Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tether: Shaping the Future of Finance

Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tether: The Crypto Giants Shaping the Future of Finance

In recent years, the growing popularity of cryptocurrencies has undisputedly changed the world of finance. Cryptocurrencies impact the gambling industry too, with an increasing number of poker and casino sites adding cryptos to their payment methods.

In this article, we will dissect the three most popular cryptos by market capitalization: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Tether (USDT).

These three digital assets serve vastly different purposes: Bitcoin is used as digital gold, Ethereum is the backbone of decentralized applications, and Tether is a so-called ‘stablecoin’ that anchors crypto volatility.

Whether you are looking to invest or just want to avoid KYC identification on gambling sites by using cryptocurrencies, our article aims to arm you with the insights needed to navigate the fast-evolving crypto-world.

Bitcoin (BTC): The digital gold standard

Bitcoin, launched in 2009 by an unknown person or group under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, is the first cryptocurrency to solve the double-spending problem through blockchain technology.

In digital currency systems, double-spending was a huge problem as the same unit of currency could be spent more than once. Blockchain technology solved this issue through decentralization, consensus mechanisms, and cryptographic verification.

Designed to be a peer-to-peer electronic cash system, Bitcoin’s price surge led it to be a kind of store of value, often dubbed as ‘digital gold’.

Why Bitcoin dominates

Bitcoin’s rising price is mostly due to its fixed supply. The cryptocurrency is capped at 21 million coins, with 19.84 million in current circulation as of April 2025. Bitcoin’s scarcity is similar to that of precious metals, and it drives its value proposition.

Another driving force behind Bitcoin’s price is the so-called ‘halving events’. The coin’s mining rewards are cut in half every four years, which reduces new supply, and usually triggers bullish (upward trending) runs on the market.

An important characteristic of Bitcoin that contributed to its popularity is that it is completely decentralized. Its complete decentralization means that no single legal entity controls the currency, which makes it resistant to possible government interference, such as arbitrary inflation. This cannot be said of traditional ‘fiat currencies’, which are government-issued and are not backed by precious metal, so they can be inflated at will.

These factors led not only private persons, but quite a few companies to invest in Bitcoin too, as a treasury reserve asset. MicroStrategy Inc., an American development company in the business intelligence industry, holds more than 500,000 BTC (more than $42 billion) as of April 2025.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs (exchange-traded funds) like BlackRock’s iShares BitcoinTrust ($IBIT) have also brought institutional liquidity into the market in the past years since its launch in 2024.

Challenges & criticism

Despite Bitcoin’s huge success so far, the pioneering cryptocurrency faces several challenges and criticism.

The most commonly repeated argument against Bitcoin is that it has scalability issues: the cryptocurrency’s network can only process around 7 transactions per second, which makes it far slower than Visa, which can process 24,000 transactions per second. There are solutions underway for this problem, for example, the Lightning Network, which aims to enable fast, cheap, and scalable transactions by moving most Bitcoin payments off the main blockchain. While this technology might be promising, it is still very much underutilized.

Another big argument against Bitcoin is about its sustainability. Bitcoin mining consumes around ~150 TWh of energy every year, which is more than some small countries’ energy consumption. Mining with renewable energy is on the rise, though: some estimates suggest that more than half of Bitcoin mining is green already.

Bitcoin also might face regulatory pressure in the future, because governments fear its potential use for tax evasion and illicit transactions. In 2021, Bitcoin experienced a temporary hashrate drop (a reduction in the network’s total computational power) because the Chinese government issued a mining ban.

The future of Bitcoin

At the end of 2024, the price of a single Bitcoin reached $100,000, and even though the price fell in February 2025, the currency’s institutional adoption is still on the rise. It seems that Bitcoin might be a long-term store of value competing with gold, and could also be used to hedge against inflation amid global economic instability.

Ethereum (ETH): The world’s decentralized computer

Ethereum launched in 2015, six years after Bitcoin introduced blockchain technology to the world. While Bitcoin’s blockchain was mainly designed for peer-to-peer payments, Ethereum’s inventor, Vitalik Buterin, and his team wanted to expand the blockchain’s utility by allowing smart contract functionality.

Smart contracts are programmable, self-executing agreements that run when certain conditions are met. These contracts enable decentralized applications (dApps) that operate without any intermediaries like banks or tech companies.

Ethereum’s Innovations

While Bitcoin is ‘just’ digital money on a blockchain, Ethereum’s blockchain is programmable, which opened the door for groundbreaking innovations in the world of cryptos.

EVM

The heart of these innovations is the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), which is a decentralized computer that powers the cryptocurrency itself. This EVM executes the smart contracts by processing transactions in a secure environment.

The EVM is Turing-complete, which means that it can perform any computation if it has enough resources. This makes it very flexible for developers who can write code and develop dApps without needing to trust each other or a central authority, because trust is placed in decentralized consensus mechanisms. The EVM powers DeFi, NFTs, and DAOs.

DeFi

DeFi or Decentralized Finance means that Ethereum’s smart contracts make financial services possible without banks or any intermediaries, for example,e by automated loans with collateral enforced by the smart contracts.

DeFi services include lending and borrowing (via Aave and Compound), decentralized exchanges (via Uniswap and SushiSwap), and stablecoin issuance (via MakerDAO).

Total Value Locked (TVL) in DeFi peaked at $180 billion in 2021, with Ethereum hosting ~60% of all DeFi protocols.

NFTs

Ethereum’s standards also allow unique digital assets to be created, owned, and traded. NFTs work through smart contracts too, which verify their scarcity and their ownership on the blockchain.

