In Brief: Online exchange Kraken recently published a full page ad in The Economist. This indicates a huge push to expand their customer base. Additionally, in partnership with with The Economist, Kraken posed a challenge to MBA programs around the world.

Bitcoin vs Ether:

You have $1M to invest across bitcoin and ether. You cannot touch your investment for the next 5 years. How much of that $1M do you invest in each? Why?



Watching the videos of the 13 participants was an education in the misconceptions surrounding digital assets. It was harder to make sense of the analysis however. Some teams arrived at the same investment decision with wildly different approaches and performance forecasts.



BYU Marriot School of Management- 78% Bitcoin 22% Ether

Creighton University, Heider College of Business- 70% Bitcoin 30% Ether

FIA Business School — 70% Bitcoin 30% Ether

Johns Hopkins Carey Business School — 50% Bitcoin 50% Ether

Middlebury Institure of International sSudies- 70% Bitcoin 30% Ether

Porto Business School- 20% Bitcoin 80% Ether

Rutgers Business School — 20% Bitcoin 80% Ether

Ryerson University, Ted Rogers School of management — 69% Bitcoin 31% Ether

Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth — 91% Bitcoin 9% Ether

Tulane University, Freeman School of Business — 67% Bitcoin 33% Ether

University of North Texas — Couldn’t hear result

Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Robert A. Foisie School of Business — 100% Ether

Ivey Business School at Western University — Uninvestable



The mean of the results, not including the result that could not be heard or the uninvestable result (a good jibe none the less), is 55% Bitcoin, 45% Ether.



At the time of writing,

The 30 day volume of Ether is $302,899,701

The 30 day volume of Bitcoin is $2,739,713,308

9.95% Ether 90.05% Bitcoin



The Market cap of Ether is $851,431,020

The Market cap of Bitcoin is $12,047,018,279

6.6% Ether 93.4% Bitcoin



So the result of the analysis on the whole and in almost every individual case, was extremely positive for Ether. The commentary on why the individual investment decisions were made revealed some insights and some persistent misconceptions.



Some teams considered the available quantifiable data insufficient to determine growth targets. This was definitely borne out in the comparison of the results of those that did provide forecasts.

Crypto was found to be negatively correlated with global indices with Ether positively correlated with gold, supporting the hypothesis that the assets are viewed as safe haven stores of wealth. Bitcoin and Ether were found to be uncorrelated.



There were some strange misconceptions however. One team understood Ether to be only usable for goods and services somehow related to the Ethereum network, while Bitcoin suffered no such restriction. However, Bitcoin was viewed as suffering from security vulnerabilities. Language like partnership, who, and they were used in reference to the platforms themselves indicating an attachment to organizational assessment.



One analyst called the assets “a store of fiction” providing “no trust or tangibility”. Concerns about the developers were raised on several occasions. Vitalik’s comment that Ethereum was still in an experimental stage of development understandably did not play well, and Mike Hearn’s fiery departure from Bitcoin Core development was seen to discredit both platforms (although the team who made this comment seemed extremely skeptical of both assets). Chinese control was a concern for Bitcoin, and the ability to represent legal agreements was a boon for Ether. Concerns of regulatory risk were also raised.



Interested parties should check out the videos. They are very much worth the time to flick through.