Even with a market capitalization well over $ 1.2 trillion, Bitcoin is not everyone’s favorite cryptocurrency. Kenneth Griffin, the CEO of American hedge fund, Citadel, recently shared his views on why he believes Ethereum will ultimately replace Bitcoin as the king coin.
At a summit hosted by The New York Times, the billionaire said:
“Bitcoin-based design [will be] replaced by the Ethereum-based design in the next generation of cryptocurrencies.
According to him, this is because cryptocurrencies based on the Ethereum network have “the benefits of higher transaction speeds [and] lower cost per transaction.” [and] lower cost per transaction. While Ethereum’s average transaction fee was $ 6.6 at the time of writing, a transaction on the Bitcoin network costs $ 3,443.
However, Ethereum’s transaction fee and time are slated to go down significantly once the network fully transitions to ETH 2.0 by next year. Griffin reiterated his skepticism of Bitcoin by stating that the digital asset has “no business use cases.”
He also added, “Bitcoin is incredibly expensive to manage payments on.” It should be noted that while Bitcoin transaction costs have dropped significantly over the past month. Major card payment providers like American Express and Mastercard charge anywhere between 1.5% to 3.5% per transaction.
Continuing his tirade against the best coin, the CEO asserted that Bitcoin is also “a greater contributor to global warming than any form of payment we use in the world today as a whole.” According to a recent report by Digiconomist, Bitcoin’s annual carbon footprint amounts to around 90.48 tonnes of CO2. This equates to each transaction on the network equivalent to the carbon footprint of 2,008,657 VISA transactions.
While Bitcoin’s extravagant energy usage has been a point of contention for many, miners of the cryptocurrency are now coming up with ingenious ways to utilize renewable energy resources or surplus energy that would have otherwise been wasted, such as flare gas.
Nonetheless, Griffin believes that “there are a number of issues that have not been solved by crypto,” such as the high risk of fraud as well as increased costs and energy expenditure.
During the summit, he also noted that while blockchain technology itself is “really interesting” and “a powerful way to maintain a decentralized ledger around the world,” it’s ultimately “really not the solution that we need” to solve most of the world’s problems. He added,
“People are very focused on a world of new ideas and new creations. I worry that some of this passion is misplaced when it comes to cryptocurrencies.”
When asked the longtime crypto-critic if he thought he missed the crypto train, he said:
“I think that the train is, in some sense, still in the station…. I think it’s very much in the early innings still.”
Putting cryptocurrency aversion aside, Griffin’s preference for Ethereum is currently shared by many other players in the industry. Just recently, analysts at JP Morgan said that while Bitcoin had probably reached the highest levels for this cycle, Ethereum was poised to reach higher highs due to its varied use cases and intended shift to Proof of Stake that will significantly reduce its energy consumption.
