To be or not to be: Ethereum or not ethereum!

Many investors, by virtue of brand, in the media, first know bitcoin: the most valuable, the first, what made people richer, in short, that cryptocurrency that broke the paradigm of digital transactions of monetary values ??and, perhaps, the only one non-national monetary icon that gained weight as a binary pair equivalent to the dollar-euro ratio in the traditional financial market.However, explaining the differences between bitcoin and its younger brother, Ethereum, is necessary to understand how to invest in the short and medium term.To understand: while bitcoin suffers attacks, virtual and real, causing its value to oscillate, ethereum suffers a greater structural agony: ethereum 2.0. Necessary, but it is already starting to cause oscillations.First, our friend Bitcoin:Created in 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto, the so-called Blockchain technology has helped to innovate different sectors of online commerce, not only with regard to digital currencies, but the security technology itself.Blockchain, using encryption, is a technology in which all transactions carried out with Bitcoin are recorded, it is like a big cashbook.The difference with standard technologies is that these records are included in serial block chains and for each transaction to be carried out, the network nodes (made up of several connected computers) need to approve the transaction, registering the new block in the chain.The number of nodes defines the degree of security of this network, in addition to the fact that bitcoin itself has limited emission, making it, par excellence, deflationary!Second, bitcoin's cousin, Ethereum:The newer Ethereum uses blockchain technology, making relationships as secure as bitcoin.Ethereum emerged from the creation of 8 people in 2013.Although the platform also incorporates Blockchain technology, its uses are quite different.The main component of Ethereum is smart contracts - famous for stabilizing and strengthening user guarantees - so Ethereum is not a cryptocurrency per se, but a programming platform - although it also has its own cryptocurrency, Ether.Smart contracts are responsible for facilitating, verifying and putting into practice, digitally and autonomously, the pre-defined terms of a contract.It was primarily intended to be established in networks of real payment machines and in terminals such as cash registers and ATMs. An ultra-secure platform that guaranteed, through contracts, that each party received a unique receipt. like any real trade!Note that Ethereum may have inflationary characteristics, as Ether does not have limited emission like the blockchain!For example, if you were buying a car. The transaction would be done through the smart contract. Taking the terms of the contract and binding it to payment with cryptocurrencies, in this case on Ether.Who will analyze the conditions of the contract and see if all the clauses were fulfilled is a computer code.Just like the real world, but without the part that could be corrupted!Thus, the main characteristic of an intelligent contract is that it has an execution that does not depend on trust between the parties.That is, there is no need to rely on third parties to execute the conditions – everything is done through code.Although in the Bitcoin blockchain it is also possible to perform smart contracts (but it is less usual), the difference is that the Ethereum platform uses a language called Solidity, which allows for more complicated contracts – which can be more difficult for the machine to analyze.That's why many people consider the Ethereum platform broader than Bitcoin, as its uses go far beyond cryptocurrency, allowing the creation of smart contracts for different areas and applications.This platform, which breaks national barriers, by allowing secure transactions, through contracts, to be carried out from any machine, causes two unknown people in any country in the world to generate business with a level of confidence 10 times higher than the human ones carried out.Ethereum's smart contracts can, without human supervision:- function as multiple subscription accounts, as a fund, for example, can only be spent if a certain number of people agree;- manage commercial agreements between users;- provide utility for other contracts;- store an application's information, such as domain registration information or user records.In addition to smart contracts, the Ethereum platform allows for decentralized application programming, Ether cryptocurrency transactions, and various tokens.So, while bitcoin provided the security of a cryptocurrency, Ethereum provided the means for people to safely use that system.But a detail: although blockchain is a technology, bitcoin and ethereum networks use particular blockchain schemes with each other.Another difference is the transaction time:Bitcoin takes an average of 10 minutes, transactions with Ethereum only take 20 seconds! This difference is closely related to the way in which both were conceived: bitcoin as a secure decentralized digital currency and Ether and Ethereum as a digital commercial support platform, that is, the merchant or the consumer cannot wait 10 minutes planted in the store waiting. This is the physical bank!Another difference is in the issuance design:Bitcoin has a maximum limit of 21 million units. When this number is reached, the system itself will prevent new coins from being mined. On the other hand, Ethereum doesn't have this limit.As Ethereum, as a technological solution, it foresees decentralizations for customization and commercial flexibility - in the form of bank financial products. Those who purchase Ethereum permission are allowed to create their own cryptocurrency or token – a strategy that has attracted more and more interested users, increasing the currency's appreciation.Because of this vision, Ethereum, as a platform, can provide infinite new cryptocurrencies and infinite tokens and DefI.It is difficult to verify what will happen to the cryptoactive and if it will continue to appreciate. But being a platform that offers services, it tends to be more stable and less vulnerable to attacks like bitcoin.The expectation, however, is for this rising appreciation to continue, mainly thanks to transaction speed and lower costs for users, who should popularize the currency even more.Mining also differs, although the method is the same, there are mathematical nuances:In the proof-of-work method, used in Bitcoin, the device needs to prove that it worked to get the result. In the participation proof, one of the miners must prove that he has a number of coins.Thus, an amount of coins is reserved (and it cannot be moved). They keep being sent to the same address. The number of coins defines the participation of the miner in the information validation process.The more cryptocurrencies separated for the process, the greater the participation of the miner.Then there is a random selection of which miner will be elected to validate the next block.In the proof of participation, the new blocks are not mined but forged, which means that no new cryptocurrencies are generated – and the miners are rewarded for the transaction fees paid.In addition to these differences, mining time on Ethereum is less. In general, the average time to mine a Bitcoin block is 10 minutes, while on Ethereum, the process takes around 15 seconds.thereum uses “Full Turing” as internal code, while bitcoin uses so-called stack-based, with more limited applications.Therefore, costs in Ethereum depend on the complexity of executing the contract, while in Bitcoin the costs vary according to the space that the transaction will occupy in the block.In the end, the distinctions regarding bitcoin and ethereum, the first starts to establish itself as a commercial beacon icon while the second is already born as a technological solution at the user's end.The concern, despite the versatility of Ethereum is mainly related to the hardware and concept upgrade that is planned.From this concern and from some deviations from the original process, Ethereum Classic is born.Both, however, will be reached when the upgrade arrives in the mines: unlike bitcoin, whose principle allows to keep the miners, the Ethereum system will condemn, for example, the ASICS mines to obsolescence. GPUs can mine other things.This uncertainty in the future of the ethereum mines has already started to cause production to oscillate, in addition to the fact that, as it has no controlled emission, it causes hyper-inflation in the cryptocurrency system as a whole.IN these swings are opportunities, but these opportunities hide the greatest risks, present and future!To be watched!