Ethereum Is Most Profitable Investment Of The Decade After Bitcoin

Rounding up the best investments in the 2010s, the most profitable among asset classes are cryptocurrencies. The breakthrough technology with its forerunner in Bitcoin (BTC) has led a decade of astronomical returns for those who believed early on in what this breed of new "investments" has in store.

Bitcoin has been crowned by Bank of America Securities recently as the best investment of the decade, noting that a dollar invested in Bitcoin in its early days would be worth about $90,000 at today's prices. On the other hand, Ethereum, the second-most popular cryptocurrency by market cap, is second to Bitcoin in the same category.

Decrypt recounted the assets that performed exceptionally well in the 2010s, and what it came up with is a list of 10 stocks and two cryptos, along with the percentage of how each has appreciated.

Bitcoin overall is up +62,500%, and that's in spite of sinking from its 2017 high of $20,000. Although it can't hold a candle to BTC, ETH has been remarkable in its own right, accelerating to +17,900% from when it started trading back in 2015 and like Bitcoin, that price appreciation encompasses the ICO mania that drove ETH to above $1,300.

But what's interesting about Ether, the native token of the Ethereum network, is that it was not created to function in the same way that BTC was intended for. Satoshi Nakamoto was explicit in what BTC's purpose is, and that's to serve as a store and transfer of value without the need of a central authority, kind of "digital dollar" without the central bank.

Conversely, Ether was created as a utility or a way to pay for transactions for those developers who use the Ethereum network. But the market seems to have categorized them to just one asset class that, despite their differences, the entire basket of cryptos moves in synchrony. The Bitcoin halving, for instance, is widely viewed as beneficial for the whole crypto market even though it's an entirely BTC event -- Ether doesn't even have a supply limiting function.

As the clock winds down in 2019, the next ten years will hopefully shine more clarity to investors who wish to understand the significant differences in cryptocurrencies. If the world embraces the blockchain technology, investors should be able to discern cryptos from one another and not just label them collectively as speculative instruments.