E-Paper
In a first, ether surpasses bitcoin in number of daily active participants
The active addresses on a crypto network show the total number of senders and receivers for a particular token.
In one of the biggest signs that bitcoin is losing its place as the top cryptocurrency in the world, ethereum had recently surpassed bitcoin in terms of the total number of daily active addresses.
“On a day that saw history be made with #Ethereum surpassing #Bitcoin in daily active addresses for the first time, #altcoins came to play. $KSM, $COMP, and $ZIL were among many projects to make an imprint on the markets, while $BTC ranged around $34.5k,” crypto analytics company Santiment tweeted on June 29. This was also reported by multiple other firms over the past week, though bitcoin was back on top at the time of writing.
The active addresses on a crypto network show the total number of senders and receivers for a particular token. Ethereum surpassing Bitcoin is a sign that the world’s second largest cryptocurrency by market value is catching up with the most preferred. Ether’s market capitalisation trails bitcoin’s by about three times, with more than $200 million and $600 million in market cap for each currency, respectively, according to Coinmarketcap.
The future of bitcoin as the poster boy for cryptocurrencies around the world has been called to question recently. Noted experts such as Mike Novogratz, chief executive of Galaxy Digital, have been expecting ethereum to become the biggest crypto token in future, while billionaire Elon Musk has also raised concerns around the environmental impact of mining bitcoins. It is also among the chief concerns for the Chinese government, which has been cracking down on mining operations and crypto trading recently.
Mining is the process of validating crypto transactions, which creates new coins. It requires massive computing power, which is mostly done using electricity generated from fossil fuels. The technology behind the ethereum blockchain is said to be more environment friendly than bitcoin and with ethereum 2.0 the energy consumption is expected to be reduced drastically.
The ethereum platform is also said to be more versatile, which allows it to be used for more different use cases.
The ethereum chain has been used for non-fungible token auctions, games, and decentralised finance apps among other things.
