If you managed to find this article, then it is very likely that you heard about people making a lot of money by trading cryptocurrencies (you will also hear terms like digital currency and digital asset). If that is the case, chances are that you thought about investing as well, but — for some reason or another — never managed to explore the cryptocurrency world in more detail.
Trust us, you are not alone.
Most people face the same problem because our daily life activities consume most of our time. Consequently, you might also struggle with doing proper research because there is simply too much new information. In short, we don’t find the time and will to properly educate ourselves.
This is why Kriptomat offers educational content on Bitcoin and altcoins. In this article, we present a basic overview of the top cryptocurrency coins.
The State of Classic Currencies
In the field of classic (fiat) currencies, we have the European euro, US dollar, Japanese yen, Indian rupee, Russian ruble, Croatian kuna, and many others. These currencies originate from and are geographically linked to a single country or a community of countries (like the European Union or the United States of America). Their use is also limited by geography. For example, you are not able to pay for coffee in Finland with Russian ruble as it is not an accepted form of payment.
When displaying the value of individual cryptocurrencies, they are most frequently converted to globally accepted, and, more importantly, relatively stable currencies. Most commonly used fiat currencies for this sort of value representation are the US dollar, euro and Japanese yen.
Top Cryptocurrency List
The list below features the top 20 cryptocurrencies based on market capitalization and their basic characteristics.
| Sign | Name | Code | Purpose | Maximum supply | Availability on Kriptomat |
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Bitcoin | BTC | The first and most popular decentralized cryptocurrency. It is most widely accepted, has the largest volume and the largest market share. | 21,000,000 | BTC price |
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Ripple | XRP | Ripple Labs is developing different solutions for the financial sector and XRP is intended to help speed up the cross-border payments and lower the transaction costs. The network can processes payments in a matter of seconds. | 99,991,708,587 | XRP price |
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Ethereum | ETH | Ethereum is a blockchain platform and Ether is the token that powers the network. The blockchain platform is open source and serves as a basis for the development of many other solutions (including countless ICOs). | Unlimited | ETH price |
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EOS | EOS | A cryptocurrency token and blockchain that operates as a smart contract platform for the deployment of decentralized applications and decentralized autonomous corporations. | 1,006,245,120 | EOS price |
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Tether | USDT | Tether is a stablecoin. It uses the blockchain technology to allow the users to keep, send and receive digital tokens pegged to dollars. | 2,580,057,493 | Soon on Kriptomat! |
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Bitcoin Cash | BCH | It is a fork (copy) of Bitcoin (BTC) and created due to disagreements on scalability. Bitcoin Cash increases transaction capacity by making the block size bigger. | 21,000,000 | BCH price |
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Litecoin | LTC | If Bitcoin is said to be the gold standard in the crypto world, then Litecoin is often the silver. It is characterized by higher speeds of transactions. | 84,000,000 | LTC price |
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TRON | TRX | TRON is building the infrastructure for a decentralized Internet. It also provides compatibility for Ethereum smart contracts through an innovative smart contracts platform. | 99,263,064,095 | TRON price |
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Stellar | XLM | It is similar to Ripple because the platform is intended for financial transactions, but it also allows for a faster conversion of currencies – crypto and fiat. | 104,682,543,032 | XLM price |
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Bitcoin SV | BSV | It is a fork (copy) of Bitcoin (BTC) that supposedly follows the vision of Satoshi Nakamoto (Bitcoin’s original creator). | 21,000,000 | |
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Cardano | ADA | Their team is developing a blockchain technology that harnesses the latest research and engineering practices to build a system that will securely run decentralized applications and smart contracts. | 31,112,483,745 | ADA price |
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Binance Coin | BNB | Binance Coin is the digital token of the Binance exchange. | 189,175,490 | |
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IOTA | MIOTA | A platform intended to support the “Internet of Things;” connecting all kinds of imaginable devices and supporting transactions between those devices. It doesn’t use the blockchain, but a new tech called the “Tangle”. | 2,779,530,283 | IOTA price |
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Monero | XMR | A cryptocurrency whose characteristic is the encryption of transactions – the result is extreme security and anonymity with pretty much no way of tracking. | 16,757,571 | XMR price |
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Dash | DASH | The name Dash is derived from the words Digital Cash. It is an improvement over Bitcoin in terms of the speed of transactions and higher anonymity. | 18,900,000 | DASH price |
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NEO | NEO | A platform that is also known as the Chinese Ethereum due to its similar features and some proposed improvements – especially with regards to security. | 100,000,000 | NEO price |
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NEM | XEM | NEM is a cryptocurrency and blockchain platform for smart digital assets. The main new feature is Proof of Importance (POI). |
8,999,999,999 | NEM price |
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Ethereum Classic | ETC | It is a fork (copy) of Ethereum (ETH). It spawned as a result of different thinking and philosophy as it maintains the original untampered ETH blockchain. | 210,000,000 | ETC price |
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USD Coin | USDC | It is a regulated and licensed stablecoin, pegged to the US dollar. | 323,563,023 | |
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Zcash | ZEC | Bitcoin upgrade with a public blockchain that manages better, completely anonymous transactions. | 5,784,981 | ZEC price |
What is altcoin?
Individual cryptocurrencies are often called coins. Bitcoin was created as the first cryptocurrency, so it is the original crypto coin. It set the standards, guidelines and represents a kind of a basis for all other coins that were created later and are in an alternative to Bitcoin in a variety of different ways. The consensus for the way these coins are called altcoin (alternative coin). Read more about the origin of these coins in the article ‘What is ICO’.
A lot of different currencies have been created already and it is expected that this trend will continue for some time to come. At the same time, it is expected that many won’t last and will disappear over time. The main Bitcoin competitor has always been Ethereum, but we don’t think it should be seen as a competition. It is more like a Bitcoin alternative.
Bitcoin remains the top cryptocurrency by any basic market metric, but we believe that there is room for many other cryptocurrencies and altcoins. Those that will be able to survive the test of time are the ones that will prove their value, usefulness, uniqueness and will be able to serve their purpose in a meaningful way.
There are thousands of cryptocurrencies, and a lot of them don’t have a meaningful market share or day-to-day trading volume. Read our article learn about the crypto market to learn more!