Andreas Antonopoulos said a now-famous quote about Bitcoin and Ethereum putting them in shark VS lion relation. Keep reading to learn why.
When talking about blockchain and cryptocurrency: Bitcoin is an omnipresent term that comes to mind to most people. Though Bitcoin was the first of its kind that was created, it is most certainly not the only one. Ever since many more cryptocurrencies have been developed. Some are better than others, and most importantly: some work on different usability issues and a different focus than Bitcoin.
Did you catch on media frenzy from a few years ago when Craig Wright claimed that he is the Satoshi Nakamoto? Yes, the founder of Bitcoin. Certain 24-year-old Vitalik Buterin skeptically called out the supposed creator saying that it would have been far easier for Wright to use Satoshi´s private key instead of trying to convince people in person that he is indeed him.
But who is Buterin? None other than the founder of blockchain company Ethereum.
“Ethereum is a competitor of Bitcoin like a shark is a competitor of a lion. You can have two apex species in different niches not competing”.
Antonopoulos explains in one of his lectures that both lion and shark have a unique adaptation to their surroundings. According to him, you can never put these two apex predators in a ring together and say let the best one win. Because the outcome is decided entirely by whether you fill that fighting ring with water or not.
Even it technological development, there is no such thing as the best, but most adapted to the given environment. What is the environment for Ethereum? Ethereum (launched in 2015) is a blockchain platform designed to securely handle and verify objects other than just cryptocurrencies, most importantly smart contracts.
Ethereum has made some very deliberate tradeoffs which make it very flexible and bring applications very close to the actual platform. Bitcoin is designed with limited flexibility to deliver very robust security. When this is set as a priority, the rapid pace of development and complexity are signed off.
In sum: Bitcoin cannot do many things that Ethereum does, and vice versa. For traders and investors, this is good news, as zero correlation is a good correlation. For businesses, it means that they will have to assess which platform works the best for their needs.
Read more in Life after Google by George Gilder and The Internet of Money by Andreas Antonopoulos
