
Bitcoin and Ethereum will Never Die
Bitcoin and Ethereum are here to stay. I believe in the future of cryptocurrency and that means the future of Bitcoin and Ethereum. How can I be so sure? Because both Bitcoin and Ethereum are unique in that they are both built into the infrastructure that is the crypto economy.
Bitcoin and the Global Crypto Economy
Created in 2008 is Bitcoin (BTC). Bitcoin is used for more trading pairs by volume than any other crypto. That is because it was the first. Being the first meant it was the most used and so it was the natural choice for trading pairs at all the crypto exchanges. Now it is the natural choice because it is still more widely used than any other coin. It has the longest history and some argue that makes it the safest technology, but safest, fastest, cheapest, none of that means adoption. Adoption begets adoption and thus Bitcoin does not have the best at anything, it just has to remain. By being the first and still the most widely accepted, and through its price growth, BTC has made some powerful friends. These friends now run exchanges and other crypto organizations, are in the media influencing public opinion, are funding Bitcoin ETF applications on Wall Street, and have a vested interest in seeing Bitcoin thrive. Bitcoin will never go to zero because it has too many powerful friends to fail.
Ethereum and the Global Crypto Economy
Created in 2015 is Ethereum (ETH). Many faster, cheaper, arguably more secure coins have tried and failed to make it to the number two crypto ranking by market cap, but Ethereum did. The question is, what did ETH do that is so unique and will that attribute translate into long term viability?
The one thing that’s made me feel optimistic over the last year is that there is a lot of interest, not just on the cryptocurrency side and buying ether and holding it, but actually using it to build applications.
~Vitalik Buterin, Co-Founder of Ethereum

Like Bitcoin, Ethereum was the first to do something big, specifically, it was the first crypto to deploy Smart Contracts on the blockchain. Bitcoin developers have long promised Smart Contracts that would eliminate the need for some lawyers and some judges because the code would serve as law. After facing frustrations of inaction which have continued through today, Vitalik and his Co-creator launched Ethereum in 2015 and delivered Turing complete Smart Contracts to the world. Also, recognizing the reason for Bitcoin’s inaction (entrenched power that fears loss through change), Vitalik and his team programmed in an intentional piece of code that requires ETH to hard fork every so often or die. So with Ethereum the world was given both Smart Contracts and crypto that uses behavioral economic incentives to ensure upgrades, two improvements over Bitcoin. But again, the best is not always the top choice. So while Ethereum has appeal, so do many other altcoins. What makes Ethereum different?
Ethereum, like Bitcoin is now built into the infrastructure of a large portion of the crypto economy. Ethereum is widely accepted for payment and used frequently for trading pairs on exchanges. In addition, because ETH is Turing complete is has been utilized in the launching of hundreds of companies over the past couple of years. Those companies rely on ETH and so do their users. A U.S. Senate Joint Economic Committee report from March of 2018 stated the following about Ethereum’s invention, “this brings the decentralized security of blockchain to computing power, while allowing developers to build applications, smart contracts, and other digital coins on top of Ethereum” (p. 206). Once a tool becomes part of businesses across countries and sectors it gains powerful friends who want to see it thrive. Both Bitcoin and Ethereum have now achieved that throughout the crypto economy.
Bitcoin and Ethereum are Part of the Infrastructure
The crypto economy we all enjoy, with the multiple exchanges to choose from, the websites like CoinMarketCap and EtherScan, the Dapps, the ICOs, Wallets, the news outlets are all closely tied to the success of Bitcoin and Ethereum and for those reasons, those coins will never go to zero.
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Josh Cotton, PhD is a Fortune 500 consultant, the Founder of VetStoreUSA, LLC., the Founder of the MilitaryToken™ project, a nonprofit leader, has advised Admirals, Generals, and CEOs, is a published researcher and a social scientist who has been studying the Blockchain community since 2013. Follow him on Twitter @BitcoinCensus
