Ethereum Might Be The Best Thing That’s Happened To Crypto Since Bitcoin – Here’s Why
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By PAGE Editor
Although Ethereum started the year strong and marked several notable achievements since then, the past few months haven’t been the best for the altcoin. With a price of $3,147 and a market cap of $ 379.05B at the time of writing, many are wondering when Ethereum is going to get back in the saddle and begin to rise again. The gap between Bitcoin and Ethereum has also gotten wider with time. While the crypto leader is still up by 92% this year despite the obvious bearish trend, the main altcoin’s gains stand at a much more modest 37% for the same period.
And yet, a fair number of traders and investors continue to buy Ethereum with bank transfer, trusting in the asset’s ability to recover and resume its growth, most likely because it holds a special place among cryptocurrencies. More than just a crypto, Ethereum is also a revolutionary blockchain and a never-ending source of innovation and inspiration in the cryptocurrency realm.
Sure, Bitcoin boasts the biggest market cap of all and will probably remain the most iconic and popular crypto for being the one to initiate this novel asset class, but Ethereum was the project that brought a new dimension to it, broadening both the reach and utility of digital assets. The market wouldn’t be the same without it and crypto enthusiasts have good reasons to be grateful to Ethereum for its contribution. So, let’s see how Ethereum revolutionized the crypto industry and continues to be a key player in this highly dynamic ecosystem.
Commitment to continuous innovation
In an industry that keeps changing and evolving at lightning speed, Ethereum stands as a frontrunner in innovation and growth. While Bitcoin has remained more or less the same throughout the years, as have most crypto projects that followed after it, Ethereum has demonstrated an astounding ability to reinvent itself, undergoing considerable transformation since its launch in 2015.
The long list of upgrades and updates started with Homestead in 2016, a hard fork that helped enhance the network’s smart contract functionality and introduced several other changes that paved the way for further improvements. The same year, Ethereum’s DAO suffered a massive attack that resulted in the loss of $50 million worth of ETH. This event marked a turning point in Ethereum’s existence, leading to a new hard fork that split the blockchain into two distinct factions, Ethereum and Ethereum Classic.
The journey went on with Byzantium and Constantinople hard forks in 2017 and 2019, which set the stage for the transition from the Proof of Work to the Proof of Stake consensus method. The switch was completed when the Merge took place in 2022, integrating the Ethereum Mainnet with the Beacon Chain and thus slashing the platform’s energy consumption by a whopping 99,95%.
Later, the Shanghai and Capella upgrades, often referred to as Shapella, made it possible for validators to finally withdraw their staked ETH and staking rewards following the introduction of the PoS consensus mechanism.
This quick trip down memory lane serves to prove that all the changes that Ethereum has gone through over the years not only cemented its standing in the industry but also pushed the market forward, showcasing the massive potential that digital currencies possess and contributing to their growing legitimacy and recognition.
Smart contracts
Probably the most groundbreaking concept that Ethereum has pioneered is that of smart contracts. These are basically self-executing programs that automatically implement the provisions of a contract when the terms of the agreement are met, without the need for third-party intermediaries to become involved in the process. Smart contracts can be employed in every industry and sector, streamlining all types of transactions and helping parties enjoy enhanced efficiency, safety, and transparency when executing agreements.
Ethereum was the first blockchain to include smart contract functionality and is still the most used platform in this respect. That’s a feature that Bitcoin and many other crypto projects lack, making Ethereum stand out from the rest.
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs)
Ethereum is also known for its role in the development of non-fungible tokens. Although the concept of NFTs precedes Ethereum, it wasn’t until 2017 that NFTs began to gain traction, when several NFT collections were created with the help of the ERC-20 standard for fungible tokens on the Ethereum blockchain.
NFTs make it possible for all kinds of assets to be transposed in digital format and have these representations safely stored on the blockchain as a way to certify ownership and authenticity of each unique item. Ethereum is not the only blockchain to enable the creation of NFTs, but it’s the platform that has popularized the concept and continues to be the go-to choice for the development of NFT projects.
Decentralized applications (dApps)
Ethereum’s smart contract capabilities have led to the emergence of a thriving dApp landscape. This means that developers can use Ethereum’s resources to build and run decentralized applications, just as one would run a program on a computer, with the main difference being that dApps operate on a blockchain, without third-party intervention, instead of a centralized server.
This comes with notable benefits like enhanced privacy and security, greater flexibility of development, and resistance to censorship. This new generation of apps can be leveraged across multiple industries, including finance, healthcare, and real estate, offering a wide variety of services to users and becoming real game-changers in app deployment. We have Ethereum to thank for the ever-growing dApp ecosystem and the large community of developers it has attracted that promote blockchain technology and, by extension, crypto.
Given all the positive changes that Ethereum has introduced to the crypto space, we can conclude that the innovative blockchain along with its native token represent one of the most impactful and beneficial developments that have taken place in the crypto industry since its emergence.
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