ETH is always one step behind the competition

[Cremi]

eth has a huge trust advantage over new projects and even if they have better features this will not change so fast

[wxa7115]

I don't get why people are so hyped about ETH's switch to PoS (The Merge) when we already had other PoS blockchains in the first place (eg: Cardano, BNB). Competing chains often add new features before ETH does. Even Zilliqa adopted "Sharding" (which is a scaling technique), before ETH did. Yet, ZIL's price is nothing compared to ETH. If ETH is always one step behind, then why it's extremely valuable? Doesn't that make ETH overpriced? I'd say the same about Bitcoin, but no other crypto outmatches its level of decentralization and censorship-resistance.

What are your thoughts?

Ethereum has a first mover advantage over the majority of the coins we have in the market, and even if the ethereum developers take a lot more time to implement some features that have been available in other coins for a long time people still get excited over it.

However while like the first mover advantage that bitcoin has is insurmountable, this is not the case for the first mover advantage that ethereum has, in my opinion ethereum will eventually be surpassed by another coin and when that happens its value will decrease dramatically.

[Ngemmeng]

seems a bit difficult to explain this problem and this is just my personal opinion.  why is ETH and BTC so much more valuable than cardano and BNB when their technology is ahead of ETH and BTC? the same thing also happens when doge and shiba that do not have any utility have a price or market capitalization that is greater than the ICP which has a lot of utility.
basically the price is not only influenced by utility or technology because many factors also affect the price.

[Abiky]

It is all about the marketing. ETH has many shills everywhere willing to defend their investments like it is a matter of life and death. IOTA used to have that kind of shills too but now they are all gone. I wonder why? 

You are right that they bring out PoS like it is the world’s 8th wonder even though it has been around for years.

People are looking for any news to pump their bags now. They don’t care if the news is good or bad. Anything will do and PoS is just that. It is just another nothingburger they are hyping up.

That's certainly true, mate. I think there are more shills on Ethereum than any other competing cryptocurrency project. So many VCs, institutional investors, and companies are pouring money into ETH like crazy, even though the same is heavily congested and utterly-expensive. Competing chains often have better features than ETH, but they're overlooked simply because the latter has all of the publicity. It's all a matter of marketing/promotion tactics. ETH has first mover advantage on the market, so it's unlikely it'll lose its place as the second-largest crypto by market cap anytime soon. At least, there are a wide array of options to choose from. As long as decentralization prevails, nothing else matters. Just my opinion

[Vaculin]

Ethereum was first to have smart contracts afaik — being early advantage, and community matters a lot in valuing a coin. Just look at doge.

Ethereum has already established its own smart network before these new arising competitors have shown up. The reason that even Ethereum has its own flaws, people will never lost their trust in it because it has already been built through the years. And knowing the fact that all these new competitors are only clones from Ethereum, so they will never get the full trust from its own users.

[Miaallen]

The only thing I see about ethereum is that it enjoys being the first alternative to Bitcoin and being the first to house a lots of external projects on its blockchain.

Another about the reason for ethereum being performing in price more than other alternatives which are obviously (to the pros) better in term of development is because most of the new crypto investor do not know about the technology and technical aspects of what they invest into. So, they rather go for the big name in the Cryptocurrency world which ethereum conveniently belongs to.

[Abiky]

The only thing I see about ethereum is that it enjoys being the first alternative to Bitcoin and being the first to house a lots of external projects on its blockchain.

Another about the reason for ethereum being performing in price more than other alternatives which are obviously (to the pros) better in term of development is because most of the new crypto investor do not know about the technology and technical aspects of what they invest into. So, they rather go for the big name in the Cryptocurrency world which ethereum conveniently belongs to.

Exactly. The only thing keeping ETH as the biggest crypto after Bitcoin is the first-mover advantage. If it wasn't by that, ETH would've been "eaten" by its competitors already. I guess it's not about what new features a coin has, but rather how secure and reliable a coin is. Compared to other smart contract platforms, ETH is the most widely-developed and trusted cryptocurrency on the planet after Bitcoin. I guess that's more than enough for ETH to retain its place as the "King of altcoins" for a long time.

While I don't like the ever-rising gas fees of the ETH blockchain, no other competitor outmatches its level of decentralization and censorship-resistance (although it can be debated with the recent switch to PoS). People will ultimately decide which coin stays at the top, and which coin goes all the way down the drain. At least, the competition is healthy. As long as there are a wide variety of options to choose from, nothing else matters. Just my opinion

[wxa7115]

seems a bit difficult to explain this problem and this is just my personal opinion.  why is ETH and BTC so much more valuable than cardano and BNB when their technology is ahead of ETH and BTC? the same thing also happens when doge and shiba that do not have any utility have a price or market capitalization that is greater than the ICP which has a lot of utility.
basically the price is not only influenced by utility or technology because many factors also affect the price.

You are only thinking about cryptocurrencies as a piece of technology which can be discarded at will and that is not the way it works, any currency in order to thrive needs the trust from its users.

And bitcoin has a trust that is way above all the cryptocurrencies we have in the market put together, and if to this we add that bitcoin is actually used to buy and sell things and not only to speculate then it is easy to see why even if other coins claim to have a better technology they will never surpass bitcoin despite the best efforts of their developers.