According to Metcalfe's law, Ethereum is under valued while Bitcoin is in a bubble

in #crypto-news7 years ago (edited)

Metcalfe's law:

Metcalfe's law states that the value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users of the system (n2).

So accordingly, the actual use of the network by users determines the value of the network using the simple formula of (n2). This also would apply to Steemit.

  • Market cap for Ethereum currently sits at: $31,784,527,111-
  • Transaction volume for Ethereum sits at 540k per day and rising (it is higher than Bitcoin!)
  • But how many unique users? 11.9 million accounts on Coinbase alone.

Of course we could also go by unique addresses of which Ethereum has way more but this is not so accurate in my opinion. Unique user data can be obtained from exchanges and this data in my opinion is the key component for predicting the value and estimating the price. In either case, Ethereum user growth has grown a lot in the past 6 months and for this reason I think it is very under valued based on Metcalfe's law. Anyone with the user metrics for Steem feel free to plug that into the equation.

If you model Ethereum based on Metcalfe's law then the value would put the price of ETH much higher.
If you model Bitcoin based on Metcalfe's law then Bitcoin should have a market cap closer to $100 billion than where it is now.

The key metric to track is the growth of the unique users of either of these two networks. Bitcoin and Ethereum are both on Coinbase so technically every Coinbase account is a potential Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin account. Coinbase user growth can indicate how we can model the growth in price according to Metcalfe's law in my opinion to produce more exact numbers but I have not worked those out yet.

What I do have is that Coinbase in November 3rd or around there, added 100,000 users in one day!

This is not investment advice. This is just an interpretation of the data for educational purposes. Always make your own decisions.

References

Alabi, K. (2017). Digital blockchain networks appear to be following Metcalfe’s Law. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, 24, 23-29.

Chalasani, S. (2008). On the Value of a Social Network. arXiv preprint arXiv:0812.2891.

  1. https://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/creating-services-and-products/s04-12-there-is-power-in-numbers-netw.html
  2. https://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2012/05/31/facebook-values-itself-based-on-metcalfes-law-but-the-market-is-using-zipfs/#2c52c5eb68f5
  3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadratic_growth
  4. https://coinjournal.net/ethereum-process-approximately-twice-transactions-bitcoin/
  5. https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/ethereum-transactions.html
  6. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/03/coinbase-adds-100000-users-after-cme-announces-bitcoin-futures-plans.html
  7. https://blockchain.info/charts/n-unique-addresses?timespan=all
  8. https://etherscan.io/chart/address
  9. http://collaboration.wikia.com/wiki/Reed%27s_law
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The value of the network directly correlates with its transaction capacity. Right now ethereum does half a million tx/day while bitcoin lags ate 309k.

Check the TX throughput here: https://bitinfocharts.com/cryptocurrency-charts.html

Vitalik Buterin had a nice application of Metcalfe's Law a few months ago when he tried to think about the effect of Bitcoin Cash on the Bitcoin price. Note that this was before the August 1 Bitcoin Cash fork:
http://vitalik.ca/general/2017/07/27/metcalfe.html
As you know, the fork ended up being a 'free lunch' at least within the first few days because bitcoin price rose.

Bitcoin accounts got Bitcoin cash but not all Bitcoin users had accounts which got Bitcoin Cash. Coinbase users for instance.

Not yet, that is.

great info dear

where there is irrational exuberance, there is a bubble. But dont you worry, most of the e-currencies are in "their" hands, the game is done.

on my blog: Richest 1% have more money than poorest half of world’s population

thats a good info but bitcoin price always incrase @dana-edwards

Awesome post i really like that

i think at this point, even the hodlers agree that BTC is overpriced

for #ethereum you forgot to divide by ICOs

for #bitcoin you forgot to multiply by utilities of which any coins can be implemented ∞

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