But Ethereum is probably not worse than Bitcoin either.I think the two are roughly the same.Mainly because:Bitcoin is a more proven store of value, has more proven security, has the benefit of being around longerand is more stable and reliable.Ethereum so far has a better community, better smart contract platform, is more focused on scaling and partnerships with industry and is better as a launching pad for ICOs.Bitcoin has a lot of infighting over scaling vs.security.But Ethereum may go through the same thing soon as transactions grow to a volume higher than the system can handle.Transactions may go unconfirmed and get backlogged.There’s a lot of unrealized potential on both coins - but especially Ethereum.Bitcoin is more established.Less downside risk with less upside.Risk-adjusted, I’m not sure I’d prefer one over the other.But be aware that both are VERY risky speculative trades you can make.They should not be called investments.Even if you just buy and hold.Lots of people bought and held until zero during the dot com bust.Bitcoin as the trading default currency.Did you know most everyone uses Bitcoin to “buy” (really swap) other cryptocurrencies?When the ICO bubble bursts, people will be selling their altcoins and convert to Bitcoin.Will they then dump their Bitcoin for US dollars or other fiat currency?Maybe not.Do they want a clearly taxable event?Bitcoin may go up when virtually all the altcoins crash.On the other hand -“Take me to your leader!”Around December of 2015 I’m at a Bitcoin event in San Francisco.A comic is making jokes about Bitcoin.He quips:“Take me to your leader!”Because no one knows who Satoshi Nakamoto really is.Satoshi is a made-up name for the person who created Bitcoin.Satoshi is the Linus Torvalds of Bitcoin.Except Satoshi disappeared shortly after launching Bitcoin.We don't know if he died or is hiding in plain sight.Now there’s massive infighting among the Bitcoin miners, merchants, wallets, exchanges, investors, users and developers.Over scaling and security.Both are important but different people weigh each differently.If Bitcoin had a leader like Linux does with Linus Torvalds to weigh in on tough decisions or help a super majority reach consensus, then maybe Bitcoin wouldn’t have all these scaling problems.Bitcoin Is Mired In A Civil War.

Can This Proposal Save It?Additional DisclaimerI am an investor in Purse - Discount Shopping and Bitcoin Wallet which helped create Extending Bitcoin into Enterprise & Production.Bcoin is the subject of the Forbes article I linked above.Is the lion better than a shark?Why or why not?It depends on how do you compare them and what do you want to use them for.Ethereum is better than Bitcoin and Bitcoin is better than Ethereum at the same time.They’ve made several completely different design choices and as with every choice it opens some oportunities and closes dosens of others.I would highlight a couple of main differences:PurposeBitcoin is a currencyEthereum is a platform for running decentralized apps (aka smart contracts)SupplyBitcoin is deflationalThe overall amount of BTC ever produced is limitedEthereum is inflationalThe ETH supply in unlimitedSecurityBitcoin is simple and limitedThe built-in language is stask-based and statelessThat’s why you can not express a loop and it’s not Turing-complete (this means, that there are some programs, that are impossible to write)Ethereum has a rich programming language built-inThe built-in language is Turing-complete (this means that you can code anything you want)More complexity implies more opportunities to make an errorAdoptionBitcoin has a first move advantageMy mom knows what Bitcoin isThe community is a lot biggerIt’s easier to get startedThere are already a lot of places where you can pay with BTCEthereum is less known and youngerIt uses “move fast and break things” mottoIt learned from Bitcoin and fixed a couple of issues in it’s designThe community is smaller and therefore has more developers than speculatorsTo sum up:They’re not competitorsThey coexist and solve different types of problemsEthereum is written in a Turing Complete Language - Bitcoin was written in a stack based language that isn't Turing Complete.A Turing complete language means anything can be done with it given enough time and enough computing power.This means that Ethereum has a broader base to build on and a broader market to enter - as it isn't locked to being a value transfer ledger - which is where the analogy of ethereum as a tcp/icp in comparison to bitcoin as your email comes in.ethereal oil cells

Although Bitcoin could be built upon to allow the functionality that Ethereum has - it would be clunky!The major difference is the simplicity on building on top of ethereum.For example some very smart guys at Slock.it have built a device that unlocks for a period of time on the condition of payment to a  particular wallet.So can you imagine paying for an air b and b to turn up at the door swipe your phone and enter - no key handovers but a bit of a bummer if your phone has no juice.The other set of differences comes in the way Ethereum and bitcoin are built.bitcoin-qt get private keyEthereum uses ethash instead of sha-256 - which means that individuals can compete in mining it (Ethash is memory hard meaning it needs memory to run - which in turn means it works more efficiently on a GPU ) whilst Bitcoin has ASIC chips that have led to a moore's law race and concentrated mining power!Ethereum also has a shorter block time than Bitcoin - due to some clever hacking using the ghost protocol - which basically means that forks in the chain are rewarded but don't cause to much of an issue!mhanne bitcoin-ruby