Can Ethereum Become The #1 Blockchain?

Justin Wu
Justin Wu
Jul 24, 2017 · 6 min read

In this post, I’ll explain why I believe that Ethereum will win out over all other blockchain platforms to become the global standard for the next generation Internet. What follows are the main points that I will make in the blog post. Please feel free to challenge me on any of these points. I’m sure there are quite a few Bitcoin Maximalists out there that will take me up on the offer ;-)

  1. Enterprise Ethereum Alliance
  2. Biggest Developer Mindshare; Best Developer talent
  3. Ethereum Foundation is very well funded, unified, and motivated
  4. Only blockchain with long term scaling solution for planetary scale
  5. Most general purpose platform; therefore the most useful
  6. Already beating Bitcoin in Node Count, Daily Volume, Transaction Volume, Mining Profitability, Developer Mindshare, and Enterprise Adoption. All that’s left is Public Awareness, Market Cap and Per Coin Value.
  7. Ether leading all other cryptocurrencies (by a lot) in crypto/fiat trading pairs.
  8. A huge ecosystem of Dapps coming out soon for Ethereum. Like Status.IM

1.

The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance is now the biggest blockchain consortium in the world, consisting of over 150 new members, with new tranches of member companies being on-boarded every 1–2 months. The latest group includes Mastercard, Cisco, and Scotiabank, among others. These newest members join the ranks of founding members JP Morgan, Microsoft, Thompson Reuters, and Santander.

When I read the latest press release I was floored. Mastercard joining EEA is absolutely huge. In terms of public adoption of Ethereum this is great. Nearly everyone on Earth who has some sort of debit/credit card knows what Mastercard is, and they are building on Ethereum. In my opinion it is not long until they start realizing huge efficiency gains, and other card companies like Visa and American Express will be forced to join in as well or fall behind.

The EEA is starting to look like a collection of the who’s who on planet Earth. The more they grow the more pressure there will be on other big companies outside of EEA to figure out what the fuss is all about. Then the FOMO sets in.

2.

Ethereum is winning in developer mindshare.

So…Ethereum’s yearly developer conference, Devcon 3 in November…is already sold out.

Ethereum Developer James Hudson said: “I imagine much of the Ethereum core development will be spun out into private companies who hire Ethereum core devs. Many core devs are already working with for profit entities while coding Ethereum’s core software.

“The bottom line is the technology will win out in the end. Currently, there is no other cryptocurrency platform that can handle smart contracts like Ethereum. The enterprises and businesses that use it are recognizing Ethereum’s dominance despite the communication challenges the foundation has been dealing with. I belive [sic] the future is the foundation serving an advisory body on Ethereum and an educational resource for teaching Ethereum to the development community.?”

Developer Tools like the Truffle Framework make it easier than ever for developers to dive into the world of Ethereum. And Truffle just recently hit 100,000 downloads.

3.

The Ethereum Foundation and core development team are very well funded for the foreseeable future. Just check out their Etherscan address. Depending on when you click that link, you will see that they have well over $171 million USD.

The Ethereum community is also unified behind our leader, Vitalik Buterin.

Some might say that this type of leadership is not good for decentralization. However, I disagree. In any organization strong leadership is key for moving forward with any sort of plan or vision. Bitcoin’s lack of leadership is one of the main reasons why it has taken over 2 years to get SegWit implemented. The fact that the Ethereum community has so much respect for Vitalik that they rally around him means that Ethereum can make the swift and necessary moves to survive and thrive in a fast-changing environment. We are talking about bleeding edge technology here, and the ability to adapt quickly and overcome obstacles is paramount.

4.

In order for blockchains to become prevalent and truly useful to the general public is if they scale. And by scaling I mean they have to be able to handle more than 4,000 tx/sec, like Visa or Mastercard. There is no way that Bitcoin could ever handle the world’s transactional demands with a 1mb blocks and a ten minute block time. And you know what? Neither can Ethereum…in its current form.

But with Ethereum’s scaling solutions in development, it can one day scale to outperform even Visa and Mastercard in transaction throughput.

Source: https://medium.com/@FEhrsam/scaling-ethereum-to-billions-of-users-f37d9f487db1

Currently the Ethereum network can handle around 20 tx/sec. When Proof of Stake happens this will increase to 40–100 tx/sec. Then add in Payment channel networks like Raiden and you get 400–10,000 tx/sec. These upgrades are expected to come online in 2018.

5.

Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (the true inventor of Calculus, and some say, the godfather of the binary system) once posited that given two things that are both vying for existence, A and B, such that A is compatible with C and D; and that B is compatible with E, F, and G; then B would exist and not A by definition.

Or in other words, existence is predicated on being compatible with other existents. Also, the greater the level of compatibility, the greater chance that something has to exist.

I know I’m getting very philosophical here, but bear with me for a moment. You see this same principle in technology all the time. Standards get adopted and computers and gadgets are made to this standard. Devices that don’t have USB or other common components that other devices use never do well in the market. Apps have to be compatible with Android or iOS or no one uses them.

Ethereum has a Turing Complete smart contracting language that allows developers to write smart contracts about anything. This allows Ethereum to be compatible with a greater many things than Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. And with upgrades like Ethereum functioning on Web Assembly, it will be even more compatible in the future.

6.

Ethereum is already beating Bitcoin in Node Count, Trading Volume, Mining Profitability, Developer Mindshare, and Enterprise Adoption. All that’s left is Public Awareness, Market Cap and Per Coin Value.

7.

Which leads me to my next point:

They say pictures are worth thousands of words, and here it is a literal truth. It’s clear to see that when it comes to fiat currency to crypto trading and volume, ETH is king. That means new money is flowing into cryptocurrency, and the vast majority of it is going to Ethereum.

8.

There’s a Cambrian like explosion of Dapps coming online in the Ethereum world. Take a look here, and check them all out! Imagine all these Dapps online and interacting with each other and forming network effects and synergies. The possibilites are endless. One Dapp that I’m particularly interested in is Status.IM

They aim to be the WeChat of Ethereum and the Western world, acting as a sort of on-ramp for any casual smartphone user to have a gateway into Ethereum. They are close to releasing their product, and when it comes online, look to see a huge surge in interest in Ethereum.

Nerdy Point to leave you with: I chose 8 points because the Ethereum logo is similar to an octahedron, and an octahedron has 8 sides!

So there it is, my case for Ethereum becoming the #1 blockchain in the world. What are your thoughts?

You are welcome to visit our website and subscribe to our newsletter to be the first to receive our news and some ethereum content. You can also contact us at justin@etherify.io

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Ethereum Thoughts

Justin Wu

Written by

Justin Wu

Founder @ www.etherify.io an Ethereum Venture Studio

Ethereum Thoughts

Etherify is a blockchain venture studio that brings the power of Ethereum through education, innovation, and the production of decentralized applications. www.etherify.io

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