If you’ve looked at the top-ranked cryptocurrencies today, then there’s no doubt that Bitcoin and Avalanche have come up. And attempting to determine which you should buy can be a challenge, but don’t worry.
This article will go through the history, purpose, pricing, market cap, risks, and other topics pertinent to these cryptocurrencies to help you make a better-informed decision.
History
A cryptocurrency’s history is vital as it can help us understand how it came to be, what it is today, and what this says about its trajectory going forward.
Bitcoin (BTC)
Bitcoin has a fascinating history, and, despite common belief, it’s not the first cryptocurrency that was made – it’s merely the first coin that became this popular. Bitcoin was created in 2008 (and then launched in 2009) in response to the financial crisis that involved extreme stress in financial markets globally.
Bitcoin was the anarchistic solution to the problem at hand; it was an attempt to create a decentralized currency and exchange completely free from reliance on financial regulatory bodies and the central bank.
One can argue about the success of its attempts to be a decentralized currency, especially considering how 27% of all Bitcoin is owned by 0.01% of Bitcoin holders. We could argue further that the vast majority of Bitcoin is owned by a slightly larger percentage.
Avalanche (AVAX)
Avalanche was launched in 2020 and was intended to be an affordable, versatile and secure blockchain for trading digital smart assets. It was made with a cap of 720 million tokens and boasts high uptimes and quick response times.
Emin Gün Sirer and a team of Cornell University researchers developed the Avalanche network and made the AVA codebase open-source and available to the general public after development.
What It Does & Why It Was Created
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies serve a purpose: let’s explore what this is.
Bitcoin (BTC)
Bitcoin acts as and was always intended to be a decentralized means of making exchanges online. You can also use it to purchase items from various online stores, including Shopify, Home Depot, and Overstock.
Bitcoin is also a popular investment, with many swearing by its anticipated success.
Avalanche (AVAX)
The Avalanche ecosystem is a platform that lets anyone make and run DeFi applications; it also has its own token, AVAX. The blockchain is a rival of Ethereum because, like the crypto giant, it uses smart contracts to support different blockchain projects.
It also boasts an exchange chain that allows exchanges between assets, a platform chain that performs various functions (such as coordinating validators), and a contract chain that allows for smart contracts to be made.
As of right now, Avalanche boasts several pros that make it a strong competitor to Ethereum, such as having a transaction speed of 4 500 transactions per second, whereas Ethereum is capped at around 15.
Price History
Every cryptocurrency has had a somewhat inconsistent price history. This is due to the nature of cryptocurrencies and their dependence on investors to persuade the market.
Bitcoin (BTC)
Bitcoin has a very volatile price history. Long-term Bitcoin investors will be well aware of the emotional stress of the significant fluctuations during the bull markets. Particularly in 2021, when Bitcoin was valued at over 60 thousand dollars, only to drop down to the price it holds today at just over $19,000.
However, about a decade ago, we’d not be talking about these numbers; we’d not even be looking at triple figures. Bitcoin has many years of being worth well less than $100. In fact, on its first release, it was valued at well under a dollar.
Bitcoin saw its most significant improvements from 2017 onwards but has seen sharp, followed by steady declines since 2021.
Avalanche (AVAX)
Initially valued at just a few dollars, AVAX stagnated in price for quite a few months before spiking during the 2021 bull market (when cryptocurrencies increase in value and market trends are positive). It spiked on two occasions to over $100 and then rose and dropped inconsistently until its decline today, where it currently holds a worth of $14.93.
Market Cap
The market cap is the value of every coin that has been mined of a particular cryptocurrency. It’s an important metric that can be determined by multiplying the circulating supply by the price of a single coin.
Bitcoin (BTC)
Bitcoin’s market cap has remained steadily above the rest for a long time. The coin commands a dominating presence in the crypto market and will continue for the foreseeable future.
It currently boasts a market cap of $364,458,138,039, which would classify it as a large-cap cryptocurrency (a cryptocurrency with a market cap of over $ 100,000,000,000).
At the time of writing this, Bitcoin has a 24-hour trading volume of $28,055,932,713.
Avalanche (AVAX)
Currently holding a position as 18th in the world cryptocurrencies, AVAX boasts a market cap of nearly four and a half billion dollars. This would make it a mid-cap cryptocurrency (one with a market cap of between 1-10 billion dollars). It also has a 24-hour trading volume of just over 270 million dollars.
Main Similarities
Bitcoin and Avalanche are in the top rankings of global cryptocurrencies. So while very different in many ways, they’ve both been very successful as traded cryptocurrencies on the market.
