#BitcoinEthereumSurge $ETH $BTC 1 Top Cryptocurrency to Buy Before It Soars 6,220%, According to Cathie Wood:
Ethereum faces competition from newer proof-of-stake blockchains that are more energy efficient.
Ethereum's native token could bounce back after a challenging year.
Ether (ETH 8.73%), the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum blockchain, lost more than 30% of its value over the past 12 months. Its first spot-price ETFs were approved last July, but those funds didn't attract as much attention as Bitcoin's (BTC 1.68%) earlier ETFs.
Instead, Ether seemed to be held back by concerns about competition from newer and faster blockchains. Nevertheless, some investors remain fiercely bullish on Ether's future. One of those bulls is ARK Invest's Cathie Wood, who believes Ether's price could reach $166,000 by 2032.
That would represent a gain of nearly 6,220% and boost its market cap to more than $20 trillion. Bitcoin, which Wood is also bullish on, currently has a market cap of $2 trillion. Could Ether skyrocket to those levels, or should investors maintain more realistic expectations?
The differences between Ether and Bitcoin:
Ethereum originally ran on a proof-of-work (PoW) mechanism like Bitcoin. This meant it needed to be mined by GPUs or other chips.
But in 2022, Ethereum transitioned to the proof-of-stake (PoS) mechanism, which was roughly 99% more power efficient than the PoW mechanism. So instead of being mined, Ether is now staked (or locked up for rewards) on the Ethereum blockchain.
Ethereum's transformation into a PoS blockchain also enabled it to support smart contracts, which are used to develop decentralized apps (dApps), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and other crypto assets. Bitcoin's PoW blockchain doesn't support smart contracts.
Therefore, Ether's value is often linked to Ethereum's popularity as a development platform. Bitcoin is still valued by its scarcity and limited supply -- since 19.6 million of its maximum supply of 21 million tokens have already been mined.