American leading global investment banking, securities and investment management firm Goldman Sachs thinks the native crypto of the Ethereum blockchain Ether has what it takes to unseat bitcoin as the dominant store of value crypto.
According to a report by Business Insider on Tuesday, the bank believes ether’s use cases currently possess the highest “potential,” being the most popular development platform for smart contracts and could overtake Bitcoin as the dominant cryptocurrency.
The bank said in a published note on Tuesday.
“Ether currently looks like the cryptocurrency with the highest real use potential as Ethereum, the platform on which it is the native digital currency, is the most popular development platform for smart contract applications.”
The endorsement comes after Goldman Sachs published a report in May discussing crypto’s potential as an asset class. U.S. banks have increasingly begun to accept Bitcoin as it gains traction with more mainstream investors but have been slower to adopt Ether.
Despite being bullish on ether, Goldman denied cryptos’ superiority to gold when it came to taking the top spot among safe-haven assets.
“Gold is competing with crypto to the same extent it is competing with other risky assets such as equities and cyclical commodities,” the note said. “We view gold as a defensive inflation hedge and crypto as a risk-on inflation hedge.”