptocurrency. Six years ago, Bitcoin overpowered the crypto market with 81 percent share, which has fallen to 41 percent. At $803 billion, Bitcoin has not lost its value, and it is still the most valued token, followed by the fast-emerging Ether, the currency of the Ethereum platform at $389 billion. Functioning as an independent virtual currency, Bitcoin may be synonymous with crypto, which could also be a hedge against inflation. To enable Bitcoin transactions, blockchain distributed ledger technology was developed by its anonymous creators in 2008. A teen familiarized with crypto by his father in 2011 discovered that restricting blockchain to financial transactions was Bitcoin's shortcoming and conceptualized a new platform called Ethereum in 2014. Computer programmer Vitalik Buterin designed Ethereum, which utilizes blockchain for building applications that could facilitate secure property transactions or convenient royalty payments to artists.Utilizing BlockchainBoth Bitcoin and Ethereum are decentralized, implying that they are not allocated or regulated by a central bank or other authorities. Nevertheless, Ethereum, unlike Bitcoin, is supporting the crypto move beyond currency. For instance, utilizing some code on Ethereum, one can potentially pay crop insurance to a farmer based on drought data or even proffer artists royalties every time a copy of their work is sold. Ethereum has its built-in currency, Ether, which can also enable execution commands for programmable actions and smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain. A self-executing agreement written into lines of code and existing across a blockchain is known as a smart contract. Vijay Pravin Maharajan, Founder & CEO of BitsCrunch, a Chennai and Munich-based blockchain analytics startup, stated, "While Bitcoin was envisioned as the currency for a truly decentralized online financial market, Ethereum was launched as a way to extend its applications on the blockchain".Ethereum focuses on extending the singular use of blockchain technology against Bitcoin, which developed as an alternative asset and virtual currency with no backing or intrinsic value and no centralized issuer or controller. Ethereum's design also promoted non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and decentralized finance (DeFi). NFTs are typically used to give an ownership title to digital art, while DeFi signifies peer-to-peer financial services as against products from banks or other regulated entities. It is also Ethereum that has enabled `trust-less' blockchain transactions for government-backed (fiat) money. People need to trust the system more than others in a decentralized structure. "Ethereum commoditises trust; it is a platform for zero-trust computing", stated Gavin Wood, one of the co-founders of Ethereum. The platform doesn't trust anyone, and everything is subject to verification.What are the blowbacks?Industry experts believe a blockchain system should have three essential attributes: decentralization, security, and scalability. Ethereum is decentralized and secure. Nevertheless, scalability is a crucial pitfall. There are some other critical differences between By SI Team
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