Cryptocurrency market came like a typhoon and took the world by storm. It could fulfil the dream of becoming a millionaire overnight (and many became too). However, most people are aware of just one part of that storm, i.e. Bitcoin investment. But the pool is much bigger and who knows which crypto might fulfil someone’s dream again.
Thus, it is significant to be aware of some top cryptocurrencies and therefore, here is the top seven cryptocurrency list of them.
Table of Contents
Top Cryptocurrency List of the World
1. Bitcoin
The first cryptocurrency created in the world was Bitcoin (BTC) which marked its launch date in 2008. It is a digital currency which erases the need for a centralised system such as banks and card companies, to make electronic payments. The crypto is based on the distributed ledger technology, blockchain.
No one knows who created the first-ever crypto, but it was someone with the name Satoshi Nakamoto. The reason why this crypto is at the top is that it is the oldest and has the most number of investors and developers to back it. Further, many economies and large corporations, including Overstock.com, Bloomberg, Microsoft, Expedia.com, etc. have started accepting payments in BTC and consider it as legit.
Some disadvantages of the crypto are it takes more than 10 minutes to process a BTC transaction, and the network can only proceed with seven transactions per second. Second, the transferring cost of a Bitcoin investment is also expensive than other cryptos.
In 2010, the cost of a BTC was less than $1, and in 2017, it went as high as $17,900. The leading crypto grew more than 2000% in 2017 alone. Currently, a single BTC is worth $10,000, approx.
Further, it accounts for more than 36% share in the crypto world and has a massive cryptocurrency market capitalisation of $189 billion.
2. Ethereum
The second most valuable cryptocurrency was launched on July 30, 2015, by Vitalik Buterin. Apart from being a digital currency, Ethereum is a blockchain-based platform for developing smart contracts and decentralised apps.
The platform has an astounding transaction speed of a few seconds as compared to Bitcoin, which takes around 10 minutes or more. However, the crypto supports only one coding language, i.e. Solidity and anyone wanting to enter the cryptocurrency market through their platform, needs to learn it.
Ether is the first cryptocurrency developed on the platform, Ethereum. Further, the platform has aided other blockchain projects in launching their Initial Coin Offering (ICO). In 2017, ICOs worth more than $5.6 billion was launched through Ethereum.
The crypto is considered the second-best and gave a fantastic return of more than 17,000% in just a year. In January 2018, it went from $9 in January 2017 to $1389. Note that the crypto has a market cap of more than $77.5 billion, only behind Bitcoin investment.
3. Ripple
Ripple or XRP, was developed after keeping in mind only one problem, i.e. International Payment Transfers. The crypto started operations in 2012 with a total number of 100 billion, which would never change. Out of 100 billion, 50 billion are held by Ripple Labs, which makes the coin apart from other counterparts as it involves a centralised body too. The currency was founded to make international payments both cheap and fast.
One disadvantage which this crypto faced was – Initially banks were the primary user of the coin for its smooth and accessible international payment services. However, with time, banks started developing their cryptos but are still used by giants like American Express and Santander.
XRP was one of the best crypto performers of 2017 and currently holds a market value worth $34.12 billion.
4. Bitcoin Cash
The similar-sounding crypto of Bitcoin was nothing but a result of the conflict in the developer community of the Bitcoin. Bitcoin Cash or BCH was founded when BTCs developer couldn’t agree to some changes in the Bitcoin’s code. The world’s biggest crypto had many issues like transactions charges and scalability, and the developers wanted to solve it, and thus, the BCH came into existence.
As promised, BCH has a faster transaction speed because of having an 8MB block size as compared to its counterpart BTC, which only has a block size of 1MB. The fees also plunged in case of BCH; while a single transaction takes more than $1.5 in BTC, Bitcoin Cash only charges $0.067
One notable disadvantage of the crypto is not every cryptocurrency broking exchange avails it for trading.
The crypto was launched in 2016 and soon made it to the top 10 cryptocurrency list because of the hype. From July 2017 to December 2017, the crypto increased about 10,000%, going to $4,000 from just $500 in six months.
5. Litecoin
It was one of the first cryptocurrencies to follow the footsteps of Bitcoin. The Litecoin was launched in 2011 and created by Charlie Lee, former Google employee and MIT graduate. The coin was developed on the blockchain technology of Bitcoin and thus, is only a digital currency and not a platform for smart contracts.
It is also one of the oldest cryptos in the market, operating for nine years now. Litecoin has a cryptocurrency market cap of more than $9.64 billion and grew from $4 in January 2017 to $350 in Dec 2017, giving an astounding return of more than 8000%.
Although Litecoin is cheaper as well as faster than Bitcoin investment, it is still behind its many other crypto counterparts.
6. EOS
EOS was developed by Dan Larimer, founder of the crypto exchange Bitshares and Steemit, a blockchain-based blogging site. EOS is giving a fierce competition to Ethereum by offering the same platform to build decentralised applications and smart contracts as them but with better technology.
The crypto was launched in 2017 through an ICO, which was one of the most profitable “initial coin offering (ICO)” in history. It raised around $4 billion through crowdfunding in that batch.
7. Tether
Tether is one of the so-called stable cryptos which fixes its market value with a currency or some external reference point to control or mitigate volatility. The Tether is backed by US dollars and has a token amount of around $1 per coin.
Almost every major crypto or digital currency including Bitcoin is characterised by high volatility, and on the other hand, Tether and other such stable coins mitigate price fluctuations to lure the users or investors who are risk averters.
The crypto was launched in 2014 and is currently at the third position with a market capitalisation of $10 billion, approximately.
The Bottom Line
So, it was the list of top seven coins which are leading the cryptocurrency market currently. However, nothing’s going to happen by reading the cryptocurrency list. One needs to get up, collect required knowledge, and start trading & investing to take the benefit.
Another important factor is choosing the right broker, which regulates under the proper regulations. HF trading is a brokerage firm which provides several trading services and products, including cryptocurrencies, to its users. The company regulates under the top financial bodies, i.e. ASIC (Australian Securities and Investment Commission) and New Zealand’s FMA (Financial Market Authority).
Building your knowledge and skill stack is also a significant contributor before jumping in the trading. Read books, it enhances the information tremendously and lays down the foundation of experience. Besides, it teaches lessons of life.
Do not forget to practise trading before investing real money. You can opt for the demo services of HFtrading for FREE to experience trading.