Consider the fact that ether is still underpriced at $1,000 ($100B market cap).Ether should be well over that. Consider the fact that ether handles more transactions than all other blockchains combined!
We are still in the early stages of crypto, Though the price of bitcoin will likely rise as well, but ether seems much more promising to become the crypto crown in the nearest future. Some conservative predictions have ether hitting a 1 trillion market cap by 2020.
These are my considerations for holding Ethereum instead of Bitcoin:
- Congestion and scaling issues haven’t hurt ETH prices despite a lack of solutions to them for the past couple of months in memory. It’s not as bad as the ones plaguing BTC, and ETH is handling a helluva lot more transactions than BTC is: see this and this
- Both have a problem with a solution on the horizon, but not yet here - Casper and sharding for ETH, Lightning Network for BTC
- BTC tx fees and wait times are hurting would-be investors. ETH still feels quick to me
- Ergo, in terms of how it feels to use as a trader, ETH beats out BTC for now
- ETH has yet to receive the full force of mainstream media hype the same way BTC did - indirectly, yes, but not as the main subject of discussion
- As newbie investors start to actually do their homework, ETH has a broader, grander narrative that’s easy to pick up (ETH is the company selling shovels during a gold rush, quote unquote)
- People will still buy into ETH expecting it to be bullish, either through anticipation of upgrades, anticipation of dapps/use case increases, whatever
- In terms of how much hot air or hype can be generated, BTC feels overexposed and worn while ETH remains to be exploited
Again, these are just my personal opinions. I’m pulling these out of my emotional ass, and I suspect that my true reason for hodling ETH is simply because I’ve made the most from it before.
Of course, I’ve become a bit wary of ETH now that the market is trying to figure out how it feels about its recent rocket, and I’ve softened up a bit about BTC since its correction to $USD 13,000. It can go either one of two ways, or so I’ve been told - a sharp crash followed by a skyrocket to the dream of $USD 20,000, or just a straightforward upwards shoot. Whatever the case, I am of the (unsubstantiated) belief that modest profits can be made in the medium term for those with strong hands either way.
If you’re looking to buy ETH or BTC with $AUD, $NZD or even $USD on a smaller exchange, you can use Independent Reserve (
http://www.independentreserve.com/?invite=FQUVGN). Signing up with this link sends 50% of your brokerage fees in the next 90 days to me instead of IndRes, which is nice for me and nice of you.
If you want to get into altcoins, because screw the blue chips amirite? - you can do so at Binance (
https://www.binance.com/?ref=18230786), here. Same deal with this link too, et cetera, nice for me and nice of you. You’ll need BTC, ETH or USDT (Tether) anyways to trade, as Binance doesn’t take fiat.
***Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor and this does not constitute financial advice. I am not responsible for the results or consequences of any actions taken due to, or in part due to this answer. This is purely a reflection of my personal opinion. Do not invest what you are not willing to lose.