Wow it takes a long time and a lot of effort to sift through and reach some level of understanding on cryptos. The politics, philosophy and economics of crypto .. oh yeah, and the scamcoins.
Tl;dr: I'm with Ethereum.
Please shoot me down if you can, heaven knows I am sick of coin forum echo chanbers!!
From a long term value standpoint the ETH model is hard to knock. Genuine groundbreaking disruption to a broad range of sectors.
What sets ETH apart for me is its value proposition and corporate model.
On the offering, it actually has a well defined service of wide value rather than a philosophy or an anarchic statement, That's a good start. And it certainly isn't a edge use case like 100% anonymity. The product is dynamite: near-frictionless, low cost and trust-free nature exchange of micro-services, plus easy access to the platform / tools / people to build what you need.
Usage examples, apologies if a bit crass:
1. content creator gets a micropayment from Coke every time any Netflix viewer watches a scene featuring a Coke product. Something like that can absolutely be done.
2. pay-as-you-go electronic components. Manufacturers could rent out rather than sell components and receive a small payment whenever the component is used.
ETH's business model straddles the old and new. You have service users (businesses making use of the network speed) paying, in ether, back into the DAO (essentially, a trustee board) for reinvestment. This is a virtuous circle, and for ETH holders, fantastic: we have a class of committed buyers, and no sellers.
It has been announced that there will be a cap on ether in circulation - a change from the original prospectus/manifesto/whatever you want to call it. For long term investment this is a valuable coin characteristic; with a debased currency/coin you are in effect always up to 6 or 7% underwater each year to begin with.
That change ^ and a number hard forks have been managed through with little fuss. The progress this has allowed ETH to make in a short time is evidence there may be a sensible balance in crypto between idealism and pragmatism which avoids the stagnation and conflict seen in bitcoin, while remaining true enough to crypto philosophy to please big customers and uphold security. In contrast, over at bitcoin the segwit storm became violent as early as 2015 and will not recede any time soon.
Bitcoin is the first mover, has the brand, is de facto crypto reserve currency and will be coin of choice for people wanting to do basic crypt stuff (remit cross border in non-instant transactions, avoid currency controls, opt out of fiat) for the foreseeable. There is a massive market for that. It is not backed by anything more than that though. ETH on the other hand has a becoming-proven path to market with large corporate customers and a rational business model for returning value to stakeholders.
The largest remaining risks I can see for ETH are
- in the short/medium term being tarnished by association with the inevitable failures, scams and turmoil from other coins failing left right and centre. Taking a 5 year view, it is what it is. Buckle up.
- in the medium term the project is open source and vulnerable to copycats. I'm ok wearing this risk; ETH will be as strong as its network of customers and users. ETH has first mover advantage and right now it is hard to see a competitor catch up with their pipeline.
I am in the process of accumulating ETH. I intend to get a smart contract to put them in a vault for ten years!