Ethereum is beating Bitcoin in more ways than one

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Interest in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum, is booming, fueled by unprecedented central bank stimulus measures and growing demand for alternative financing.

The price of bitcoin, up about 30% this year, has been left in the dust by huge gains seen by some smaller cryptocurrencies.

Ethereum, the second most valuable cryptocurrency after bitcoin, has nearly doubled in value so far this year, and the number of active ethereum addresses is growing almost double the rate of bitcoin.

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Ethereum’s active address count has risen 118% since the beginning of the year, as data from blockchain analytics firm Messari showed, first reported by crypto news site Decrypt.

Meanwhile, bitcoin’s active address count only increased by 49%.

“The level of development on Ethereum is crazy – initial coin offerings, stablecoins, non-fungible tokens, decentralized exchanges and other decentralized finance applications, Web 3 use cases,” Messari CEO Ryan Selkis said on and -mail, although he added that bitcoin remains “the dominant asset in the sector and the most important project”.

The price of ethereum has also increased this year, with ethereum’s tradable ether token now trading at around $ 240, up nearly 90% from $ 130 in early January. Bitcoin, on the other hand, has seen its post-coronavirus crash rally halted since May with bitcoin repeatedly attempting and failing to break the psychological level of $ 10,000 per bitcoin.

Despite the excitement swirling around Ethereum, recent setbacks, including a warning that Ethereum 2.0 may be delayed again, is leaving the door open for competitors.

“There’s a lot of demand for smart contract platforms to scale, so there’s a big opening in the market right now with ethereum 2.0 lagging behind,” [processing] high prices and well-funded competitors launching imminently, ”Selkis said.

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One such cryptocurrency, chainlink, has been spurred by a wave of interest in decentralized finance, sometimes known as DeFi: the idea that blockchain entrepreneurs can use bitcoin and crypto technology to recreate traditional financial instruments like loans and insurance. .

The price of the chain has risen by around 1,000% in the past year, reaching new all-time highs in the past few days.

However, some cryptocurrency and ethereum developers have warned against investors who see blockchain and cryptocurrency tokens as competing.

“Seeing other blockchains as competitors of ethereum is not the right framework for visualizing the crypto space,” Kosala Hemachandra, founder and CEO of MyEtherWallet, which has been developing on ethereum since its launch in 2015, said via email, adding delays to ethereum 2.0 “are not stopping or slowing down the many projects that rely on Ethereum”.

According to a July report from Dapp.com, DeFi has been considered one of the biggest drivers of Ethereum’s growth in recent months, with DeFi applications accounting for more than 97% of all decentralized app volume on Ethereum.

“Different blockchains have separate goals and purposes,” Hemachandra said.

“Some focus primarily on value transactions, while others support decentralized app development, for example. You need to look beyond market capitalization to truly evaluate blockchain development.”

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