A major contributor to the increased acceptance of cryptocurrency is the direct contact between users or parties.
It was launched in 2015 when it was introduced in a white paper by its co-founder and programmer, Vitalik Buterin.
According to ARK, ETH is the preferred collateral in DeFi as well as the unit of account in NFT marketplaces, suggesting that it is likely to capture a portion of the $123-trillion global money supply.
As financial services move on-chain, various decentralised networks are likely to grab share from existing financial intermediaries.
“Ethereum has a lot of potential in the coming years as it continues to be a foundational part of DeFi apps.” Exposure to Ethereum technology is a potentially profitable addition to your investment portfolio, “says Bhagaban Behera, CEO and co-founder of Defy, a crypto platform.
So, does Ethereum make for a good investment? Some experts believe that Ethereum is a good long-term investment, primarily for two reasons.
If you want to buy something from a seller using Bitcoin, for example, you could programme the transaction not as a direct payment but as a small script which automates .
The scripts are programmed in Bitcoin using a scripting language that can do only a few types of transaction process automation, while in Ethereum, the scripting language can do many kinds of transaction process automation and create programmable wallets, etc.
For example, in 2016, a decentralised autonomous organisation’s smart contract was hacked, exploiting a bug that allowed a cybercriminal to steal many millions of dollars’ worth of Ether.
There are tools to test and verify the correctness of smart contracts, but they are not complete.
Shukla further notes that Bitcoin is dependent on “Proof of Work” consensus, and that means a lot of energy is used in maintaining the Bitcoin blockchain .
So, only 0.1 percent can actually determine the integrity and validity of transactions in Ethereum if Proof of Stake is used, “says Shukla.
However, this is a good thing, say some experts.