While bitcoin is widely seen as a pioneer in crypto world, there are many different cryptocurrencies in circulation today.
At the time of this writing, there are more than 2100 cryptocurrencies listed on Coinmarketcap.
These digital currencies also commonly known as altcoins (alternate coins) are inspired and probably popularized by Bitcoin.
Also, built on decentralized peer-to-peer network, each altcoin coming with their unique features and have different use cases that Bitcoin doesn’t seem to address.
Even with the extreme price volatility, many people are still interested in investing in cryptos.
But…
There’s one thing I think you should know- most of the crypto coins are useless, better known as sh*tcoins.
Due to this, I thought it would be helpful to talk about the best cryptocurrencies with high potential, functional and real use cases.
Before we dive in, it’s important to note that you’ll need a digital wallet to buy, sell and store your crypto assets securely. We recommend using hardware wallet likeTrezorandLedger Nano S – the safest option for long term storage.
In my previous posts, I explained how to keep your bitcoin and cryptocurrency safe in detail. Here’s the link:
- How to secure your cryptocurrency: Cold vs Hot wallet
- How to setup a Ledger Nano S
Here’s our list of some of the best cryptocurrencies that worth checking out -at least that’s what I think.
So I’d like to start my list with the first and most widely used cryptocurrency- Bitcoin.
In fact, no crypto list would be complete without Bitcoin, it’s still dominating in user base, popularity and market capitalization.
At its peak in late 2017, Bitcoin traded close to $20,000. It’s now dropped to a third of what it was once before.
So is Bitcoin a good investment or a bubble waiting to burst?
Beneath all the price volatility and the hype of “blockchain”, there’s a global movement of decentralization.
Bitcoin has proven to live up to the hype in overall value as well as solving a real world problem since it first introduced by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009.
Bitcoin has challenged and changed the way we look at global banking, government and fiat money.
At its core, it’s an alternative to the traditional banking and finance system for people all around the world.
While Bitcoin is built on top of a decentralized peer-to-peer network, Satoshi wanted to show us that
1) Money supply shouldn’t be controlled by the government, where more dollars can be printed and causing higher inflation
2) Exchange between people can be conducted directly without having to pay arbitrarily high fees to centralized ledgers like banks, Paypal and Payoneer.
Here are some unique features of Bitcoin:
• Limited supply:
Bitcoin has a limited and finite supply of 21 million. No new coins can be created after reaching this 21 million cap.
• Runs on an open, permissionless blockchain:
Anyone anywhere can join or leave the public Bitcoin network at will. There’s no central government or middlemen.
• Base currency:
In most cases, Bitcoin is the base currency that you need to buy first in order to exchange with some altcoins on this list. You can easily convert your USD, EUR, GBP etc into Bitcoin on various crypto exchanges likeCoinbaseandBitfinex.
• A store of value:
Bitcoin is the new gold, perhaps it’s even better than gold! Looking at it from a supply/demand standpoint, when more people use it and the price will only go up in the long run.
• A medium of exchange:
Just like fiat currency, you can buy absolutely anything with Bitcoin. More merchants start to accept bitcoin as a mode of payment.
Before you start investing in other cryptocurrencies, you might want to own some Bitcoin first.
- Buy Bitcoin Now(or/and)
- Earn Free Bitcoin
Would you believe it, one day you could transfer real estates, mortgages and trade stocks on a decentralized platform?
It’s all made possible with Ethereum.
Launched in 2015 by Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum is a decentralized, open source platform that runs smart contracts and Decentralized Applications (DApps).
Let’s take a look at some of the important things about Ethereum:
• Decentralized
Information and data are stored on blockchain, thus there’s no single point of failure, censorship or any third-party interference.
• Initial Coin Offerings (ICO)
It’s especially popular among startups looking for investment capital. It works much like Initial Public offerings of stocks (IPO’s) but with lower barriers to entry.
Instead of creating an entire blockchain from scratch, Ethereum allows developers and startups to create their own tokens based on its networks. Binance coin, Maker and BAT are some of the top Ethereum tokens.
• Speed
Compared to Bitcoin, Ethereum has 5x higher transactions per second (TPS).
• Support from finance and tech industries
Institutions like The Bank of America and companies like Intel, Microsoft and JPMorgan are investing in services and applications built on top of Ethereum.
However, unlike Bitcoin which has a limited supply of 21 million, Vitalik didn’t set a hard cap to its total coin supply. In December 2018, there’s more than 103milion Ether in circulation.
Considering the nature of inflation, the founder has proposed new caps of 120 million and 14o million. Anyway, it’s just a proposal.
If you’re ready to invest in Ethereum, read the following guide:
Ripple has grown remarkably, overtaking the spot of Ethereum as the top #2 cryptocurrency right after Bitcoin. At the time of this writing, it has the second highest market cap of $15 billion.
Ripple is more than just a digital currency.
