Who will win the fight? Ryu, Ken, Mega Man or the Shovel Knight?
Imagine each coin represents a popular video game fighter.
Bitcoin is Ryu who is well rounded and respected.
Litecoin is Ken similar to Ryu but different enough that he can surprise you.
Ethereum is Mega Man he can take on all sorts of abilities and roles.
Ripple is Shovel Knight to him the whole world needs a shovel and if it does he’s highly effective.
Bitcoin
It was the first of it’s kind has a lot of fans. It is highly secure and decentralized. However, it has scalability issues and it’s transaction take a little too long. Regardless, if you believe in network effects (and I certainly do) then it is the most powerful cryptocurrency just as Ryu is the most powerful fighter.
Litecoin
Litecoin is like Ken; the little brother to Bitcoin. It’s code is based on Bitcoin and for the most part it does the same things. It’s weakness is that it’s network effect is not as strong but it implements new technology more often than Bitcoin and it is easier to mine and more scalable with much faster transactions.
Ethereum
Ethereum is designed as a smart contract platform; it has a few things in common with Bitcoin and Litecoin but for the most part is nothing like the rest. It is still decentralized and mined using a Proof of Work algorithm like Bitcoin and Litecoin. However, it is not designed to be a payment system; instead it is set up for making tokens, smart contracts and NFT’s. In fact, a large portion of the whole cryptocurrency ecosystem runs on this network.
Ripple
Ripple is the company that owns the coin XRP. XRP is premined and is not minting or mining any new coins. It is not decentralized like Bitcoin or Ethereum but it is more scalable. Most of all it is made for remittances and is set up so that banks can do wire transfers faster and more efficiently. It has one main mission; help banks send remittances faster and cheaper than the old SWIFT system.
My Thoughts
I think most of these coins are useful and worth holding.
I am not a fan of Ripple because I worry that other banks like JP Morgan will just come up with their own blockchain remittance system and skip XRP altogether. However, if they are able to get a significant amount of banks using XRP (and it could even be small country banks) then XRP will have long term intrinsic value. So, I think holding a small amount of XRP is not unreasonable just in case they are able to make the right partnerships.
I like Bitcoin and Litecoin because they are both decentralized, trustless and open. I feel that both Bitcoin and Litecoin have proven themselves as stores of value but Bitcoin is a better way to store value. Litecoin has more exciting new technologies like Mimble Wimble being implemented. Because Bitcoin is a better store of value I think it’s better to hold more Bitcoin than Litecoin but Litecoin is still worth holding.
Ethereum in many ways is the most exciting of the four projects. It has many different smart contracts and potentially some real killer apps running on it too. Between the Brave Browser, the Defi movement and ICO’s Ethereum has proven it has many uses. However, Ethereum also has scaling issues like Bitcoin and it has even more competitors. I can see projects like Cardano and Casper stealing Ether’s lunch money if they don’t upgrade soon.
Conclusion
Don’t pick one just buy all four. I would put 50% into Bitcoin because it has proven it’s here to stay and another 20% into Litecoin as well. I would then put 25% into Ether and 5% into XRP. You can easily buy all four cryptos with fiat currency at OKEx.. there is no reason to go all in. But if I had to go all in I would choose Bitcoin.
Thanks for your valuable time😍
