There are a number of reasons as to why cryptocurrency continues to be so popular and one of the most prominent is due to the fact there is such a range of tokens available. It means that there are a lot of opportunities for investors to diversify their portfolio and put their money into independent decentralized coins. Of course, there is no getting away from the fact that two of the most popular forms of cryptocurrency are Bitcoin and Ethereum. So, what’s the difference between them?
An Overview
Ether is the native currency to Ethereum. You can check out OKX’s Ethereum live price charts in order to stay up to date with its value and the trajectory it’s on; however, since it was originally developed, it has been on a steady increase to become the second most popular form of cryptocurrency available. It is second to Bitcoin, the original form of cryptocurrency and still the most valuable. Given they are both high value in the market, it is only natural that people are going to draw comparisons between them.
The two are similar in many different ways; each is a form of digital currency that exists online and can be traded via a number of online exchanges. That being said, there are a lot of differences between the two as well. Bitcoin is designed to be a currency that can store value, whereas Ethereum (as a network) is intended for complexity, such as with the development of smart contracts and decentralized applications.
Bitcoin
Bitcoin was launched all the way back in January 2009 by a coder or group of coders acting under the name Satoshi Nakamoto. It was a novel idea at first, one of an online currency which is secure and doesn’t rely on any kind of central authority. There aren’t any physical bitcoins, there are merely balances which are associated with a cryptographically secure public ledger.
Ethereum
Blockchain technology has been used to create a number of different applications, it doesn’t just make the concept of digital currency a reality. Back in 2015 Ethereum was launched, which is different to Bitcoin as it operates as a well-established decentralized software platform. It makes it possible for coders to build and deploy the likes of smart contracts and decentralized apps without the need for a third party to get involved. It also makes it incredibly easy to detect the likes of fraud and control of the app.
What Are the Main Differences?
The two popular cryptocurrencies differ in a number of ways. For instance, in their functionality. Bitcoin was developed predominantly to hold value whereas Ethereum goes further than that, allowing for the development of different apps which people can use for a number of reasons. Block time transaction is also different as a transaction done using Ethereum can be done in seconds, whereas it is longer for Bitcoin. Ethereum has been climbing the ranks with a lot of people predicting it will overtake Bitcoin in the near future, but this remains to be seen.