While Bitcoin is the first digital currency based on blockchain and is perceived by many as the mother of all cryptocurrencies, there are many other competing digital currencies now.
A quick look at the popular website CoinMarketCap which is about blockchain info will tell you that approximately 5,392 cryptocurrencies are being traded with a total market cap of $266 Billion. Of course, not all these currencies are successful or even have a good volume of transactions. Out of these 5,392 cryptocurrencies, the top 10 in terms of market cap are [8] : Bitcoin ($BTC) - $179 Billion Ethereum ($ETH) - $23.5 Billion XRP ($XRP) - $9.7 Billion Tether ($USDT) - $6.4 Billion Bitcoin Cash ($BCH) - $5 Billion Bitcoin SV ($BSV) - $4 Billion Litecoin ($LTC) - $3 Billion Binance Coin ($BNB) - $2.7 Billion EOS ($EOS) - $2.6 Billion Tezos ($XTZ) - $2 Billion We will look briefly at some of these most traded cryptocurrencies. Ethereum This was the second player in the market after Bitcoin was launched in 2015 by Vitalik Buterin, a blockchain researcher and programmer. Vitalik published the first white paper introducing Ethereum in 2013, in which he proposed that Bitcoin needed a scripting language to enable automation. He decided to develop a new blockchain with a universal scripting language, but he couldn’t get buy-in to his proposal. Ethereum runs on a platform that enables Smart Contracts and Distributed Applications (DApps). Ethereum made it possible to set conditions on transactions to execute them whenever these conditions are met automatically. The development of Ether was funded by an online crowd sale between July and August 2014. The system went live with around 12 million coins in circulation (about 13% of the total supply). Following the collapse of The DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) project in 2016, Ethereum was split into two blockchains. The new version became Ethereum, and the original blockchain continues as Ethereum Classic. Ethereum is based on the concept of using “tokens”, which can be bought, sold, or traded. Tokens are basically the smart contracts used to exchange digital assets on the Ethereum blockchain. One of the most significant tokens is known as “ERC-20”, which has emerged to be the technical standard for all smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain. As of 2020, more than 244,697 ERC-20 compatible tokens are live on the Ethereum network. Litecoin Litecoin, released in 2011, was one of the first cryptocurrencies to join Bitcoin and has since been referred to as “Silver to Bitcoin Gold.” It was founded by Charlie Lee, an MIT graduate and former Google developer. Litecoin is based on an open-source, decentralised payment network and uses “Scrypt” as a proof of work mechanism which can be decoded using consumer-grade CPUs. While Litecoin has a higher block creation rate and thus has more rapid transaction validation, it is comparable to Bitcoin in several respects. Besides the good developer base, Litecoin is accepted by a growing number of dealers. Litecoin had a market cap of $3 billion in March 2020 and is being traded at around $47 per coin. Ripple Ripple is a digital real-time transfer network providing fast, guaranteed, and low-cost foreign payments. Ripple, or XRP, was launched in 2012 with a mission to enable banks to settle cross-border transfers almost instantly, with end-to-end consistency and at lower costs. The Ripple Consensus Ledger (its conformation method) is unique in that it does not require mining. In this way, Ripple is fundamentally different from Bitcoin and several other altcoins. As Ripple’s structure does not require mining, it reduces the use of computing power and minimises network latency. Ripple argues that “distributing value is a powerful way to incentivise certain behaviours”. Thus, it aims to deliver XRP mainly “through business development deals, incentives to liquidity providers who offer tighter spreads for payments, and selling XRP to institutional buyers interested in investing in XRP”. To date, Ripple has found traction with this model; it remains one of the most successful. As of March 2020, the Ripple had a total market cap of $9.6 billion and a token value of $0.21. Some crypto traders, however, see Ripple’s model as a downside due to its centralised nature. Unlike most of the other cryptocurrencies, Ripple Labs owns about 65% of the tokens and hence can influence the market significantly. Bitcoin Cash Yes, you got it! This coin is another “form” of Bitcoin! Bitcoin Cash is one of the earliest and best known “hard forks” of the original Bitcoin and has been an essential part of the evolution of altcoins. A fork is a product of debates and arguments among developers and miners in the world of cryptocurrency. Based on the decentralised design of the digital currencies, significant adjustments to the code running the coin at hand have to be made based on general agreement. When different development decisions can’t agree, the digital currency is sometimes divided (forked), with the original remaining true to its original code and the other copy coming to life as a new version of the previous coin, complete with changes to its base code. As a result of one of these divisions, Bitcoin cash began its life in August 2017. The debate leading to the development of BCH was about the scalability issue: Bitcoin has a strict 1-megabyte size limit on blocks. BCH raised the block size from 1 MB to 8 MB; the aim is to allow faster transaction times with larger blocks. It also made other changes, including the removal of the “Segregated Witness” protocol that affects block space. As of May 2020, BCH had a market cap of $4.3 billion and a value of $234 per token. Binance Coin Binance Coin is the cryptocurrency issued by the Binance Exchange and is traded under the BNB symbol. Binance coin runs on the Ethereum blockchain using the ERC-20 standard and has a limited supply of 200 million BNB tokens. BNB supports several ecosystem utilities in the Binance platform including trading, trade fees, listing fees, and all other charges on the Binance platform. The crypto token has also received support from other partnerships that have helped to spread its use. It includes a partnership with Uplive, Asia’s premier high-end live video streaming platform, which sells virtual gifts for BNB tokens to Uplive’s 20 million-strong user base. Binance coin is also supported by the Monaco platform mobile app, and Monaco VISA debit card, a pioneering payment and cryptocurrency platform. The Binance platform also includes a repurchasing plan to redeem and destroy BNB tokens, by using 20 per cent of its earnings until they are purchased by up to 50 per cent or 100 million BNB tokens. As a means to preserve significant value for BNB, only 100 million BNB tokens will eventually be in circulation. EOS EOS is one of the latest digital currencies to join the list. Launched in June 2018, EOS was founded by cryptocurrency pioneer Dan Larimer. Prior to his work on EOS, Larimer created Bitshares’ digital currency exchange and Steemit’s blockchain-based social media site. Like some other cryptocurrencies on this list, EOS is designed after Ethereum, offering a platform on which developers can build decentralised applications. However, EOS is noteworthy for several other reasons. First, EOS’s initial coin offering was one of the longest and most profitable in history, racking up a whopping $4 billion or so in investor funds through a year-long crowdfunding campaign. EOS provides a delegated proof-of-stake process, which it hopes will be able to deliver scalability beyond its competitors. EOS consists of EOS.IO, which acts as the digital currency blockchain network, as well as EOS coins. EOS is also revolutionary because it lacks a mining mechanism for producing coins. Instead, block producers create blocks and are paid in EOS tokens based on their output levels. EOS also provides a complex set of rules to regulate the block generation process. The development team expects that the network would eventually be more democratic and decentralised than other digital currencies. As of May 2020, EOS had a market cap of $2.24 billion and a token value of $2.43. Apart from the most known cryptocurrencies, new digital assets are entering the market every day, usually through an initial offering process called the “Initial Coin Offering” or ICO.
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