Ethereum, the smart contracts platform with ether as its crypto-token is one the leading cryptocurrency platform. As the platform reaches maturity, Ethereum has gained popularity in the recent days.
The well-known figure in the cryptocurrency world, Andreas Antonopoulos is one of the select people who has known about Ethereum even before it was announced to the world by Vitalik Buterin. He has been a vocal proponent of cryptocurrency technology and has participated in numerous events across the world
Andreas Antonopoulos – What does he have to say about Ethereum?
Andreas Antonopoulos was recently speaking at the Blockchain Meetup Berlin where he fielded questions from the audience. AS expected, there were few questions about Ethereum and its comparison with Bitcoin blockchain. During the session, there were few interesting views about both the blockchain ecosystems exchanged. Unlike the ‘fanboy’ groups that are now out there where members of these bitcoin groups trash the ones who talk about Ethereum and vice versa, Andreas Antonopoulos does justice to both the teams.
The sessions at the Blockchain Meetup Berlin also brought up a very interesting explanation about the difference between Bitcoin and Ethereum with the help of Lego blocks. The concept of smart contracts is already known to most of the cryptocurrency community and Ethereum is specially built as a smart contract platform. However, this doesn’t mean Bitcoin blockchain can’t be used to build smart contracts. It is quite possible to create smart contracts on Bitcoin blockchain too and it is being already utilized by another smart contracts platform – Rootstock.
The degrees of customization offered by both Ethereum and Bitcoin blockchains vary significantly. Ethereum allows a wide range of smart contracts to be created in a much simpler way. Speaking of smart contracts, Ethereum is like a Lego set with lots of bricks of different shapes and sizes. Bitcoin, on the other hand, is a set containing building blocks of a single type. In other words, Ethereum can be used to create smart contracts of different sizes and functions in a more rapid and compact way compared to Bitcoin blockchain with size and speed constraints. But this doesn’t make one seem lesser than the other one. In fact, they both can work together to provide a more comprehensive smart contract solution satisfying the needs of clients, both individual’s and legal entities.
In terms of availability and security, Bitcoin is more limited – 21 million, However, it gets the highest marks for its security standards. Comparing Ethereum with Bitcoin, it has one-sixth of Bitcoin’s market capitalization. However, when it comes to the security aspect, it is about 1/250000th of that of Bitcoin. So depending upon the application they both can work together.
Andreas Antonopoulos expressed his interest in the development of applications that uses both Ethereum and Bitcoin synergistically. His vision is to see other stable cryptocurrencies, satisfying different needs to combine forces with Bitcoin and Ethereum to create a much stronger cryptocurrency and blockchain ecosystem.
Andreas Antonopoulos has a positive outlook towards Bitcoin as well and he is also invested in Ethereum (he has bought ether).
Ref: Blockchain Meetup Berlin - Video