Ether is a better commodity than Bitcoin, says NYU Professor
One crypto critic thinks Ether, not Bitcoin, has a better chance of becoming a commodity in a possible blockchain-based future. Aswath Damodaran, professor of finance at New York University’s Stern School of Business, has tipped Ether (ETH) as having a better chance of becoming a commodity than Bitcoin (BTC). Speaking to CNBC, the NYU professor argued that Ethereum’s upside potential outweighs that of Bitcoin in a possible future paradigm dominated by blockchain-based technology.
According to Damodaran, ETH will trump BTC as a better lubricant for blockchain commerce. As for Bitcoin, the NYU professor said that the premier crypto was a speculative play, adding: “All that bitcoin bulls seem to talk about, their biggest sales pitch for bitcoin is: ‘Look at how much money I’ve made on bitcoin.’ That’s it, that’s the end of the sales pitch. That’s not a sales pitch. That tells me nothing about the substance here.”
Indeed, decentralized finance as an emerging market segment has grown massively on the Ethereum network. According to DappRadar, the adjusted total value locked in ETH-based DeFi protocols is above $65 billion as of the time of writing. Earlier in May, Uniswap — an ETH-based decentralized exchange — flipped Bitcoin on daily revenue indicating the scale of the transaction volume disparity between Ethereum and Bitcoin.
Damodaran’s Bitcoin critique is not new as the NYU professor called BTC an “inefficient currency” earlier in May. Back in August 2017, Damodaran, popularly dubbed Wall Street’s “dean of valuation” described Bitcoin as a “pricing game with no good ending.”
The NYU professor of finance also called for a more nuanced crypto nomenclature that better captures the differences among existing cryptocurrencies. According to Damodaran, “I think we need to start to separate the crypto space into those cryptos that are trying to be currencies, those cryptos that are trying to be collectibles — millennial gold — and those cryptos that are actually commodities.” As previously reported, the crypto market is in the middle of a massive downtrend with Bitcoin dipping more than 30% in the last eight days. The total market capitalization has also taken a huge dent, losing over $800 billion within the same period.
Top Cryptocurrencies with Price Predictions
| # | Crypto | Prediction | Accuracy | CVIX | Price | 24h | 7d | Market Cap | 7d price change | |
| 1 |  BTC |
Bitcoin predictions | 75.6% | 41 | $24 129.38 | 4.39% | 4.16% | $461 254 701 638 |  |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 |  ETH |
Ethereum predictions | 65.6% | 74 | $1 804.53 | 5.98% | 8.69% | $219 936 602 750 |  |
|
| 3 |  USDT |
Tether predictions | 96% | 1 | $1.000145 | 0% | -0.01% | $66 486 165 109 |  |
|
| 4 |  USDC |
USD Coin predictions | 92.4% | 1 | $0.999924 | 0% | 0.01% | $54 212 170 056 |  |
|
| 5 |  BNB |
Binance Coin predictions | 72.4% | 61 | $331.99 | 4.39% | 16.48% | $53 562 837 067 |  |
|
| 6 |  XRP |
XRP predictions | 79.6% | 40 | $0.382330 | 2.12% | 1.69% | $18 483 019 171 |  |
|
| 7 |  ADA |
Cardano predictions | 74.8% | 52 | $0.543298 | 4.60% | 6.44% | $18 337 708 125 |  |
|
| 8 |  BUSD |
Binance USD predictions | 95.2% | 1 | $1.000576 | 0.04% | 0.21% | $17 888 223 823 |  |
|
| 9 |  SOL |
Solana predictions | 74.8% | 44 | $43.21 | 6.94% | 2.89% | $15 048 127 510 |  |
|
| 10 |  DOT |
Polkadot predictions | 69.2% | 58 | $9.31 | 8.45% | 10.51% | $10 288 809 309 |  |
|
| 11 |  STETH |
Lido stETH predictions | 92.8% | 1 | $2 941.39 | -0.40% | -3.32% | $10 258 752 564 |  |
|
| 12 |  HEX |
HEX predictions | 70% | 62 | $0.054472 | 8.20% | 10.77% | $9 446 016 831 |  |
|
| 13 |  DOGE |
Dogecoin predictions | 84% | 27 | $0.071055 | 2.78% | 4.16% | $9 426 956 868 |  |
|
| 14 |  AVAX |
Avalanche predictions | 69.2% | 69 | $30.28 | 10.86% | 30.10% | $8 614 953 421 |  |
|
| 15 |  MATIC |
Polygon predictions | 64% | 77 | $0.946930 | 3.64% | 4.99% | $7 608 398 583 |  |
