There’s no doubt about it: Bitcoin is the most famous cryptocurrency out there. Its price and market cap are through the roof, and it’s one of the first names that comes up when people talk about new technologies or investment opportunities.
But what many people don’t realize is that there are hundreds—if not thousands—of other cryptocurrencies out there. Most of them haven’t gotten much attention yet (at least compared to bitcoin), but they have their own unique features and use cases that might make using them worthwhile in certain situations. GS Partners
In this article, we’ll introduce you to 10 different cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin so you can see how they compare!
Types of Altcoins
While Bitcoin is the first and most popular cryptocurrency, there are many others. Altcoins are cryptocurrencies other than bitcoin, and they can be divided into two categories: tokens and coins. While these terms may seem interchangeable, they actually mean very different things.
Cryptocurrencies
Cryptocurrencies are a type of digital currency that uses cryptography to secure transactions and control the creation of new units. A cryptocurrency can be thought of as a virtual coin or token.
Cryptocurrency, in general, is an asset that has no physical existence but can be used to exchange goods and services or traded on the market just like any other asset. The most famous example is Bitcoin which was created by an anonymous person called Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009 as an alternative to traditional currencies such as dollars or euros.
The first blockchain was introduced by Nakamoto at the same time with Bitcoin but now there are many others such as Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC) among others..
Tokens
A token is a digital asset that represents a stake in an organization, such as a currency or a security. The term “token” is used to refer to both utility tokens and security tokens.
A utility token is used by its issuer to raise money for their project, but it also functions as a product or service within that same ecosystem.A security token represents ownership rights over real-world assets like gold bullion or real estate investment trusts (REITs).
It gives investors access rights through dividends paid out from profits generated by those underlying assets held by companies issuing these types of digital securities.
10 Important Cryptocurrencies Other Than Bitcoin
1. Ethereum
Ethereum is the second most valuable cryptocurrency, with a price of over $2,113 and market cap of $254 billion based on Ethereum (ETH) price and charts shown in various exchanges and coinmarketcap.com. It’s also a platform for smart contracts and decentralized applications (DApps).
Ethereum was created by Vitalik Buterin in 2015 and is considered to be the first blockchain-based smart contract platform. The Ethereum network allows developers to build DApps on top of its blockchain, which can then be used by individuals or companies as they see fit.
2. Tether
Tether is a cryptocurrency that’s designed to be stable, meaning it doesn’t experience significant price fluctuations. It’s backed by fiat currency and used as a means of exchange between cryptocurrencies, but you can also buy or sell Tether for fiat money on some exchanges or use them as a trading pair such as BTC USDT and more.
Like many other cryptos, Tether uses blockchain technology to record transactions on its network–but unlike most other cryptos, which rely on proof-of-work (or PoW) algorithms like Bitcoin’s SHA256 algorithm, Tether uses proof-of-reserve (PoR) instead.
3. USD Coin
USDC is a stablecoin backed by the US dollar, which means that it’s not a cryptocurrency at all. It’s just a digital representation of the dollar itself (hence its name).
USDC is fully collateralized by US dollars held at federally insured banks, meaning there are no surprises when it comes to your investment–you know exactly how much you have invested and what your risk exposure is at all times.
In addition, USDC can be redeemed for cash at any time with no lockup period or minimum amount required. This makes it an ideal way to invest in cryptocurrencies if you aren’t comfortable with storing them yourself or on an exchange platform where your assets may be vulnerable to hacking attempts like those we saw last year with Mt Gox and Bitfinex.
4. Binance Coin
Binance Coin is the official cryptocurrency of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. It’s an ERC-20 token that runs on the Ethereum blockchain and can be used to pay trading fees or receive discounts when you trade on Binance.
Binance Coin (BNB) is currently worth over $333 per coin, making it one of the most valuable cryptocurrencies out there with a market cap over $51 billion.
5. Binance USD
Binance USD is a stablecoin that was created by Binance, one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world. It’s pegged to the US dollar and can be used on the platform.
The coin has some interesting features:
You can stake it with no minimum deposit amount required (you just need to have an account and deposit some funds).
You earn interest on your holdings every day at 1% per year; this rate may change based on market conditions but will always be higher than most other cryptocurrencies’ rates of interest or return.
6. XRP
Ripple is a real-time gross settlement system (RTGS), currency exchange and remittance network created by Ripple Labs Inc. It supports tokens representing fiat currency, cryptocurrency, commodities or any other unit of value such as frequent flier miles or mobile minutes. XRP is the native currency of the Ripple network that has been designed primarily to facilitate international payments at lower costs with no chargebacks.
Ripple is a global settlement network that offers instant, certain and low-cost international payments. It also enables banks to leverage on each other’s balance sheets when necessary without having to pre-fund nostro accounts all over the world; instead they can just use one another’s balances at their discretion depending on payment needs and liquidity requirements at any given time.
7. Cardano
Cardano is a public blockchain platform that offers advanced features like decentralized apps, or dApps, and smart contracts. It was created in 2015 by Charles Hoskinson and Jeremy Wood and is built on the Haskell programming language.
Cardano’s team wants to do things differently than other cryptocurrencies. They want their currency to be scalable and secure enough for financial institutions while remaining decentralized at its core–and they’re working hard toward those goals with weekly updates on their progress through the Cardano Foundation blog.
8. Solana
Solana is a blockchain that can scale to 1 million transactions per second. It’s a sharding-based blockchain with proof of elapsed time consensus mechanism, which means that it has a high transaction throughput and low latency. Proof of elapsed time also uses less energy than proof of work or staking mechanisms because there are no miners or validators who use up resources in order to validate transactions on the network.
9. Dogecoin
Dogecoin was created as a “joke” cryptocurrency in 2013, but it has since become one of the most popular cryptocurrencies. The coin is used as a tipping system on Reddit and Twitter for users who want to reward others for their contributions. It has a total supply of 100 billion coins, which makes it easier for people to send small amounts of money quickly
Dogecoin is decentralized, open source peer-to-peer digital currency that enables you to easily send money online without any fees or wait times
10. Polkadot
Polkadot is a blockchain platform that seeks to make blockchain technology more scalable and interoperable. Polkadot is an open-source protocol, which means anyone can develop applications on top of it.
The project was founded by Gavin Wood, who also co-founded Ethereum and Parity Technologies Ltd., an enterprise blockchain company specializing in cross-chain interoperability solutions for financial institutions as well as other companies with large networks of participants (such as banks).