Don't be surprised if ether takes over bitcoin as the dominant digital store of value, Goldman Sachs says

• Ether could overtake bitcoin as the dominant digital store of value in the coming years, Goldman Sachs said in a Tuesday note.
• Ether "looks like the cryptocurrency with the highest real use potential," Goldman argued.
• "This competition among cryptocurrencies is another risk factor that prevents them from becoming safehaven assets," Goldman said.
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Ether's real use cases give it the potential to become the dominant digital store of value in the coming years, Goldman Sachs said in a note on Tuesday.

The bank believes 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," according to the note.

That means ether could eventually overtake bitcoin as the top cryptocurrency, according to Goldman. While bitcoin may have the stronger brand given its first mover advantage, it lacks some of the often-cited real use cases of ether, in part due to its slow transaction speed of just seven per second.

But regardless of which cryptocurrency reigns supreme, neither will be able to overtake gold any time soon, Goldman said, arguing that its high volatility doesn't make it a direct competitor to a safe haven asset like gold.

"Gold is competing with crypto to the same extent it is competing with other risky assets such as equities and cyclical commodities. We view gold as a defensive inflation hedge and crypto as a risk-on inflation hedge," Goldman explained.

And the competition between different crypto assets is also hurting its ability to become an asset class that investors view as safe.

"This competition among cryptocurrencies is another risk factor that prevents them from becoming safehaven assets at this stage," Goldman concluded. As of Tuesday afternoon, there are 10,772 different cryptocurrencies in existence, according to data from CoinMarketCap.