Ethereum For Digital Asset Investors
If Bitcoin is a ledger, then Ethereum (ETH) is Excel; programmable to allow for a wide range of applications. ETH was the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization in October.
Since 2013, Pantera has been one of the first US institutional asset managers to invest in blockchain startups and digital asset enterprises.
What is Ethereum?
The brainchild of Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum expands on Bitcoin’s underlying transaction technology by making it programmable. This allows for smart contracts, markets, shared ledgers & other endless possibilities that need immutable data & agreements. Smart contracts have also triggered a new wave of consulting services that specialize in implementation.
The Ethereum community has done a lot of work to evolve token contract design to support real world use cases. As a result, developers have an extensive selection of contract specifications to choose from.
October saw the launch of a new monolithic blockchain that promises a better mix of speed & cost than Ethereum. Aptos (APT) is built on the Rust language Move & uses parallel executto run transactions more efficient than other layer 1 blockchains. Among other things, this allows for faster confirmation times. It’s unclear whether Aptos will attract significant adoption. In the short term, ETH continues to benefit from its position as the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap.
What is the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)?
The Ethereum virtual machine is the core of the blockchain platform and allows developers to write smart contracts. It executes these contracts using an international network of public nodes. The ethereum blockchain has its own currency called Ether which is use to pay for processing these transactions.
Ethereum is an open-source software and has a large community that supports it. Ethereum’s technology is useful for creating apps and holding assets without being controllby a central authority. It also provides a platform for transactinand communicati without censored.
The price of Ethereum is influenced by global economic conditions and innovation within the network. For example, if there is a period of increased economic uncertainty investors may seek out cryptocurrency assets like Ethereum as a safe haven asset. Also, innovation within the Ethereum network such as the Merge upgrade can cause the price of ETH to rise as new users flock to the platform.
What is a Smart Contract?
A smart contract is a software protocol that allows users to create and execute self-executing agreements on the Ethereum blockchain. This is a core component of decentralized applications (dApps) and provides a high level of security and transparency compared to traditional centralized systems.
The technology of smart contracts is use across a variety of different industry sectors, includ decentraliz cloud comput and ident management. This research explores a new approach for resource scheduling in a decentralized cloud environment using smart contracts, with the goal of increasing efficiency and decreasing costs.
Beyond Bitcoin, LLC is focus on these excit developments in the crypto space and has creat a series of digital asset indices designed to provide exposure to these sub-sectors. These include the Web3 Sector Leaders Index, Metaverse Index, NFT Index, and a number of Layer 1 and Layer-2 scaling solutions. These indices are available as separately managed accounts (SMA) model portfolios, with weightings and diversification more closely aligned with what investors would expect in professionally managed investment vehicles in other asset classes.
What is Ether?
As digital currency interest continues to grow, two firms have taken steps to introduce products that give investors exposure to ethereum. Last week, Purpose Investments announced the launch of its first Ether-focused exchange-traded fund (ETF). Also on Friday, Bakkt Holdings (NYSE:BKKT), a bitcoin futures trading company owned by Intercontinental Exchange, said it will “soon” offer the ability to buy, sell and store ether alongside bitcoin.
The Ethereum blockchain’s open-source rails enable a wide array of decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, including lending, exchange, and yield-producing protocols. Increasingly, these apps are design to replace intermediary services that rely on central actors.
Grayscale says ETH exhibits “money-like properties” through its necessity in payment for transactions on the Ethereum network and its use as collateral with lending and borrowing protocols. Moreover, the upcoming Ethereum 2.0 upgrade will add the capability for users to stake ETH in exchange for a reward, further demonstrating its money-like properties and decreasing sell pressure on transaction fees that fuel the price of ETH.
