While short-lived, Ethereum ETH prices were higher than Bitcoin Cash BCH, in a market rally that’s still sticking around at press time. This tells us less about the state of Ethereum as of Bitcoin Cash. However, though still reeling from a hard fork that seemed like a true existential threat, BCH saw more than 40% gains on Wednesday 19th, and is now priced higher than Ether once more.
In one important respect, it’s not that impressive that BCH was ever priced higher than ETH. After all, there are many more coins in the Ether circulating supply (almost 104 million) than in the Bitcoin Cash supply (only 17.5 million). Because Bitcoin Cash is scarcer, it’s price must be higher than Ether’s, all other things being equal. However, this is crypto, so all other things are most certainly not equal. So let’s take quick stock of what those things are.
Ethereum’s Ongoing Advantage
Ethereum ETH remains a more advanced technology than Bitcoin Cash, or really any of the payment-only cryptocurrencies, if we’re being honest. Ether can be used for fast and secure payments, just like Bitcoin Cash, but Bitcoin Cash cannot be used for many of the use cases for which Ethereum is perfectly suited.
Ethereum is a smart contract platform. Ether is a currency in its own right, but its primary purpose is to fund data transactions on the Ethereum blockchain. Bitcoin Cash’s one and only job is to serve as money. Essentially a uni-tasker, BCH must duke it out amongst the other payment-only cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Litecoin, DASH, etc.
What is the future of Bitcoin Cash? Does it stand out from the competition? This is debatable (and we won’t have this debate here). For our part, we think that Bitcoin Cash prices fell too far in the recent hard fork, and that this is why BCH’s recovery has been so exaggerated.
However, if we’re considering the long-term potential of both coins, we have to give the future to Ether. Ethereum is nearing its fourth and final evolutionary milestone in Metropolis. With further solutions coming down the pipe regarding scalability, energy efficiency of consensus, and off-chain enhancements, Ethereum has exciting things on its horizons. Combine this with the largest developer pool of any cryptocurrency, and we think 2019 has big things for Ethereum.
This is not to say that Bitcoin Cash is bad. It simply has a more difficult road ahead. To become a worldwide currency, it must defeat a limited, but very advanced, competition. In particular, there’s one large cryptocurrency with whom BCH shares part of its name…
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