Cryptocurrencies are the decentralized financial instruments which are in the form of a ledger and are free from any external interference of any third party such as the government or banks. With advent of Cryptocurrency, a new era of financial trading and investment has been ushered. Various cryptocurrencies are at the helm of this financial overhaul, some of them are: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Dogecoin, Cardano, Shiba etc.
Bitcoin (BTC)
- Launched in 2009, Bitcoin is the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
- The inventor of Bitcoin is Satashi Nakatomo.
- Bitcoin is created, distributed, traded, and stored with the use of a decentralized ledger system, known as a blockchain.
- Being has inspired many other Cryptocurrencies which are collectively referred to as Altcoins.
- It uses Cryptography to secure its transactions and there is no existence of any physical bitcoins.
- Bitcoin transactions are verified via complex computations which are known as “Mining”.
- Balances of Bitcoin tokens are kept using public and private “keys.
- Presently, 1 Bitcoin costs around $48,229.50. However, the cost of the bitcoin is highly volatile which makes it an investment risk.
Ethereum (ETH)
- A technology that can send cryptocurrency to anyone for a small fee. It also powers applications that can be used widely by third parties.
- Different from Bitcoin in the sense that it is programmable and hence can be used for a lot of different assets.
- Makes Ethereum more than just for payments. It’s a marketplace of financial services, games and apps, and blockchain based technologies eg NFT etc
Dogecoin (DOGE)
- An open-source cryptocurrency started in 2013 by Jackson Palmer and Billy Markus.
- It started as a joke based on a popular meme featuring a Shiba Inu dog.
- Low price and unlimited supply are it features
Litecoin (LTC)
- A cryptocurrency that was founded in 2011, Charlie Lee.
- Can be used as an avenue for paying people anywhere in the world without an intermediary having to process the transaction.
- There will never be more than 84 million Litecoins in circulation.
- Differs from Bitcoin in faster block generation rate and use of Scrypt as a proof-of-work (PoW) scheme.
Cardano (ADA)
- Aims to be a decentralized application (DApp) development platform with a multi-asset ledger and verifiable smart contracts.
- Founded by Charles Hoskinson
- Being built in five stages: foundation, decentralization, smart contracts, scaling, and governance.
- Runs on the proof-of-stake Ouroboros consensus protocol.
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