So I've seen this picture in a few posts on steemit and reddit lately, with the narrative that bitcoin is outdated and ethereum is the future. I'd like to dissect that a bit.
Simple, reliable and long lasting
Like a lot of you I am a nerd and there is a calculator sitting on my desk, it gets used regularly despite the fact that my PC and phone both have calculators built into them. Why is this? My calculator was built to do a small number of tasks and is optimised to get those tasks done efficiently.
In that sense I can see some merits in the comparison in the picture. Bitcoin was designed to be secure, tradable and scarce so that it could be used to hold and trade value. With a 8+ year history these characteristics of bitcoin have been tried and tested.
For that reason bitcoin like my calculator will likely continue to be used by me for the foreseeable future.
Is Ethereum a smart phone?
First I should say that I am invested in both ethereum and bitcoin.
Like the bitcoin/calculator comparison, the ethereum/smartphone comparison has merits, it is the standard narrative that I have qualms about.
I do believe ethereum is potentially a leap forward in the cryptocurrency scene but so was the blackberry phone. Ethereum is still very new and experimental, if 8 years is enough time to battle test bitcoins simple features, it stands that ethereum will require more time than that to do the same.
And yes, ethereum can do most things that bitcoin can do, like a smartphone can emulate a calculator but why do I still use a calculator? My calculator has never frozen, over heated or been hacked. To repeat myself it is simple, reliable and long lasting.
Unfair to Ethereum
I would argue that the simple narrative of the image is unfair to ethereum as well, I have owned my calculator for 8 years and I'm likely to own it for 8 more. I can't say that for my phone.
Does that mean that ethereum will be replaced by something else? Not necessarily, ethereum is not hardware based like a phone and can be upgraded without needing to be replaced.
But I don't think ethereum can claim to be the iphone to bitcoins calculator. At best we can say that ethereum is the most promising smartphone being developed , but it hasn't yet been launched.