Competition summary

Founded in 2011 and based in San Francisco, Kraken is the world's largest global Bitcoin exchange in euro volume and liquidity. Along with bitcoin and euros, hundreds of thousands of traders, institutions and authorities trust Kraken to facilitate trading in US and Canadian dollars, British pounds, Japanese yen, and a variety of digital assets like ether.

Kraken was the first digital asset exchange to have trading price and volume displayed on the Bloomberg Terminal, one of the first exchanges to offer leveraged bitcoin margin trading, the first to pass a cryptographically verifiable proof-of-reserves audit, is a partner in the world's first cryptocurrency bank, and is consistently rated the best and most secure digital asset exchange by independent news media.

They invited teams from universities across the world to submit a proposal to solve an investment issue, outlined below. Kraken will select the best three proposals, and the People's Choice winner rests in your hands.

Prizes
First place team receives $10,000
Second place receives $5,000
Third place receives $3,000
People’s Choice receives $3,000

*The case competition challenge and resulting selection of winners are based solely on the opinion of the challenge sponsor. The Economist does not endorse the opinions contained in the content of the challenge or the participants’ written and video submissions.

Read Kraken's feedback about the winners selection.

Challenge summary

Bitcoin vs Ethereum: You have $1M to invest across these two blockchain technologies by buying bitcoins and ethers – the digital assets or “cryptocurrencies” that power these decentralized computer networks. You cannot touch your investment for the next 5 years. How much of that $1M do you invest in each? Why?

Bitcoin and Ethereum are both versions of blockchain technology, but there are significant differences in their purpose, adoption and application. In terms of market performance on Kraken and other digital asset exchanges where bitcoin and ether are traded, both have been dominant in their own way. Bitcoin was released over 6 years earlier and currently has almost 10x the market cap of Ethereum (as of August 2016). But in the past year the price of ethers has appreciated over 10x compared to about 3x for bitcoins, and Ethereum has taken a strong second place position in market cap at around 5x that of any other digital asset besides Bitcoin.

While many have argued that Bitcoin and Ethereum are complementary rather than competing technologies, others see Ethereum as Bitcoin's strongest rival. Even if they are complementary, one may prove the better investment over the next 5 years and that's where you come in. Presentations should be accessible to a wider audience with no special knowledge of blockchain technology. However, we want to be wowed by your sophisticated insight and thorough analysis of the new digital asset class.

Winners
Participants