Rather it’s a payment protocol that offers instant, real-time and low-cost global transactions, regardless of the forms (USD, EUR or bitcoin etc).
Before this, banks have to rely on intermediaries for cross-border transactions. This old-fashioned method is both expensive and time-consuming.
This is where Ripple comes into place- it lowers the currency exchanges rates and enables transactions to be completed in nearly real time.
Undoubtedly, Banks and hedge funds are huge supporters of Ripple as it provides an airtight solution to the international remittances problem.
More than 100 financial institutions such as HSBC, Bank of America, American Express, just to name a few, use the Ripple protocol for operations.
Contrary to Bitcoin, all 100 billion coins (maximum total supply) have already pre-mined and the coins will be issued gradually to the market. This is the reason why fast, inexpensive and efficient transactions are possible.
As you can see, Ripple is solving real-world problem beyond the store of value and medium of exchange.
Dubbed as the “silver to bitcoin’s gold”, Litecoin has many similarities to Bitcoin.
Launched in 2011, Litecoin was created by Charlie Lee, a former Google engineer.
Building on the Bitcoin blockchain itself, this fully decentralized digital currency aims to improve some of the issues with Bitcoin.
Compared to Bitcoin, Litecoin has three distinctive features:
• Easier to mine
Litecoin uses a simple algorithm Scrypt that is much easier to solve.
Bitcoin takes about 10minutes to generate a block while Litecoin only needs an average of 2.5minutes for each block creation (4x faster than Bitcoin)
• Faster transaction speed
Its lightning network and atomic swap technology can process transactions faster than Bitcoin.
Litecoin can handle 56 transactions per second (TPS) and takes 30minutes to confirm.
While Bitcoin can only manage 7TPS and takes 60minutes to confirm.
• Higher total supply limit
Litecoin has a coin limit of 84 million, much higher than 21million total supply limit of Bitcoin.
Litecoin could potentially be used in day-to-day transactions if it gets mainstream adoption.
Contrary to popular belief, Bitcoin is not completely anonymous.
As Bitcoin is running on a fully transparent blockchain, transactions are publicly accessible, verifiable and traceable by anyone. To be more specific, Bitcoin is a pseudo-anonymous and non-fungible coin.
And here comes Monero, a truly anonymous, private and fungible digital currency.
They use a few complex cryptographic methods such Stealth Addresses, Ring Signatures and Ring Confidential Transactions to hide all transaction-related details, including amount of transaction and transacting addresses (sender and receiver).
On top of that,the newly released privacy-enhancing feature, known as Kovri allows Monero users to hide their IP addresses.
All these features of Monero make it entirely untraceable.
No one is able to link the transactions on blockchain or identify the users in real world.
Although Monero is a leading crypto on dark markets for illegal activities, normal people like you and me can take advantage of the privacy features to protect our wealth and identity online.
Dash is basically dubbed as the secretive version of Bitcoin.
Developed by Evan Duffield, Dash was originally released as “XCoin” in January 2014, renamed as “Darkcoin” in February 2014 and rebranded as “Dash” in March 2015.
Dash (short for Digital Cash) aims to be the world’s most user-friendly and scalable cryptocurrency. To date, there are more than 4,000 merchants accepting it as a form of payment.
Dash’s greatest feature is perhaps their InstantSend and PrivateSend functions which make real-time or anonymous transactions possible.
Technically, what makes Dash different from most other coins is the two-tier network. Apart from the Proof of Work (PoW) done by miners, Dash blockchain is also secured via “Masternodes”.
As you can see that Dash has a practical use of enabling you to transact in a quick manner while keeping it private, you might want to include it in your crypto portfolio.
IOTA is the most unique cryptocurrency in this list.
Unlike other coins, IOTA uses a public ledger called “Tangle” rather than blockchain technology.
To make it more secure to transact on the distributed ledger, the technology will constantly change the addresses for each transaction.
IOTA’s biggest advantage is that they offer zero-transaction fees to all users. You’ll receive the exact amount of money sent, nothing less.
Also, IOTA has an unlimited transaction rate, which means it’s highly scalable.
Since IOTA is developing based on a whole new protocol- Internet-of-Things, its future maybe more unpredictable than other popular cryptocurrencies.
Well, it’s interesting to see how it grows.
There are thousands of cryptocurrencies to choose from, with more added all the time.
I hope this list of cryptocurrencies helps you in choosing the best coin for your crypto investment.
As cryptocurrency is notoriously volatile, it’s a good idea to only invest what you can afford to lose. And always do due diligence and research online before buying any coin.
Here’s some helpful articles that you can read next:
- 10 Best Cryptocurrency Exchanges to buy/sell any cryptocurrency
- Crypto Hardware Wallet: How to Setup a Ledger Nano S
- Crypto 101: The Ultimate List of Cryptocurrency Resource
- What is Bitcoin and why all the fuss with Cryptocurrency?
- 8 Legit Ways to Earn Free Bitcoin (#3 is My Favorite)
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