A deep dive into a 2018 survey of cryptocurrency executives and investors reveals a lot of interesting things about where the industry may be heading – and where things are still murky.
In the survey, conducted by international law firm Foley & Lardner, 38% of these insiders said ethereum was the best investment opportunity, while 35% opted for bitcoin.
Foley speculates that the ethereum preference rests on its more environmentally friendly strategy (eventually ethereum plans to switch to a proof-of-stake model, which is far more energy-efficient than bitcoin’s proof-of-work system), its uncapped supply of ether tokens (unlike bitcoin’s 21 million limit) and its own scripting language (which makes it possible to develop complex smart contracts and decentralized apps).
Perhaps the insiders think the big gains in bitcoin will slow down after institutional investors jump into the market and see ethereum – which has a thriving development community – as a good alternative.
In terms of market cap, more than half of the respondents said bitcoin will eventually be surpassed, but no one could agree on when.
What investors can take from this is that, while there’s still uncertainty about how bitcoin and other cryptos will develop, bitcoin and ethereum remain top of mind for insiders.
If you ask us, both bitcoin and ethereum are quality investments.
Bitcoin is the original crypto. It’s been around the longest, and it has the strongest brand and the largest market cap ($133.88 billion as of this writing, according to CoinMarketCap).
Ethereum is six years younger and has the second-largest market cap ($47.91 billion). By way of comparison, ripple has the third-largest market cap with $19 billion. The SEC has determined that both bitcoin and ethereum are not securities, which is great news for investors and cryptocurrencies in general. This gives crypto the freedom to continue innovating and changing the financial landscape without burdensome regulations, and investors will reap the rewards.
It will be fascinating to see how the crypto space evolves over time – and which lesser-known cryptos emerge to compete with bitcoin.
Whatever the future brings, we’re confident bitcoin and ethereum – and crypto as a whole – will continue to build a revolutionary new money system.