Bitcoin vs Ethereum: what is the difference?
Bitcoin and Ethereum get compared constantly, usually as rivals. They are better understood as projects with different goals that happen to share some plumbing. Comparing them on purpose, supply, consensus and usage is more useful than asking which one wins.
Different problems
Bitcoin was designed to be one thing done extremely conservatively: a decentralised monetary network with a fixed supply and a ledger nobody can rewrite. Changes are rare and deliberately hard to make.
Ethereum was designed as a general-purpose platform for programs (smart contracts) that run on a shared network. Its native asset exists largely to pay for that computation. The two are not competing to be the same thing.
Supply policy
This is the sharpest difference. Bitcoin's issuance is fixed: the block reward halves every 210,000 blocks and total supply is capped at 21 million. Nobody can alter that without effectively everyone agreeing.
Ethereum has no fixed cap. Its issuance is a policy that has changed over time, and a portion of transaction fees is burned, so net supply can rise or fall depending on network activity. One is a fixed schedule that participants enforce; the other is an adjustable one that the community can revise. That distinction shapes how each asset is argued about far more than any technical detail does.
How each reaches consensus
Bitcoin uses proof of work: miners expend electricity competing to add blocks, with difficulty adjusting to keep blocks arriving roughly every ten minutes.
Ethereum moved to proof of stake, where validators lock up the native asset as collateral and can lose it for misbehaving. Proof of work spends energy for security; proof of stake spends capital. Both trade-offs have serious advocates and serious critics.
What people actually use them for
Bitcoin is used predominantly as a long-term holding and as a settlement network for value transfer. Its deliberately limited scripting keeps the base layer simple and auditable.
Ethereum hosts applications: token issuance, lending protocols, exchanges, collectibles and more. Greater flexibility brings greater complexity, and complexity is where bugs and exploits live. A conservative base layer is harder to build interesting things on but also offers a smaller surface to attack. Neither profile is strictly better; they suit different purposes and different tolerances for risk.
Do you have to choose?
No, and framing it as a contest mostly generates arguments rather than understanding. They are different technologies with different risk profiles, and both are volatile.
Whatever you conclude, nothing here is a recommendation to buy either. You can compare their live market data side by side on the top 25 markets table. For background on Bitcoin's design, see how Bitcoin works and the halving.
Frequently asked questions
Is Ethereum a competitor to Bitcoin?
They overlap as investable assets but were built for different purposes: Bitcoin as a fixed-supply monetary network, Ethereum as a programmable platform. Many people follow both without treating it as a choice.
Does Ethereum have a supply cap like Bitcoin?
No. Bitcoin's 21 million cap is fixed in its protocol. Ethereum has no hard cap; its issuance has changed over time and a portion of fees is burned, so net supply varies with network activity.
Which one is more secure?
They secure themselves differently — proof of work spends energy, proof of stake spends staked capital — so the comparison is not like-for-like. Both have operated at large scale, and both carry substantial price risk regardless.