Main Differences
The Avalanche platform boasts much faster transaction speeds than Bitcoin, hundreds of times faster. This, along with how its capable of supporting various blockchain-based projects, makes it not only a faster but a very different system; Bitcoin consists of only one blockchain network.
Avalanche transaction fees are also much lower than Bitcoin’s.
Risks
Are there any risks to buying these cryptocurrencies? What should investors know before even considering making a crypto purchase? We’re going to explore these questions and more in the next section.
Bitcoin (BTC)
Bitcoin and all other cryptocurrencies are at massive risk of tight regulation. India has imposed a 30% tax on crypto transactions, and China has made it illegal for citizens to hold or mine cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency poses a threat to the government’s control of the monetary supply.
Bitcoin does not compare to other payment networks with a much higher capacity to process transactions. For example, Visa can process 65,000 transactions each second, thousands of times faster than Bitcoin. That means that if Bitcoin desires to be used in day-to-day transactions, this needs to improve.
Avalanche (AVAX)
Although it boasts low transaction fees, it doesn’t change that AVAX is considered a risky investment. If you opt to purchase Avalanche, make sure not to put all your money into this cryptocurrency alone.
Remember, investments are always made at your own risk.
Where You Can Buy It
Where can you buy Bitcoin and Ethereum-rival Avalanche? That’s what we’re going to explore in the following paragraphs.
Bitcoin (BTC)
Because of the popularity of Bitcoin, you can buy it easily from various crypto exchanges, including Coinmama, Bisq, Coinbase, eToro, Kraken, and Binance.
Make sure you evaluate each exchange to determine which offers the best deal for you regarding withdrawal fees, deposits, and other variables such as ease of use: consider how while eToro is the best for beginners, Bisq is the best for privacy.
You might also be able to buy Bitcoin from stock brokers who, while providing stocks, mutual funds and various investment vehicles, also let investors purchase cryptocurrencies.
Avalanche (AVAX)
You can trade and buy AVAX and different crypto exchanges such as Krane, Crypto.com, and Coinbase. Because of its popularity, finding a platform that trades in AVAX will not be very difficult.
How You Can Exchange Bitcoin for Avalanche
Because Bitcoin is valued so much higher than Avalanche, the exchange may seem unbalanced, but we assure you that it’s entirely fair and based on current market prices. The exchange range of a single Bitcoin to Avalance is 1245.4355 AVAX.
You’ll be able to make the exchange on various applications, such as Atomic Wallet; you’d merely have to select the cryptos you’d like to exchange, add a wallet address, and make the transaction.
Future Plans
So, what does the future hold for crypto giant Bitcoin and ambitious crypto coin Avalanche? Let’s look at this, in detail, in the following paragraphs.
Bitcoin (BTC)
The future of crypto, and Bitcoin specifically, lies in governments and regulators globally who currently have mixed ideas about it. For example, as we mentioned, China has made crypto mining and transactions illegal, while the U.S has put together a team to get the crypto regulation process in motion.
How this is done and how the world proceeds to respond to cryptocurrency will impact its future. In this sense, the future is quite uncertain for Bitcoin, which finds itself a target of regulation as the world’s most popular cryptocurrency.
Projections, however, seem pretty positive for Bitcoin. Many consider it to be the digital gold of the 21st century. Bitcoin enthusiasts state that the following years up to the next decade will show Bitcoin going to the hundreds of thousands of dollars and even more, up to a million dollars.
Avalanche (AVAX)
AVAX could reach $ 100 by 2025 and $ 65 by 2023, according to various crypto experts. Tamer Avalanche claims put AVAX between $20 and $ 25 for the next two years, only reaching $ 30 by 2025. It’s hard to know what the future holds for the Avalanche platform.
Sources:
https://www.coindesk.com/price/bitcoin/
https://www.coinbase.com/learn/crypto-basics/what-is-market-cap
https://www.fool.com/investing/2022/05/11/here-are-bitcoins-3-biggest-risks/
https://www.thebalancemoney.com/best-places-to-buy-bitcoin-4170081
https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/cryptocurrency/best-place-buy-bitcoin/
https://atomicwallet.io/btc-to-avax-exchange
https://changelly.com/blog/avalanche-price-prediction/
https://www.investopedia.com/avalanche-avax-definition-5217374
https://ycharts.com/indicators/avalanche#:~:text=Basic%20Info,71.35%25%20from%20one%20year%20ago