CRU Staff Ruins Vitalik Buterin’s Birthday
CRU staff celebrates Vitalik Buterin’s 28th birthday by picking their favorite ETH killer. Covered: Vitalik Buterin’s Birthday Ethereum Rivals Ethereum Dominance “Winner Takes All” Argument Crypto Mergers & Acquisitions Vitalik Buterin’s Birthday Vitalik Buterin turned 28 years old today....

CRU staff celebrates Vitalik Buterin’s 28th birthday by picking their favorite ETH killer.
Covered:
- Vitalik Buterin’s Birthday
- Ethereum Rivals
- Ethereum Dominance
- “Winner Takes All” Argument
- Crypto Mergers & Acquisitions
Vitalik Buterin’s Birthday
Vitalik Buterin turned 28 years old today. In case you just started reading about crypto today, Buterin is the co-founder of Ethereum, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency. Despite trailing Bitcoin, some like Ernst & Young believe that Ethereum is the project driving “innovation” in crypto. They’re right: DeFi, NFTs, and Play-To-Earn games started on top of the OG smart contract protocol.
It’s amazing to see everything Buterin has accomplished before turning 30. That said, will Ethereum be around when Buterin gets to the big 3-0?
Considering the many challengers coming for the throne, it’s hardly a given.
To ruin celebrate Vitalik’s birthday, CRU Staff picks who they think will potentially overtake Ethereum in the smart contract layer-1 war currently underway.
Spoiler alert: some of the staff is still very bullish on Ethereum.
Algorand Truther
Algorand has taken a truthful approach when bringing their value to market. They are decentralized through cryptographic sortition, a novel way to ensure total randomness in block verification, the chain is unforkable and quantum resilient, making it favourable for major institutions, and the team is by far the most premier on earth.
As Charles hoskinson said, “Silvio [Algorand founder] went and poached the entire blockchain team at IBM.” Algorand has the backing, the talent, and the truthfulness to become #1. Oh, and did I mention half the banks in El-Salvador use Algorand to use Bitcoin?
Nick, Staff Writer
Editor Note: if you follow Nick’s work, you shouldn’t be surprised by his choice at all.
SOLe Smart Contract Protocol
Solana has the potential to dethrone Ethereum because of its impressive speed and current real world use cases. Solana is catching up to ethereum with the amount of projects on its network, and it’s current transaction speed will still be faster than the “expected” upgrade to Ethereum’s network this year. Not to mention, Sam Bankman-Fried thinks they are one of the only chains with a plausible path in scaling to industry-scale usage.
Ryan, Staff Writer/Researcher
Ethereum NFTs And DeFi
I think Ethereum will ultimately win out — as long as it doesn’t get in its own way. As of today, almost all NFT value, and most of DeFi, is on Ethereum. With such a substantial lead already, that unless they stumble — which they very well might — I don’t see ETH losing this race.
Noah, Researcher
Polygon Matic: The Layer-2 Killer
I’ve got to go with my favorite Ethereum killer Polygon. MATIC is cheaper to use and faster to process smart contracts vs. Ethereum’s high gas fees and processing time. Nothing has made me appreciate Matic more than seeing how much less I’m spending on gas when I’m using Polygon Mainnet in MetaMask.
Lindsay, Researcher
Editor’s Note: It still astounds me how much cheaper Polygon is to use than Ethereum. If you want to learn how to use the Polygon Network to save on gas fees, click here.
Winners Take All
I believe the market is big enough for multiple players with not necessarily a “winner takes all” situation. Having said that, while Ethereum has the first mover advantage and its influence and presence can be seen in a myriad of other projects, Solana is an upcoming fierce competitor with its scalability. If Solana continues to run its course with even more adoption, we may have a clear winner of the smart contracts war in the end.
Tom, Researcher
Editor’s Note: I do think the “Winner takes all” argument doesn’t quite translate as well into the cryptosphere. Ultimately, what helps these protocols succeed are the “killer apps” built on smart contract protocols. And as it stands right now, so many of these layer-1s have their own community of passionate devs. There is a lot of talent, but most of it splintered. The next Facebook may be built on Ethereum, while the next Snapchat is on Fantom. Maybe even the next Google is on EOS. You never know!
ETH NFT Maxi?
I’m a big believer in ETH, even with its gas fee monopoly. My bullish stance comes from their tight hold of all blue chip NFT projects – currently and the ones to come. There’s definitely room in this space for competition, but even with the fees; people love ETH.
Cryptony, NFT Writer (also not an ETH NFT maxi, but plenty of those exist).
ETH Is Its Only Worst Enemy
I think Ethereum itself is the only true potential “ETH killer.” The lack of scalability still plaguing ETH’s path to mass adoption could send the top layer-1 to the grave as it’s competition — like Fantom — grows around it.
Brady, Staff Writer
Cardano/Algorand M&E
I do believe that ultimately Ethereum will be the big winner. The institutional buy in is significant, and it’s passionate community — keeping it afloat ahead of the protocol’s move to proof-of-stake — is enough to make me bullish on it longterm.
That said, I’d like to propose an alternative scenario. What if Cardano and Algorand merge? It’s pretty gross on a basic level — mergers and acquisitions are a tradfi thing — but it be interesting to see if two powerhouses could coexist enough to defeat the almighty Ethereum.
Obviously this presents technological issues — the protocol’s coding languages preclude a merger like the one we saw between NuCypher and Keep. But, I think think there is a way to merge their number go up technology, and use their pooled resources — while servicing different markets — to take control of the crypto market.
John Kaczur, Editor
If Ethereum Can’t Scale
I’m still bullish on Ethereum, but I think Polygon — my sleeper pick for 2022 — will take the lead if Ethereum can’t scale.
George Tung, Owner/Operator CryptosRus
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