Here’s How to Tell the Difference Between Bitcoin and Ethereum

Yes, Dogecoin, the cryptocurrency that started as a joke and is now worth $90 billion, merits attention. But for those just beginning to take the field seriously, the two big names in the $2.2 trillion cryptocurrency market remain Bitcoin and Ether, the coin that fuels the Ethereum network. Bitcoin, the pioneer, has been on a tear, its value up about 500% in the past year. Yet it’s Ether that has been showing its older brother a thing or two, with a price jump of around 1,500% over the same period. While the top two digital coins share some attributes, they are different in many ways. Here’s the breakdown.

Bitcoin was the first digital currency to successfully create a way to transfer value between two people anywhere in the world. Many had previously tried -- think DigiCash or Beenz. But the pseudonymous and still-unknown creator, or creators, of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, made a crucial breakthrough by creating a digital, time-ordered ledger, called a blockchain, to record every Bitcoin transaction. This solved the “double-spend problem” -- it ensured that people couldn’t send fake Bitcoin or Bitcoin that had already been sent to someone else. It also meant Bitcoin transactions take place independently from involvement -- or interference by -- typical financial intermediaries like governments, banks or corporations. Bitcoin was worth virtually nothing when it was first activated in January 2009. In April 2021, it reached a price of almost $65,000, its record at the time.