Which Cryptocurrencies Have Stood out in the Digital Ecosystem?
Today, the cryptocurrency market is developing unstoppably despite concerns regarding strong turbulence. There are thousands of different cryptocurrencies, and their numbers continue to grow. This can be a double-edged sword, creating headaches for people trying to choose the best one to invest.
What’s smart to do is to consider a few key factors, such as market value and volume of purchase. A small number of cryptocurrencies occupy the vast majority of this digital ecosystem. We’ll focus on the five main options and explain their specifics.
Bitcoin (BTC)
When it comes to market value, bitcoin is still the leading cryptocurrency and a pioneer in the market, the first virtual money created on the principle of a peer-to-peer network. That happened in 2009 when the first coin was mined. Many ups and downs in value marked the next decade.
Today, despite this turbulent history, it still enjoys the trust of users who buy bitcoin with credit cards and transfer it from one digital wallet to another. Its daily transaction volume in March this year amounted to over 48 billion dollars.
The value of bitcoin is around USD 9,000, exceeding the cost of most other cryptocurrencies on the market. Finally, Bitcoin is supported by the most eminent cryptocurrency exchanges, digital wallets, as well as many prominent investors.
Ethereum (ETH)
Ethereum is one of the main competitors of Bitcoin. It was established in 2015 with the idea of creating a platform that would use a common language for writing scripts. This significant innovation has facilitated the creation of smart contracts and decentralized applications (DApps).
By the time Ethereum was launched, 11.9 million coins had already been mined, which is 13% of the maximum amount that can circulate. Despite initial success, this cryptocurrency split into two parts in 2016: Ethereum and Ethereum Classic. The first records an impressive USD 23 billion worth of daily trade volume, significantly more than the Classic version.
Ethereum is also very popular in the business world, among entrepreneurs from various sectors of the economy.
Litecoin (LTC)
Litecoinwas launched in 2011 and is a branch of Bitcoin, bringing several innovations. Namely, it shortens the block creation time and increases the upper limit of coins in circulation. It also uses a different script-based algorithm. That’s why Litecoin was nicknamed the “silver of the crypto world,” a world in which Bitcoin is undoubtedly gold.
Over the years, many users have joined this global transactional system. It’s not managed by anyone, but by a script, and its decoding depends on the computer power of the network. This arrangement, which is based on blockchain and public ledger technologies, brings faster transaction verification.
In terms of daily trading volume, Litecoin lags behind “heavyweights” such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. Its future, however, seems bright, as more and more sellers begin to accept this currency.
Dash (DASH)
This currency was created in 2014 and represents open-source digital money. It functions as a decentralized and autonomous user organization rooted in blockchain technology.
The network architecture is unique and written in the C++ programming language, consisting of regular miners and privileged servers called Masternodes. They are in charge of verifying all transactions that occur on the network.
One of the main advantages of Dash is user privacy as it allows transactions that can’t be traced. Besides, the speed of transactions is higher than its competition.
Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
As the name suggests, it’s part of Bitcoin. It was created in 2017 in an attempt to make bitcoin more practical for everyday transactions. This currency has a high historical weight because it was one of the earliest examples of a hard fork.
Namely, Bitcoin transactions lasted a long time at the time of the birth of BCH (up to 4 days). The payment of the transaction commission wasn’t profitable for smaller purchases and sales. BCH increased the block size (from 1 to 8 MB) and abolished protocols that limited space. The idea was to achieve a higher speed of transactions, which was successfully done.
Therefore, it’s not surprising that Bitcoin Cash is in fifth place in terms of daily trading volume (about USD 4 billion).
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