Bitcoin has been the baton holder for the cryptocurrency market for a long time, but its position as the ultimate crypto is in danger for the first time. Ethereum has outpaced Bitcoin in the total number of transactions last week, for the first time. The crypto also saw more daily active addresses which is basically the active number of participants of Ether. The data indicate that more and more investors are moving towards Ethereum, and it may soon be able to close down the gap on Bitcoin.
The transaction data was confirmed by Santiment, a crypto analytics company, which tweeted that Ether (the official currency of the Ethereum network, and the second oldest major token that’s still around) created history, surpassing Bitcoin for the first time in daily active addresses.
Notably, Bitcoin is seen as an alternative to Gold while Ethereum is looked at as a supercomputer on which other cryptos can be based. Ethereum creators have already confirmed that they are also working on an energy-efficient successor to the crypto which may launch later this year.
The more interesting data here is that while the number of active addresses with Ether has gone up, there is a decline in the same for Bitcoin. This suggests that Bitcoin investors have started looking at other cryptocurrencies as long-term options.
Some reasons could include China’s crackdown on Bitcoin mining and environmental concerns raised around the crypto from multiple people, including Elon Musk who confirmed that his car-making company Tesla will not accept payments in Bitcoin until it comes more energy-efficient. However, neither Musk or Tesla have sold their Bitcoin holdings so far.
The crypto enthusiasts still believe that Bitcoin will bounce back from the current dip as it has in the past. The coin has been around for almost a decade now and has stood the test of time. However, this is the first time that it is being challenged by another crypto. It will also be interesting to see if Ethereum is able to maintain the momentum it has achieved in the past few days.
