Ether Vs Bitcoin: Key Differences Between These Cryptos

While bitcoin and ether are both market-leading digital assets, they have important differences that separate them.
Ether and bitcoin are highly visible cryptocurrencies that might interest investors. They have both experienced significant gains during their respective lifetimes, so they can potentially provide interested parties with substantial upside.
This article will explore the key differences between ether, sometimes described as Ethereum, and bitcoin, so that investors can differentiate these digital assets and make well-informed decisions for their respective portfolios.
Understanding Bitcoin and Ether
Bitcoin (BTC)
Bitcoin is the digital currency of the Bitcoin network, which was designed to be a global peer-to-peer (P2P) payment system that could function independently of financial institutions or governments. The whole idea was to create a “trustless” network, meaning that it does not depend on trusting a third party like a bank or other financial institution. As a result, bitcoin was meant to function as a global digital currency.
While bitcoin was not the first-ever digital currency, it was the first digital currency to scale, meaning that it managed to achieve widespread adoption. As the cryptocurrency space has obtained ever-growing visibility, bitcoin has obtained increasing acceptance. Bitcoin’s total market value was roughly $1.75 trillion at the time of this writing, according to figures from Forbes Digital Assets.
Ether (ETH):
Ether is the native digital currency of the Ethereum platform, which is a blockchain network for decentralized apps (dapps). Basically, it is a platform that allows users to develop software applications that can function without a central authority. Decentralization is important because it means that there is no central authority that can shut down a dapp.