Update, May 3, 2018: Alexis Ohanian later amended his comments about the price of Ethereum, saying that he misspoke and meant to say that its price would reach $1,500 by year’s end. The text that follows reflects the article as originally published.
While Bitcoin may be the poster child of cryptocurrencies, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian thinks the second most valuable cryptocurrency by market capitalization, Ethereum, will be the real winner.
“I’m most bullish about Ethereum simply because people are actually building on it,” Ohanian told Fortune’s Term Sheet Tuesday. Ohanian has stepped back from Reddit’s day-to-day operations and now invests in firms including Coinbase via his venture capital firm, Initialized Capital.
Because developers have found it challenging to create applications based on the Bitcoin blockchain, finding Ethereum more flexible, Ohanian says he sees the price of Ethereum rising faster than the price of Bitcoin this year.
His prediction: While the price of Bitcoin will more than double by the end of the year, regaining it’s all-time high of $20,000, Ethereum will reach 21 times its current value — hitting $15,000 by the end of 2018. Bitcoin now stands at about $9,100, while Ethereum is valued at about $690. [Note: After publication, Ohanian said he misspoke. He meant to say Ethereum will be at $1,500.]
Developers have used Ethereum to create applications such as CryptoKitties, a blockchain-based game in which users breed virtual cats. Major firms including banking giant J.P. Morgan have also tested technology based on Ethereum.
Ethereum does have its competitors though, when it comes to developers seeking blockchains upon which to build their own applications.
Take, for example, Hyperledger, whose open-sourced blockchain framework Fabric underlies projects such as TrustChain, a blockchain project tracking diamonds. At the same time, firms such as Walmart have also used Hyperledger Fabric to test blockchain technology in tracking their food supply.
