For now, the 2 main implementations of ETH are DeFi and ICO, which failed imo.
They are not 2, there is only 1 and they keep changing the name while doing the same exact thing: ICO, IEO, STO, DeFi, NFT,...
They create a useless token that has absolutely no connection to anything including the business and people who create it and sell it to people to raise funds. That's all.
About ICO, they are an interesting concept. Smartcontracts controlling the fund raising, receiving Tokens back when you transfer eth and so on..
It is not and for a very simple reason: there is no connection between the token and the business.
Let's say you are running a gambling site and create a token to raise funds and expand your business. If your business fails and you have to shut it down the token can still be pumped and have increasing value. Conversely if your business thrives and you make millions the token can get dumped and reach 0.
So what did these "share holders" gain by buying that ICO token? Nothing! They could have bought any other pump and dump coin.
The "smart contract" smartness and contractual characteristics start and stop at the fund-raising stage.
Just look at so many ETh copy-cats we have
The reason for copycats is simply because ICO scam was successful and both the ICO scammers and the platform owners (aka ETH foundation holding the 72 million premine) make millions. So obviously other people want in and to do that they create their own "smart contract" platform.
Funny thing is that some of these alternatives are so much better and safer than Ethereum even though people who claim "smart contracts" are interesting ignore them just because they aren't as pumped as ETH is!
The idea of running decentralized Apps (dApps), which are applications that once running cannot be stopped by anyone, is very interesting and has a lot of potential.
Well, each time I ask someone who makes this statement to show me an actual application that is working in real world they either can't or show me the "token swap" projects where you can trade one ICO token for another ICO token! So I don't see any potential there.
For now, Bitcoin is certainly the best bet. Bitcoin was able to do what is in the whitepaper almost 12 years ago: Censorship resistant, decentralized, open, borderless, cannot be shut down, etc.
Exactly. Bitcoin is good because what it promised to deliver was useful and solved some actual problem in the actual world and most importantly it delivered on that promise.