Bitcoin vs. Waves: What’s the Difference?
As 2022 arrives, we’re looking at a huge field of cryptocurrencies, ever-expanding into new territory with over 15,000 total assets available.
New projects are appearing all the time, many of which are well deserving of skepticism.
But as the crypto space grows, new investors are still focused on the largest, most influential assets – namely Bitcoin, which hit all-time highs of nearly $70,000 in November 2021.
Bitcoin is considered the first crypto to make a global impact, but there is another longstanding coin that’s worth our attention: Waves.
In this article, we’re making a head-to-head comparison of Bitcoin and Waves to see what these two assets have in common and how they differ.
We’ll learn about the technologies that power these coins, how their prices have moved over the years, and whether they should earn a spot in your watchlist or portfolio.
What To Know About Waves
By now, most of us have the basics of Bitcoin well understood.
That’s why we’ll start by looking at Waves before we compare these two assets.
Waves Basics
When we learn about a new crypto asset, it's a common question: Is this a coin, a token, or something else?
In the case of Waves, the answer is more complex. Waves is an entire open blockchain protocol and an ecosystem for developers.
The Waves protocol is based on the distributed ledger system that makes blockchain technology unique and powerful.
Immediately, this makes Waves strikingly different from many of the tokens we hear about in crypto headlines, most of which are based on the Ethereum blockchain and don’t offer much in terms of proprietary value.
As an asset, Waves considers itself a token, as described in its whitepaper. However, it’s more accurate to describe Waves as a coin, representing the one native asset on its platform.
Semantics aside, Waves is a legitimate, widely supported crypto project with an established presence in the community and plenty of upside potential moving forward.
The Beginning of Waves
Alexander (Sasha) Ivanov is the Russian founder of Waves, who began his journey with a bachelor’s degree in theoretical physics from the University of Moscow.
He started exploring internet payment systems and software around Bitcoin’s release more than a decade ago.
By 2016, Ivanov had created a unique blockchain protocol, the largest crowdfunded Blockchain project behind Ethereum.
Staying true to his roots as a physicist, Ivanov chose the name Waves to discover gravitational waves predicted by Einstein in the mid-20th century.
While Bitcoin’s founder, Satoshi Nakamoto, is a mysterious figure without a public presence, the founder of Waves is very much in the spotlight, promoting his creation and actively participating in the crypto space.
You can even follow Ivanov on Twitter to get a glimpse of his thoughts about crypto and the world of tech and finance at large.
Applications
Apart from being a standalone asset that you can add to your portfolio, Waves is a complete platform for developers with ideas for decentralized applications, services, games, and more.
Waves brings a lot of tools to the table for developers to build on top of the blockchain network, allowing them to create apps, services, and decentralized finance opportunities for the future.
If anything, Waves is closer to Ethereum, Solana, or Cardano in terms of its use cases and possibilities for dApps, giving it a strong edge over many of the newly released crypto assets of the past several years.
Bitcoin vs. Waves Statistics
With a basic understanding of the Waves platform in place, let’s look at how it stacks up compared to the undisputed king of crypto, Bitcoin.
Popularity and Price
Nobody can dispute that Bitcoin beats waves in adoption, investment, and overall hype. The Bitcoin bandwagon is at full steam ahead moving in 2022, and despite some recent price dips, all-time highs remain close in the rearview mirror.
More than a trillion dollars is currently invested in Bitcoin, and enthusiastic investors are eager to push the already-impressive price ever higher.
While Waves might not have the user base or market cap to go head-to-head with Bitcoin, it’s certainly no slouch in terms of size, influence, and price.
The price of Waves at the initial release was only $0.1 per coin, but that price has fluctuated with the crypto market over the past five years.
The bull run of late 2017 brought the price of Waves over $13, followed by a drop back to around a dollar.
In May of 2021, the Waves price bounced briefly to over $37 per coin, and after six months, the price settled around $17.
With a nearly $2 billion market cap and a top-100 ranking on CoinMarketCap, plugged-in crypto investors look at Waves as a serious contender.
Security and Speed
When gauging the utility of a coin like Bitcoin or Waves, we need to look at key metrics like the network’s speed, how many transactions it can process at a time, how the fee structure works, and other factors like security, privacy, and anonymity.
Waves appears to surpass Bitcoin as a faster and more affordable option. While the average transaction fee for Bitcoin is around $30, a Waves transaction only costs a fraction of a cent.
Waves are also extremely secure and have had no issues for vulnerabilities, corruption, or concerns related to privacy.
Time will tell whether the Waves blockchain will hold up in terms of volume and security, but for now, the fundamentals are holding strong and give many top networks a run for their money.
Possibilities
Bitcoin may be viewed as digital gold and a rock-solid store of value, but Waves may have more potential for building, creating, and altering the world of tech and finance.
So far, we have seen Defi exchanges built from the ground up with Waves, in addition to NFT gaming, marketplaces, lending platforms, stablecoins, and more.
It’s unlikely that Waves will dismantle Bitcoin in terms of pure market cap and adoption, but crypto speculators can also see opportunity knocking for Waves in the long term.
How To Get Bitcoin and Waves
Acquiring Bitcoin and Waves requires different methods, but you can easily do both.
Buying and Trading
Bitcoin is nearly universal and can be picked up on every centralized exchange and many traditional finance platforms like PayPal.
On the other hand, Waves is not so widespread, and first-time buyers will need a designated wallet (Trust Wallet, Ledger, or others) or use the dedicated Waves.Exchange platform to buy.
Leasing and Lending
The Waves Exchange is an amazing place to explore the possibilities of decentralized finance, including mechanisms for significant annual returns.
There is a lot to love about this platform, with the Waves blockchain at its core, from leasing and lending to staking, swapping, and algorithmic trading.
Mining
Crypto mining is a popular way to earn digital assets by building and securing the blockchain by contributing computing power.
This can be done on the Bitcoin or Waves network through DIY mining, cloud mining, or large, established enterprise mining operations.
What the Future Holds for Bitcoin and Waves
Both Bitcoin and Waves have a bright future in store as cryptocurrency adoption continues. Keep an eye on both, and perhaps they will help you reach the financial goals in your sights.
Visit Gryphon Digital Mining for more Bitcoin updates.
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