As a person interested in Blockchain and having been involved for a couple of years now I have of course noticed the massive gains in the price of Ether. In the last couple of weeks all time highs have been reached. A lot of it has probably got to do with Enterprise Ethereum and how big financial institutions are now looking into the technology.
I think we may be in the early stages where there is a shift of how Ethereum is becoming viewed by the greater public.
When I talk to people about Blockchain they will tend to ask me “What’s that?”. But then I go on to say “Do you know Bitcoin?” and enough people will understand what I am on about.
We can go on to debate about which Blockchain has the superior technology fundamentals and ends up being the one most widely adopted but I wont do that here.
I have however been wondering when Ethereum will become a more familiar term with the public. What are the implications of the price of Ether then?
Ethereum Trend vs Ether Price
Google has this cool feature that lets you see trends for key terms. I can use this to see if there is a correlation between the key word Ethereum and if the price of Ether is connected somehow.
I put some markers on the chart to point some things out. Now looking at the price chart of Ether for the same period…
Now I’m no genius but it’s pretty obvious to me that the 4 points on each chart are closely related:
- The peaks for A and X both occur around 4 January 2016
- B and X occur on 3 March 2016
- C and Y occur on 13 March 2016
- D and Z on 17 March 2016
Coincidence? I think not! Now this is great and all but it’s still in the past and not predicting future behaviour so I kinda still need to keep my day job.
“The Flippening”
Recently there has been some chatter from a newly coined term in the online Blockchain community known as The Flippening. The Flippening refers to the moment in time where another Blockchain such as Ethereum becomes the more dominant over Bitcoin. The easiest way to measure this event is probably the market capitalisation of the cryptocurrencies. For most of 2016 the market capitalisation of Bitcoin was at 10 times that of Ethereum so it hasn’t happened yet. Ethereum still has a ways to go but there is strong debate between the two communities if or when this will happen anytime soon.
And btw why are there such strong communities pro Bitcoin and pro Ethereum who keep trolling each other. Why can’t we just all get along?
Google trends still shows Bitcoin as having way more interest over Ethereum.
This shows me that there is still a massive gap between Ethereum and Bitcoin. The red Ethereum line isn’t even trending towards Bitcoin anytime soon unless you put more into that little red bump right at the end there.
But wait, there is more!
China, Ethereum and Bitcoin
For the above charts I used the Worldwide trends figures. Going further and just limiting the results to China we can see that Bitcoin and Ethereum is kinda trending in a very similar way. I know Google is blocked in China but the results still have some merit???
Why you should care:
FYI the 3 biggest Chinese cryptocurrency exchanges Okcoin, Huobi and BTCC do not offer Ethereum trading. When China is arguably the biggest player in Bitcoin trading this presents some interesting future possibilities.
I read somewhere that it’s because these Crypto exchanges have interests in Bitcoin mining farms. Some figures estimate that 80% of Bitcoin mining is from China. If that is the case then it makes sense for the exchanges to protect their own interests in Bitcoin. How long this continues for is anyones guess. The appetite for Ethereum may eventually lead to pressures on greater Ethereum trading in China.
Which leads to…
The Big Question
What happens when the big Chinese exchanges allow for Ethereum trading? If the trends show equal interest in both Bitcoin and Ethereum will we see increased trading volumes of Ethereum to match that of Bitcoin? Will it be the trigger for the actual The Flippening?
