The list of challengers to Ethereum’s dominance in the decentralized finance or DeFi space as well as its use in smart contracts, is long.- More significantly however, Ethereum was able to achieve something that is often impossible in the cryptosphere – consensus.
Solana, Polygon, Polkadot, even Binance Smart Chain – the list of challengers to Ethereum’s dominance in the decentralized finance or DeFi space as well as its use in smart contracts, is long.
But these “pretenders to the throne” are unlikely to undermine the incumbency of Ethereum, or at least that’s what Joey Krug, co-Chief Investment Officer at digital asset management firm Pantera Capital believes.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Krug noted,
“If you roll the clock forward 10 to 20 years, a very sizable percent, maybe even north of 50%, of the world’s financial transactions in some way, shape or form will touch Ethereum.”
Krug revealed that ether, the cryptocurrency that sits atop Ethereum’s blockchain, sits among Pantera Capital Management’s top three positions across funds, which ranks in the top five of cryptocurrency funds with over US$5.8 billion in assets under management.
And while Ethereum’s critics claim that the network is mired by expensive fees and slow transaction speeds as it becomes the victim of its own popularity, it still remains the blockchain of choice because of its incumbency.
Many developers already familiar with JavaScript, a popular high level programing language, took to Ethereum’s Solidity like ducks to water and layer-2 networks, where transactions are bunched and only uploaded to the blockchain as required, are evolving to address scaling issues.
Those factors have helped ether to deliver almost 400% in 2021 and has rekindled speculation that the cryptocurrency could one day surpass bitcoin, which currently has around double the market cap of ether.
More significantly however, Ethereum was able to achieve something that is often impossible in the cryptosphere – consensus.
The move to shift ether towards a deflationary cryptocurrency and the London hard fork, are all symbolic of a blockchain where stakeholders are willing to work together for the greater good and longevity of the network.
Whereas Bitcoin’s earliest days were mired with disputes and hard forks, over things as seemingly banal as an increase in block size, Ethereum’s proponents and participants have thus far managed to get on with the business of blockchain.
Krug of Pantera Capital and an early DeFi developer believes that challengers will eventually rely on Ethereum as a base, assuming that the blockchain successfully switches to a proof-of-stake system, which would help lay to rest allegations that cryptocurrency mining wastes energy.
According to Krug,
“There’s too many trade-offs other chains are making that Ethereum is not making on the decentralization side that are pretty important. I don’t know if they’re best suited to be the new global financial settlement layer.”
