Yuriko Nakao/Getty Images
- Bitcoin has struggled in recent days, falling from records while ether rallies to all-time highs.
- "As bitcoin loses its historic market dominance, the currency of the 'world's computer' is starting to fly," an expert said.
- Three experts told Insider why they think ether will surpass bitcoin as the leading cryptocurrency.
- Sign up here for our daily newsletter, 10 Things Before the Opening Bell
Bitcoin has been struggling, tumbling below the $47,000-level to a two-month low on April 25 after a sharp sell-off once excitement around Coinbase's public debut tapered.
Ether on the other hand has hit record highs above $2,500, pushing the market capitalization of the second largest cryptocurrency to $300 billion for the first time.
While ether remains far behind bitcoin's $1 trillion market value, some experts predict that it may not be long before the runner-up dethrones bitcoin as the world's biggest cryptocurrency, which currently represents 48% of the total crypto market, according to CoinGecko.
"As bitcoin loses its historic market dominance, the currency of the 'world's computer' is starting to fly, showing hints of the decoupling long predicted by ether bulls," Tim Frost, CEO of Yield App, a decentralized finance wealth management platform, told Insider.
Frost added that now that ether has broken the $2,500 resistance level, it could head to $3,500 "very quickly."
Ether, unlike bitcoin, not only maintains a decentralized payment network but also stores computer codes that power contracts and applications that are, thus far, tamper-proof.
Bitcoin, meanwhile, has been struggling to define its utility from being a potential currency to a store of value, among others.
Sergey Nazarov, co-founder of Chainlink, an oracle network that secures over $15 billion worth of assets on the ethereum blockchain, told Insider that the recent rally in ether, is in fact, spurred by the rise of decentralized finance applications, which are now worth over $59 billion.
Insider spoke to three other experts who share their thoughts on why ether has the potential to become the world's leading cryptocurrency.
"We think bitcoin is overrated. We think bitcoin had the first-mover advantage. But in terms of long-term technology, we think ethereum will surpass bitcoin because if you look at developers, all the developers now are pretty much using ethereum. Ethereum has 10 times more monthly active developers than bitcoin. Bitcoin is really now, purely, in my opinion, just a digital store value, digital gold, and I view ethereum as the next internet as Web3." - Ian Balina, founder and CEO of Token Metrics, a data-driven investment research platform for crypto
"The utility will ultimately trump a store of value asset, but I think that's a little bit away. We do have bitcoin to thank for being the first to spark interest. But on etherum there's a lot of development - DeFi and NFT. Ultimately we get past the single functionality store value that is bitcoin and we get into a world where there are greater use cases - and that always trumps a single function which is an asset or a storage value." - John Wu, President of Ava labs, the team behind altcoin Avalanche
"I think most digital assets will continue to be correlated and move in tandem with bitcoin, but some blockchains and their cryptocurrencies such as ether can also be looked at from a stand-alone basis. The usual [fear, uncertainty, and doubt] can come out of nowhere and hammer down the crypto class as a whole, but some assets will be able to de-couple from the downside simply because the market participants don't care or see the current news having a long-term impact, likely due to their faith in the underlying technology. Governments proposing higher cap gains tax doesn't make any of the blockchain tech less desirable." - Justin Chuh, senior trader at Wave Financial, a regulated digital asset investment manager