I've Already Made $6,000 on Ethereum. Here's Why I Keep Holding
I first bought a few Ether, the tokens that help power the Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) network, back in 2017 when cryptocurrencies were still a fairly new concept to most retail investors. I naturally sold off a little bit early not really seeing the big picture but ended up holding a little more than one Ethereum long-term, and boy do I wish I had bought more. Now seeing the potential of cryptocurrencies in general, I plan to keep holding Ethereum with the belief that this is one cryptocurrency that can go a lot higher. Here's why.
If Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) is the proof of concept for blockchain and cryptocurrencies then you could say that Ethereum is the proof of concept for programmable blockchain where applications can be built on the network. These applications include smart contracts, which are automated contracts that cannot be changed after they have gone into effect. One use case of smart contracts on Ethereum is non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which enable items like artwork and sports trading cards to be tokenized and secured by blockchain in the sense that there can't be a duplicate of that specific copy.
While I'm not sure how I feel about NFTs, and the price of them seems quite inflated, I could also see a world where they continue to grow in popularity and become more mainstream. After all, an NFT can be boiled down to a digitized piece of artwork or a picture or video capturing a moment in time, among other digital files. Is that so different from art or collectibles now? Their value comes primarily from what people are willing to pay to own them, whether as part of a collection or as something to decorate our homes with. But with the world getting more digitized every day, who's to say future generations won't want to have these same collectibles to show all of their online and virtual friends, colleagues, and contacts.
Source Fool.com
