With each passing day, the interest in cryptocurrencies is on an upward trajectory. In the past 10 years, a long list of cryptocurrencies have been created. Some don’t last very long, but others end up influencing the future of the blockchain in a significant manner. The market cap of a cryptocurrency speaks volumes about its popularity among the community, and based on market cap, here are the top 10 cryptocurrencies as of June 2020.
Bitcoin:BTC
Being the first mover certainly has advantages, and Bitcoin, being the very first cryptocurrency has consistently held the top spot since the very beginning. This is the cryptocurrency which introduced the world to the concept of blockchains. Other than being the first cryptocurrency using the blockchain, it is also the most widely accepted one.
Ethereum/ETH
It has the second highest market cap after Bitcoin. Ethereum introduced an exciting feature called smart contracts. It did this incredible feat by adding a Turing complete scripting language to the original idea of the blockchain.
Tether/USDT
This cryptocurrency has a special feature of being pegged to a fiat currency. Currently, one Tether(USDT) is equal in value to a single US dollar. This means that it is a stable cryptocurrency, unlike others. However, note that the issuer of this currency is a private company, and cannot be mined.
XRP/XRP
Created by a company called Ripple, XRP has one of the fastest transaction times. This is due to a very fast consensus algorithm, which confirms transactions in 4 to 5 seconds. Compare this to the nearly 60 minutes on the Bitcoin network and you will see the advantage.
Bitcoin Cash/BCH
In 2017, the Bitcoin community was split over new changes introduced to the Bitcoin software. The result of this split is the Bitcoin Cash cryptocurrency. Considering that most miners chose to upgrade the Bitcoin software, the value of each BCH token is only second to the original Bitcoin cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin SV/BSV
This is another Bitcoin based cryptocurrency, but tries to stick to the original idea of bitcoin. The SV stands for Satoshi Vision, and a major difference between this and Bitcoin Cash is the increased block size, which allows more transactions to be included within it.
Litecoin/LTC
This is a also a fork of Bitcoin. With a faster block generation time of 2.5 minutes, Litecoin improves on the slow block creation time of 10 minutes in the original Bitcoin. Moreover, it also aims to solve the issue of ASICs in mining by using a different hashing algorithm called scrypt.
Binance Coin/BNB
The Binance Coin was created by Binance (the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange) to allow its customers to easily exchange Binance Coin for other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum or Litecoin.
EOS/EOS
It is another smart contract platform, which also has one of the fastest block creation times (just 0.5 seconds). Smart contracts in the EOS blockchain are written using WebAssembly. WebAssembly was recently approved by the W3C as the fourth language alongside HTML, CSS and Javascript.
Cardano/ADA
This cryptocurrency uses a Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithm called Ouroboros, which is provably secure. It also supports creation of smart contracts.
Enfin
The above list is limited to very few cryptocurrencies. However, if you check here, you will find over 200 different cryptocurrencies in circulation. Not all are used to buy goods. Some like Namecoin exist in a niche, while others, like IOTA may be on the path to revolutionize fields such as IOT. However, all of them use the blockchain. Anyone can make their own cryptocurrency, and smart contracts often make the job easier. To learn more about smart contracts, check my post here.
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