Cryptocurrencies are a relatively new concept that has been gaining traction in the last decade. They use cryptography to provide protection and security for transactions and control the creation of new units. The currencies themselves can be used as a store of value and exchanged for goods and services, much like traditional money. With this increasing popularity, it's important to know what cryptocurrencies exist and how they work before investing in them. Here are 10 popular cryptocurrencies you should know about.
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Bitcoin
Bitcoin is the first decentralized cryptocurrency to be released. It has become the most well-known cryptocurrency since its release in 2009. Bitcoin uses peer-to-peer technology, also known as blockchain, to operate with no central authority or banks involved.
Litecoin
Litecoin is one of the most popular cryptocurrencies on the market. Created by former Google employee Charlie Lee, this alternative to Bitcoin is faster and cheaper.
Ethereum
Ethereum is the second most popular cryptocurrency after Bitcoin. It has a whopping $82B market cap and is only second to Bitcoin in terms of popularity. Ethereum was created in 2015 by Vitalik Buterin, a Russian-Canadian programmer, and since then it has grown at an exponential rate.
There are two main reasons for Ethereum's popularity:
Ethereum is an open-source, public blockchain that allows developers to create decentralized applications (Dapps).
The supply of Ether (the currency of the Ethereum network) is not limited like Bitcoin, which will eventually reach its 21 million coins limit; instead there is no upper limit on the number of coins that can be mined.
Bitcoin Cash
Bitcoin Cash is a cryptocurrency that was created in August 2017, following the bitcoin hard fork. As opposed to traditional currencies, Bitcoin Cash has a larger block size limit of 8mb. This makes transactions faster and cheaper than bitcoin transactions.
Dash
Dash has been around since 2014 and is among the top cryptocurrencies in terms of market capitalization. It's more flexible than bitcoin and aims to be the most user-friendly and scalable cryptocurrency in the world. Dash offers features such as private transactions, instant transactions, and decentralized governance.
Monero
Monero is a currency that focuses on privacy. Unlike Bitcoin, Monero transactions are not traceable. As of April 2018, it's the 10th most valuable currency by market capitalization.
Zcash
Zcash is a decentralized, open-source cryptocurrency that offers privacy and selective transparency of transactions. Zcash payments are published on a public blockchain, but the sender, recipient, and amount of a transaction can remain private.
IOTA
The newest cryptocurrency on this list is IOTA. It's unique because it's created by the IOTA Foundation, so it doesn't use a blockchain system. However, it is still fully decentralized and uses its own kind of tangle technology which is aimed to be the future of IoT transactions.
Dogecoin
Dogecoin is an altcoin that was created in 2013. It descended from Bitcoin, but has a few modifications that make it easier to mine by regular computers.