Bitcoin and Ethereum: Why do the trends of "gold" and "oil" in the digital world diverge?

Nakamoto 2025-10-28 14:08 95852人围观 BTC

A battle between two heroes in the crypto world is beginning. If someone tells you that he bought two pieces of pizza with 10,000 Bitcoins ten years ago, you will definitely think this is a sad story. Today, the price of one Bitcoin has exceeded $100,000,

A battle for hegemony in the crypto world is beginning

If someone told you that he bought two pizzas with 10,000 Bitcoins ten years ago, you would think it was a sad story. Today, the price of one Bitcoin has exceeded US$100,000, and the Bitcoins used to buy pizza are now worth more than US$1 billion.

But it’s not just Bitcoin that’s at the center of today’s story. In recent years, the performance of Ethereum, the second largest player in the crypto world, has been equally impressive. In April this year, the price of Ethereum was less than US$1,400, but four months later it soared to more than US$4,600, an increase of more than three times, far exceeding the performance of Bitcoin during the same period.

A strange phenomenon has attracted the market's attention: since 2021, the price trends of Bitcoin and Ethereum have diverged significantly. Bitcoin continues to hit new all-time highs, while Ethereum has been unable to break through its previous highs. What secret is hidden behind this?

Essentially different: digital gold vs world computer

To understand the difference between the two, we can use a vivid metaphor: Bitcoin is like "digital gold", while Ethereum is the "world computer".

Bitcoin was born after the 2008 financial crisis and was created by a mysterious figure with the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. Its positioning is simple: to become a peer-to-peer electronic cash system that transfers money directly without going through any intermediaries such as banks and Alipay. The total supply of Bitcoin is fixed at 21 million, and its absolute scarcity makes it an ideal store of value.

Ethereum was created in 2015 by Vitalik Buterin, a genius born in the 1990s. It is not just a currency, but a decentralized computing platform. If Bitcoin is Blockchain 1.0, then Ethereum is Blockchain 2.0, which introduces smart contract functions and allows developers to build various decentralized applications on it.

The battle over the consensus mechanism: Mountain mining competition vs. Rich people voting

The difference in core mechanisms between Bitcoin and Ethereum can be vividly illustrated by the election methods of the two villages:

Bitcoin Village: A “National Mining Competition”. There is a loudspeaker in the village, and every time it is necessary to keep accounts, it is announced: "Whoever digs out the mountain in my backyard first will keep the accounts and be rewarded with 50 Bitcoins!" ”So the strong men in the village carried hoes and drove excavators to dig into the mountains frantically.

This proof-of-work mechanism is super stable and super secure, but it also consumes a lot of power - all the strong men in the village are digging mountains every day instead of doing anything serious, and the electricity bill is scary.

Ethereum 2.0 Village: A “Rich Voting Conference”. The new village chief V God felt that digging mountains was too stupid, so he established a new rule: "Stop digging! If you want to keep accounts in the future, you must first prove that you are a loyal villager of our village. Deposit your family's Ethereum with the village committee as a deposit. ”The more coins you stake and the longer you stake, the greater your probability of being drawn and recorded.

This proof-of-stake mechanism is energy-saving and environmentally friendly, eliminating the need to dig mountains and saving huge electricity bills.； The speed is much faster, there is no need to wait for digging, and the accounting efficiency has soared. But it feels like "rich people are getting richer".

Why are the trends diverging?

In January 2024, the U.S. SEC approved the listing of Bitcoin spot ETF, which became a watershed in the price trends of the two. Bitcoin has officially entered the mainstream financial market, and traditional financial institutions and ordinary investors can allocate Bitcoin as easily as buying and selling stocks.

The value of Ethereum depends more on the prosperity of its internal ecology. The high point of Ethereum in 2021 was driven by "DeFi Summer" and "NFT frenzy", when a large number of application scenarios created huge demand for ETH. At present, although the Ethereum ecosystem is still strong, there has yet to be a "killer application" that can attract large-scale users and funds.

On the other hand, Ethereum faces fierce competition from emerging public chains such as Solana. These public chains show significant advantages in performance and cost, diverting users and resources that might otherwise be gathered in the Ethereum ecosystem.

Looking ahead: two different paths

Bitcoin is solidifying its position as a macroeconomic hedge and digital store of value, becoming accepted by more traditional financial institutions like gold.

Ethereum is striving to become the underlying pillar of the future decentralized Internet. With the advancement of technologies such as the "Cancun Upgrade", Ethereum is solving its problems of high transaction costs and slow speeds.

How should you choose?

For investors, Bitcoin and Ethereum represent two different investment logics:

If you are looking for stability and hedging, Bitcoin may be more suitable for you. It is more like "digital gold" and suitable for long-term holding.

If you are optimistic about the long-term development of blockchain technology and are willing to take higher risks to obtain greater potential returns, Ethereum may have more room for imagination.

Of course, you can also allocate both, just like gold and stocks in an investment portfolio, to diversify risks and balance returns.

In any case, please remember one thing: don’t think of Ethereum as a “cheap version of Bitcoin”, they are not the same thing at all. Just like you wouldn't think of apples as "cheap versions of oranges."

The data in this article are derived from public information and represent only personal opinions and do not constitute any investment advice.
The market is risky, so be cautious when investing!

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