Bitcoin and Ethereum

Bitcoin and Ethereum are the two largest crypto networks. They share ideas but have different goals.

Bitcoin (BTC)

• Launched in 2009 by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto.
• Designed as digital money that no single party controls.
• Supply is capped at 21 million BTC. New coins are issued to miners, and the reward is cut in half roughly every four years (the halving).
• Secured by Proof of Work mining.

Ethereum (ETH)

• Launched in 2015.
• A programmable blockchain: developers deploy smart contracts, programs that run on the network. These power tokens, DeFi apps and NFTs.
• Users pay gas fees in ETH to run transactions and contracts.
• Moved from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake in September 2022 ("The Merge"), which cut its energy use by more than 99%.

Key takeaways

• Bitcoin focuses on being scarce digital money (21 million cap).
• Ethereum focuses on running smart contracts; fees are paid as gas in ETH.
• Ethereum now uses Proof of Stake; Bitcoin uses Proof of Work.