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Review on Ethereum by Klara Busterbären
Ethereum ist the most widely accepted cryptocurrency after Bitcoin. But ETH is…
Ethereum ist the most widely accepted cryptocurrency after Bitcoin. But ETH is not primarily a currency but rather a whole eco-system on which you can build smart-contracts and your own applications that use the Ethereum blockchain for the verification of transactions.
Even though there are competitors like EOS, Ethereum is likely to stay in the game and seems a wise investment if you are looking for a long-term investment and believe in the technology and the community around Ethereum. I belive in the protocol and that Ethereum will ultimately become the number one blockchain (also in market-cap, number of transactions, etc.).
There are things to consider like energy consumption. Under the current proof-of-work scheme to verify transactions that is used by most blockchains, transactions require enormous amounts of energy and make the network a huge external cost factor for everyone in terms of impact on our environment. Just like the BTC blockchain, the ETH blockchain relies on miners consuming a lot of energy. while the ETH blockchain still consumes far less energy than the BTC blockchain, this will be a bigger problem in the future, especially if you ask yourself whether a system that is (as of now!) mostly used by traders for speculative investiments and shifting from one token to another should account for the same energy consumption and environmental impact as a country does.
Note: right now the ETH blockchain is close to the energy consumption of Slovenia.
Pros
- next to Bitcoin, this Token is traded on most exchanges; transactions as of now are faster and way cheaper than Bitcoin transactions; many start-ups build applications on top of the ETH blockchain, which is not possible with the BTC blockchain; many wallets that work safe and securely
Cons
- consumes a lot of energy
