Bitcoin is one of those incredible bubble events that always makes people slap their heads and wish they’d got in on earlier.

After all, we’re talking about an investment that, if bought in back in 2010, would make sums better suited to buying lunch for two turn into spectacular fortunes a little under four years later.

In 2010, one bitcoin user named “SmokeTooMuch” offered 10,000 bitcoin for just $50 total, and couldn’t find a buyer. By November 2013, that same 10,000 bitcoin was worth around $12.5 million dollars.

This is leaving many who missed the first boat asking what the next bitcoin is, and according to Coinbase’s co-founder, it may well be Etherium.

Etherium, Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam noted, is actually more advanced than bitcoin, noting that “There is nothing that bitcoin can do which Etherium can’t.” Etherium is offering some improvements in programming languages, Ehrsam notes, and a set of developers’ tools that offer more capability than bitcoins as well.

Ehrsam even points out the improvements in the development team, and suggests that bitcoin is suffering from internal strife and what some call “mud throwing.”

Given that Etherium is worth, right now, about two percent of one bitcoin, it’s easy to suggest that Ehrsam may not be right on this one.

Etherium has had no “governance crisis,” some point out, and with all those programming languages and tools on hand, it may well open up the possibility of a security breach at some point.

There are a lot of crypto-currencies on the market today. There’s bitcoin, of course, but beyond bitcoin there’s litecoin, dogecoin, and several others.

The idea that Etherium could be the next bitcoin isn’t out of line, but the question is what’s stopping any other crypto-currency from taking the top slot? It’s a matter of user bases, of who will take it, and whether or not enough investors can be pulled into making the currency more valuable than it currently is.

While it’s tempting to put some investment in these items in hopes of catching the next rocket sled to $12 million, it’s a lot easier to see that investment dry up than it is to see it bear fruit. Only time will tell if Ehrsam’s projections are right, and if the next bitcoin is before our eyes right now.