Bitcoin or Ethereum: the comparison for the new quarter

Bitcoin or Ethereum: the question comes up again at the start of every quarter for anyone planning an entry or a reallocation. An honest answer does not begin with the price but with what the two networks actually are. Bitcoin is a payment and store-of-value network with a firmly limited money supply. Ethereum is a platform on which programs run and outside capital is managed. Both compete on the market for the same money, but they solve different tasks.

This comparison puts side by side the figures that can be verified: supply and money-supply growth, actual usage, relative size on the market, the question of a running yield, and access for investors in Germany including tax. You will not find a price forecast or a buy recommendation here, and anyone promising you a certain answer to the price question in October does not have one either.

Bitcoin and Ethereum solve two different tasks

Bitcoin launched in 2009 with a narrowly drawn purpose: transferring and storing value without an intermediary. The protocol can deliberately do little, and that very frugality is the product. Anyone buying Bitcoin is buying the scarcity rule and the expectation that it holds.

Ethereum went live in 2015 and allows programs on the blockchain, so-called smart contracts. Credit markets, trading venues without a central counterparty, stablecoins and tokenised assets run on it. Anyone buying Ether is buying a share in this network's computing capacity: Ether is the means of payment for every transaction on it and at the same time the collateral that validators post.