How Are Bitcoin and Ethereum Different?

Bitcoin and Ethereum Differences

Bitcoin and Ethereum are the two most well-known blockchain protocols, and their respective cryptocurrencies, BTC and ETH, are integral to the fast-expanding world of digital assets. While competition remains among their respective communities, Bitcoin and Ethereum fulfill different roles within the blockchain ecosystem. Launched in 2009, Bitcoin is the original blockchain protocol, and was designed to serve as a peer-to-peer digital cash system that allows transactions to be initiated, processed, and verified without the need for third-party middlemen. Bitcoin, however, is not well-suited to hosting applications.

Launched in 2014, Ethereum was created in order to connect people globally to a system of smart, self-executing contracts. Smart contracts facilitate the creation of decentralized applications (dApps), which range in function and all operate atop the Ethereum network using shared standards for interoperability. While both Bitcoin and Ethereum currently utilize a Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus algorithm, Ethereum introduces the concept of smart contracts, which are automatically self-executing agreements used in creating dApps.

Cryptocurrency Use Cases

Bitcoin and Ethereum have native cryptocurrencies that serve different purposes. Bitcoin (BTC) is an alternative to fiat money, acting as a medium of exchange for payments and a store of value for saving or speculation. On the other hand, while the Ethereum network supports the transfer of value in ETH from one party to another, ETH itself is also used to power the operation of smart contracts — computer programs that perform certain actions when specific conditions are met — and the dApps they make possible. These dApps often give rise to their own native tokens that can be used in their functioning, governance, and value assessment or creation.

Consensus Mechanisms

The consensus mechanisms of Bitcoin and Ethereum are expected to increasingly diverge. While the Bitcoin protocol has remained largely unchanged since its inception, Ethereum has proven more dynamic, and is undergoing developments that aim to significantly increase the efficiency of the network going forward.

Speed: While Bitcoin’s blocks are verified and created roughly every 10 minutes, this same process takes 10 to 20 seconds on the Ethereum network. This increased throughput enables Ethereum to handle on-chain transactions more rapidly than Bitcoin — which is essential considering the ecosystem of dApps that use the Ethereum network to support a tremendous range of diverse functionality.

Token Supply: Bitcoin has a hard cap of 21 million coins that will ever be created. New BTC is minted with every successfully mined block. After every 210,000 blocks, the total number of BTC that miners are rewarded for successfully mining a block (called a block reward) is cut in half in what’s known as a halving. Over time, this has proven an effective deflationary monetary policy. For example, when the Bitcoin network was first launched in 2009, one block reward was equal to 50 BTC . As of the May 2020 halving, Bitcoin’s block rewards have been reduced to 6.25 BTC.  By contrast, Ethereum currently does not have a hard cap on the total supply of ETH, which may be a concern for some speculators who value crypto investments that are governed by a deflationary monetary system. However, a number of proposed updates, such as EIP-1559, offer built-in deflationary mechanisms that may address this issue in the future.

Account Management: When a transaction takes place on the Bitcoin network, the protocol utilizes a method that relies on unspent transaction outputs (UTXOs). UXTOs are the amount of cryptocurrency that remains after a transaction is executed — similar to the change you receive back after giving cash to a merchant. Ethereum uses an account model that debits and credits accounts depending on exactly how much ETH is transacted. As a result, Ethereum’s account model saves computational effort since it eliminates several steps involved in the UTXO model, and is arguably more intuitive and user friendly.

Where Bitcoin and Ethereum Meet

Despite the above differences, Bitcoin and Ethereum were both born out of a shared endeavor to decentralize economies, industries, and value systems around the world. Both platforms were designed to address these concerns in different but equally important ways. Bitcoin’s core value proposition is simple — a decentralized, peer-to-peer payments network that has now evolved into a universal store of value that is underpinned by its mathematically provable scarcity, rather than prescribed by a national government or other centralized authority. And Ethereum’s goal of becoming a decentralized, censorship-resistant world computer represents a desire to rewire global systems away from digital hegemonies, third-party regulatory bodies, and centralized internet service providers.

With the emergence and growing popularity of decentralized finance (DeFi), blockchain developers have found ways to integrate Bitcoin’s resiliency and value into Ethereum’s evolving ecosystem through Bitcoin-backed ERC-20 tokens such as wBTC and tBTC. Therefore, while every major blockchain project has its fair share of maximalists who view blockchain development as a zero sum game, many of the most successful projects have shown to not  only offer undeniable value to end users, but find ways to interoperate in a way which is mutually beneficial and sustainable in the long run. Given their outsized prominence and established, yet distinct, functionality  Bitcoin and Ethereum are well positioned to  provide lasting value in facilitating a healthy, mature, and diverse crypto ecosystem.