NFTs can be digital art, such as those sold on CryptoPunks or the Bored Ape Yacht Club, or virtual real estate sold on Decentraland. NFTs’ price varies, with some worth practically nothing, while some sell for millions of dollars, like Beeple’s $69 million artwork sold during the 2021 NFT boom.

NFTs are now present in music and literature, too, with artists and authors releasing their albums and books in the form of non-fungible tokens. What’s more, brands like Samsung or Adidas buy virtual land to ‘build’ virtual stores on.

DAOs

Ethereum also enables DAOs, or Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, which many claim to be the future of society. These leaderless communities are governed by code and the votes of their members.

A DAO worth mentioning is MakerDAO, which manages DAI, the largest decentralized stablecoin with around $5 billion in market capitalization. Its members decide on fees and collateral types by voting.

Another interesting DAO is the ConstitutionDAO, whose members aim to bid on an original copy of the Constitution of the United States.

The Merge & Ethereum 2.0

Ethereum has also faced challenges and criticism in the past years. The cryptocurrency’s popularity led to network congestion, sometimes making transaction fees as high as $50, while its competitors like Solana (SOL) and Cardano (ADA) offer significantly lower transaction fees.

In September 2022, Ethereum transitioned from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) system in an upgrade called ‘The Merge’.

PoW systems like Bitcoin’s are very energy-intensive and also limit scalability. With The Merge, Ethereum addressed environmental concerns by reducing energy consumption by 99.95 percent, and also paved the way for future improvements in scalability.

One of these improvements, called ‘’Proto-Danksharding’ was already launched in 2024, and Ethereum 2.0’s scalability roadmap has ‘Full Danksharding’ as the next milestone, which is said to increase Ethereum’s transactions per second to more than 100,000, possibly reducing transaction fees as well.

Tether (USDT): The stablecoin powering crypto markets

Stablecoins are special cryptocurrencies that are designed to maintain a stable value, so they are typically pegged to a traditional fiat currency like the US dollar. Stablecoins aim to offer the fast, borderless transactions of cryptocurrencies while avoiding their significant volatility.

The most frequently traded stablecoin is Tether (USDT) with a market capitalization of $144 billion as of April 2025. Around 80 percent of Bitcoin trades USDT as a trading pair, and the stablecoin also acts as a safe haven during cryptomarket crashes (like the Terra-LUNA collapse of 2022), as it is designed to be pegged 1:1 to the US dollar.

Lawsuit & Criticism

The stablecoin’s opaque reserves and frequent legal battles have made it controversial, but its centralized control has also made it indispensable in the world of cryptocurrencies.

Apart from the obvious criticism that, unlike most cryptos, it is not decentralized, Tether has also faced lawsuits because, contrary to its company, Tether Limited’s claims, it lacked sufficient USD backing.

The company claimed that each USDT is backed by 1:1 cash or cash-equivalent reserves, but it came to light that it was only backed by around 50 percent. In 2021, the company paid an $18.5 million fine to the New York Attorney General for misrepresenting reserves. As of 2024, Tether’s reserves are composed of 90 percent cash and short-term treasuries, and 10 percent other assets like gold, Bitcoin, and corporate debt.

There are some critics who allege that Tether ‘prints’ USDT to prop up Bitcoin prices, but as of April 2025, there is no conclusive evidence for this allegation.

Governments are currently tightening stablecoin regulations, which could impact USDT’s dominance. For Tether to maintain its market-leading position, it must improve transparency to maintain users’ trust. It must also be able to compete with alternatives like the decentralized stablecoin DAI or Circle (USDC), which is provenly pegged 1:1 to the US dollar and backed by cash and bonds in bank reserves.

Bitcoin vs. Ethereum vs. Tether

Before You Invest in Crypto

Apart from the possibility of investment, cryptocurrencies are a great way to deposit and withdraw funds from poker and casino sites.

Fiat currency transactions usually have a much longer processing time, often measured in days, and relatively high transaction fees. As an increasing number of online poker platforms support crypto transactions that are usually feeless and lightning-fast, they might be the most convenient payment methods for most poker and casino players.

Before you decide to buy crypto, though, you should be aware that the crypto market is still quite young, and Bitcoin, Ethereum, and the USDT stablecoin are evolving rapidly. Owning or trading most cryptocurrencies always carries the risk of losing money because of their highly volatile nature.

It is advised to take the time to understand the assets you want to hold and learn some basic risk management before buying crypto. To end our article, here are a few tips on how to make investments in crypto safer.

Choose a Reputable Exchange

There are many shady cryptocurrency exchanges out there, so make sure to use a legit service. Coinbase, Binance, and Kraken are legitimate exchanges. Each of them has its pros and cons, with Coinbase being the best for beginners, Binance having the highest liquidity, and Kraken being the most secure.

Secure Your Investments

Always enable Two-Factor Authentication on the exchange platform you use, so your cryptos cannot get stolen easily. If you plan to hold your cryptos for the long term, consider buying a hardware wallet like Ledger or Trezor.

Diversify Your Portfolio

As with all assets, portfolio diversification is a great way to manage risk. The most commonly advised diversification for cryptos is 60 percent BTC for long-term value storage, 30 percent ETH due to its growth potential from DeFi or NFTs, and 10 percent USDT to hedge against volatility.

Disclaimer: The information provided in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be construed as professional investment advice. Investing carries risks, including the potential loss of capital. Always conduct your own research and consult a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions. The author and publisher are not responsible for any financial losses incurred as a result of actions taken based on the content of this article. Invest at your own risk.

Try the best crypto poker and crypto casino sites with our exclusive bonus offers!