When people think of cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin is quite often the one that springs to mind. It seems to have become the ‘poster coin’ of the cryptocurrency universe, mainly because of headlines generated by the rapid rise and fall in its price between 2017 and 2018.
What few people realise perhaps, is that in early 2020 there were more than 2,000 cryptocurrencies on the market. Many of these are highly specialised and should not be considered by the average retail investor.
Apart from Bitcoin, there are many other examples of cryptocurrency which are worth considering, either as an investment or a currency for making low-cost peer to peer transfers.
Examples of cryptocurrency
Here we look at examples of some of the more popular cryptocurrencies. For each cryptocurrency there is a brief description and a list of some of the more important metrics: market capitalisation; all-time high; coin volumes in circulation; and links to latest price.
Bitcoin
Bitcoin (BTC) is of course, the first cryptocurrency ever launched and is currently the most popular with the highest market cap of all cryptocurrencies. Created by the pseudonymous developer, Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoins are created by mining.
Following its launch, Bitcoin attracted controversy for its use in black markets, including the notorious Silk Road. There have also been several high-profile Bitcoin thefts such as the Mt. Gox exchange hack when 750,000 bitcoins valued at USD 350 million, were stolen. Despite these setbacks, Bitcoin survived.
The price of Bitcoin has fluctuated widely. In June 2011 its price peaked at USD 31.50 only to fall back over the next three months to USD 4.77, but that was a precursor of the volatility to come.
In December 2017, the price hit an all-time high of USD 19,783 only to dip below USD 3,300 the following year.
- Market capitalisation (approx.): USD 156.77 billion
- Coins in circulation: 18,242,025
- Maximum coins: 21,000,000
- All-time high: USD 19,783
- Current price can be found here.
Bitcoin Cash
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) was generated in 2017 by a hard fork of the Bitcoin blockchain.
In cryptocurrencies, a fork is a modification of a blockchain network and usually occurs when the main stakeholders agree to disagree about future protocols.
After the fork, Bitcoin continued as before (unchanged), while Bitcoin Cash offered improvement in transaction times and 8 MB (as opposed to Bitcoin 1 MB) blocks providing much-improved scaleability. Fees are also considerably lower than Bitcoin transaction fees.
- Market capitalisation (approx.): USD 5.98 billion
- Coins in circulation: 18,301,402
- Maximum coins: 21,000,000
- All-time high: USD 3,730.21
- Current price can be found here.
EOS Crypto
EOS is a relatively new cryptocurrency which launched in June 2018 after an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) raised a record USD 4 billion.
It is an open-source software which enables companies to build large-scale, distributed applications using the EOS platform.
It is claimed that EOS will make it possible to carry out millions of transactions per second when Bitcoin for example, is capable of just three to four transactions per second and Ethereum up to twenty.
EOS is based on an unusual blockchain consensus model known as delegated proof-of-stake. This is where the number of nodes that participate in the consensus is decreased to facilitate higher throughput.
This compromise has been criticised as making the currency too centralised which has resulted in most of the governing entities being based in China; and has led to concerns over the risk of state intervention.
Another concern is that Block.One, the EOS developer, is also the largest token holder which gives rise to potential conflict of interest issues.
- Market capitalisation (approx.): USD 3.5 billion
- Coins in circulation: 932,970,000
- Maximum coins: undefined
- All-time high: USD 22.71
- Current price can be seen here.
Litecoin
Litecoin (LTK) was launched in 2011 and like Bitcoin, it is a peer-to-peer decentralised blockchain payment network.
It improved on Bitcoin in terms of its higher block generation rate, providing faster transaction confirmation times.
It is mined similarly to Bitcoin but doing so is much easier and can be performed on conventional computers as opposed to the specialist equipment required to mine Bitcoin.
A new block is produced every 2.5 minutes, and transaction fees are very low.
- Market capitalisation (approx.): USD 4.006 billion
- Coins in circulation: approx. 75% of the maximum coins.
- Maximum coins: 84,000,000
- All-time high: USD 360.66
- Current price can be seen here.
Ethereum
While Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer digital currency, Ethereum (ETH) is an entirely different blockchain implementation.
Ethereum is a decentralised, blockchain-based software platform designed for smart contracts and other decentralised applications.
It allows developers to readily create wide-ranging blockchain applications in many different fields. This includes launching alternative cryptocurrencies that adhere to defined token standards known as ERC20 and ERC721. The latter is designed to track unique digital assets.
The cryptocurrency associated with Ethereum is the Ether, which is the only currency accepted to finance transaction fees. Any developer who runs applications inside Ethereum must use Ether tokens (ETH) to purchase computation units.
There is some public confusion between Ethereum the platform and Ether, the token. When you trade Ethereum, you are in reality, trading Ether.
- Market capitalisation (approx.): USD 16.6 billion
- Coins in circulation: 105,830,000
- Maximum coins: undefined
- All-time high: USD 1,431
- Current price can be found here.
Ethereum Classic
Ethereum Classic (ETC) predated Ethereum (ETH). The latter cryptocurrency was the result of a fork of ETC following a notorious USD 50 million hack which revealed a severe problem with the system.
ETH was subsequently created by a fork of ETC and ETC continued with the original blockchain. The ETH fork recovered the USD 50 million that had been stolen and distributed it, through a smart contract, to its rightful owners.
- Market capitalisation (approx.): USD 0.95 billion
- Coins in circulation: approx. 75% of maximum coins.
- Maximum coins: undefined
- All-time high: USD 44.34
- Current price can be seen here.
How cryptocurrencies work
To learn more about how cryptocurrencies work and whether they should be considered an investment or a form of electronic payment, please click here.
