What's the difference between Bitcoin and Ethereum? - pnonplussed
======
cocktailpeanuts
Bitcoin was not designed as a state machine, but as a way to store
transactions which can be used to construct a state machine offchain.

Ethereum tries to implement a fully self contained state machine in its
system. This is where all its problems come from.

Because every Ethereum miner has to validate every transaction in the entire
network, a Proof of Work model is too inefficient for them so they have to
transition to Proof of Stake (Whether this will succeed or not, or whether it
will even launch or not, is outside of this topic). This is also why Ethereum
transaction fees are so high nowadays.

Also because the main design goal of Ethereum was to make a "Turing complete
blockchain" (which it technically isn't), it had to add a new concept called
"gas", which adds an additional layer of complexity (compared to bitcoin).
This gas concept has resulted in all kinds of UX challenges.

Bitcoin has its own flaws too. Most Bitcoin investors no longer believe
Bitcoin was meant to be used for transactions, but just as a way to store
value, like digital gold. So there's not much you can do with it other than
speculative investment, hoping that the price will skyrocket at some point.
Basically, it's not really interesting for most hackers, it's become a wall
street toy.

~~~
sushshshsh
It can still be used for transactions, just very slow ones. There's no need to
use it to buy a cup of coffee, but I'm hoping it can still be used to send $5
to someone and just have it take days to arrive.

~~~
cocktailpeanuts
> I'm hoping it can still be used to send $5 to someone and just have it take
> days to arrive

Here's the thing. Why would anyone want to do that?

1\. First world people living a privileged life: Why would any idiot in this
category send $5 and wait for days to arrive when they can just use Venmo or
all kinds of upcoming payment systems from the big tech cos like Google,
Facebook, Apple, etc.?

2\. People in non first world countries: Bitcoin can only facilitate 1MB of
transactions per block. The poor people will be priced out of ever using
Bitcoin if Bitcoin was used for transactions. These people won't use bitcoin,
they will use whatever that's cheapest. Even the ones who "store" their value
in Bitcoin will never use Bitcoin for transactions, just for storing.

~~~
sushshshsh
Hmmm, definitely you're right...

Even if I was to have 0.002 BTC or whatever in my wallet file, and I just gave
this wallet to my friend for him to spend, he will still face this issue of
fees when he goes to spend it.

The issue is that Bitcoin is much more liquid and legitimate than other coins
like Litecoin or Ethereum, which are technically more fungible but not
accepted in as many places.

------
tromp
Bitcoin vs Ethereum

premine: 0% vs 70%

reward schedule: set in stone vs subject to change

philosophy: immutable vs experimental

blocktime: 10 min vs 13 sec

balances: utxo-based (unspent transaction output) vs account-based

scripting: branchless programs vs stateful & Turing complete

complexity: low vs high

