CRYPTOCURRENCY FINANCIAL SERIES 2

TYPES OF CRYPTOCURRENCIES

There is a total number of 6,955 cryptocurrencies in the World in 2020. These currencies have a combined market capitalization of USD 342.39 Billion as at when I was writing this piece. I have discussed the most popular among these crypto assets in this piece to help a rookie to crypto space to understand them and decide which ones to invest in.

·        Bitcoin(BTC) : Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency ever created. It was created and released in 2009 by a Pseudonym called Satoshi Nakamoto. It is represented by the symbol BTC and provides users with the ability to send and receive money World-wide without using any bank, and it is not controlled by any central bank.

BTC is the biggest crypto asset with the market capitalization size of USD 199.59 Billion. It has a total maximum supply of 21 Million coins, and so far, 18 Million coins are in circulation.

·        Ethereum (ETH): Ether is the second largest cryptocurrency in the World with the market capitalization of USD 40.58 Billion. Ethereum provides a decentralized software for businesses and companies to enable them build smart contracts and Decentralized Applications (i.e user applications that are not hosted on one server) that cannot be shutdown or attacked by cyber criminals or any party in the transaction.

Ether was launched in 2015.

·        Ripple (XRP) : According to Investopedia, Ripple is a real-time global settlement network that offers instant, certain and low-cost international payments. Launched in 2012, Ripple “enables banks to settle cross-border payments in real-time, with end-to-end transparency, and at lower costs.”

Ripple is different from other cryptocurrencies because transactions done on its network do not require to go through a vigorous mining process like it is the case with other cryptocurrencies. Because of this, banks and other financial institutions are more comfortable with Ripple and are adopting ripple network to perform instant remittance of money world wide.

Today, ripple is the 4th biggest crypto with market cap of USD 11.0 Billion.

·        Tether (USDT): Tether is called a stablecoin because it is the first cryptocurrency that is designed to mimic a fiat currency such as the US Dollar. Investors were generally worried that cryptocurrencies were volatile, and tether was created to introduce a less volatile cryptocurrency that suits investors risk appetite.

Tether is the 3rd largest cryptocurrency with the market capitalization of USD 15.32 Billion as at the time of writing this article.

·        LiteCoin (LTC) : Litecoin is the future of money. As typical of all cryptocurrencies, it is not controlled by any government or central authority and can be used by anyone in the World to transact with others anywhere in the World. It was created in 2011 to operate in similar way like bitcoin.

Litecoin is the 11th largest cryptocurrency with the market capitalization of USD 2.99 Billion as at 27th September 2020.

·        Bitcoin Cash (BCH) : Bitcoin cash was created out of the forking/splitting of Bitcoin in August 2017. The difference between Bitcoin and Bitcoin cash is that Bitcoin network has strictly limited data block size to 1MB but the Bitcoin Cash network has expanded this block size limit to 8MB per block, therefore, enabling transactions to be confirmed faster on BCH network.

BCH has a market capitalization of USD 4.07 Billion as at 27th September 2020

·        Binance Coin (BNB) : BNB is a cryptocurrency issued by Binance Exchange. Binance Exchange is one of the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the World. BNB has maximum supply of 200 Million token coins which Binance Exchange plans to reduce the total supply to 100 Million coins after repurchasing and destroying 100 Million of the coins over time. This repurchse and destruction of the BNB will ensure that the value of the coins grows over time and provides more value to investors.

Currently, BNB is the 6th largest cryptocurrency in the World with a market capitalization of USD 3.77 Billion.

·        EOS: EOS was created by Dam Larimer in June 2018. Dam Larimer has great experience in cryptocurrency ecosystem as he has formerly founded a cryptocurrency exchange called Bitshare and a blockchain based social media called Steemit.

The initial fund raising of EOS was the most profitable in the history of cryptocurrency as it raise huge sum of USD 4.0 Billion. The market capitalization of EOS is currently 2.39 Billion.

·        Monero (XMR) : Monero is a digital money that is built on total privacy of the holde and user where the activities of the users and the transactions they carry out can not be traced by anyone else. The most attractive feature of Monero is the absolute privacy that it offers by making all transactions and activities via its network impossible to trace.

The current market capitalization of monero is USD 1.89 Billion.

Note that to start investing in cryptocurrency, you need to have what is called a digital currency wallet, just like you need to open a bank account to start keeping money with a bank. The next series will discuss the process of getting your crypto asset wallet.

Stay Blessed! Stay safe!