Ethereum vs Bitcoin... Forget Bezos and Musk, Vitalik Buterin is the one going to the moon!

Update available here (https://thrivingwithinterest.blogspot.com/2021/05/youve-got-to-ask-yourself-one-question.html)

In the past 5 years, admittedly a very short time period in the grand scheme of things, there have been 3 exponential moves in the Ethereum vs Bitcoin cross rate. The first was late 2016 to mid 2017, the second was in the last few months of 2017, and the third started in Dec 2020 and continues today. A picture tells 1,000 words, so here it is for all of you to see:


What happened to the price of Ethereum in each instance?

  • Dec 2016 to July 2017: $30 to $342, a cheeky 10x move
  • Nov 2017 to Jan 2018: $330 to $1340, a nice little 4fold increase
  • Dec 2020 to current: $600 to 3300, so far so 5x.
Most of the focus in the media has been on Bitcoin and to some extent on Dogecoin. Much less has been made of Ethereum. So much good stuff is coming out from this sector of the crypto universe, namely decentralized finance (DeFi) with a quadrapuling of users over the past 12 months, explosion in non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and demand for stablecoins. As a result, it's not a surprise that Ethereum has been a leader in crypto performance. Side note, it should be noted that it appears that Vitalik Buterin is now the latest (and youngest) crypto billionaire, well done!

Why is Ethereum rallying of late? Let's take a step back. People often like to use the analogy of a spreadsheet. If Bitcoin is a spreadsheet, Ethereum is a spreadsheet that contains macros. Ethereum is often referred to as the backbone of the internet and allow applications to be built on top of it. Hence in the long run it should be able to capture more value than Bitcoin might be able to. The number of active Ethereum accounts has surged of late and ETH is able to capture a small sliver of that exponential growth (and hence value).

Life isn't perfect for Ethereum (nor for anyone else for that matter). Gas fees are high, some aggressive competition, and congested networks. However ETH2.0 and the army of developers looking to improve upon it are trying their best to stay ahead of the game. In addition, some interesting developments in the form of Asian and European governments using the Ethereum blockchain to launch their own coins and issue money. Exciting times ahead for those that hold crypto in general and Ethereum in particular.

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