University Teams Predict Two-to-One that a Bitcoin-Weighted Portfolio will Outperform an Etherium-Weighted One

NEW YORK, Nov. 7, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Kraken Case Study Competition, hosted on The Economist's Which MBA? site, has launched. Teams from universities across the world will vie for a grand prize of $10,000.

The competition invited students to weigh in on which blockchain technology is the better long-term buy: Bitcoin or Etherium. The participating teams of business-school students predicted two-to-one that a Bitcoin-weighted portfolio is a better long-term investment than Etherium.

Bitcoin and Ethereum are both versions of blockchain technology, but there are significant differences in their purpose, adoption and application. To win the prize, teams had to submit the most compelling written and video proposals to declare which was the better long-term investment.  The submissions are hosted on The Economist's Which MBA? Site.

Jesse Powell, founder and CEO of Kraken, a global digital-asset exchange, said "October 31, 2016 marked the 8-year anniversary of the Bitcoin whitepaper. Today, governments, banks, Fortune 500 technology companies and investors alike have recognised blockchain technology's huge, positive and disruptive potential."

Powell continued, "The question: is Bitcoin merely a prototype for superior technology yet to come, or, does its strong first-mover advantage, entrenchment and value insulate it from competitors? Ethereum is often referred to as 'Bitcoin 2.0', but it's relatively new and untested by comparison. Does Ethereum offer a unique value proposition over Bitcoin? Can both assets coexist or is it a winner-take-all game?  How should an investor evaluate each opportunity in terms of portfolio diversification, maximising upside and minimising downside risk? The teams must look at strengths and weaknesses of each technology and their use cases, adoption, project governance, developer and investor sentiment, historical performance and global regulatory issues. The complexity of this evaluation coupled with the tremendous upside potential for a correct bet is why we felt this was the perfect question for this challenge."

The competition awards a total of $21,000 in prize money to the winning teams. The first-place team will be awarded a $10,000 grand prize. Second place will take home $5,000, and third place will receive $3,000 in prize money. Those top three teams will be selected by Kraken. There will also be a People's Choice award of $3,000, given to the team whose proposal receives the most votes from the public. Winners will be announced in December 2016.

The teams hail from:

• FIA Business School
• Tulane University
• Ryerson University, Ted Rogers School of Management
• Porto Business School
• Ivey Business School at Western University
• Rutgers Business School
• Middlebury Institute of International Studies
• BYU Marriott School of Management
• Johns Hopkins Carey Business School
• Worcester Polytechnic Institute
• Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth
• Creighton University, Heider College of Business
• University of North Texas

To cast your vote in the case study competition, visit economist.com/cybercurrency.

About Which MBA? (economist.com/whichmba)
Which MBA? is a division of The Economist Newspaper Group which offers a suite of online products serving both prospective MBA students and business schools. Our consumer products for prospective students include a GMAT preparation course, annual MBA rankings, and content on Economist.com. Which MBA? offers multi-media advertising solutions for business schools ranging from online MBA fairs, to traditional online and print mediums, to custom white-label lead generation tools.

About The Economist (economist.com)
With a growing global circulation (more than 1.5 million including both print and digital) and a reputation for insightful analysis and perspective on every aspect of world events, The Economist is one of the most widely recognised and well-read current affairs publications.

About Kraken (kraken.com)
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. Follow them @krakenfx.

SOURCE The Economist's Which MBA? division