From being considered a gamified novelty just a decade ago to being treated as an investment vehicle rivalling blue-chip technology stocks, cryptocurrencies have come a long way. Early movers who sensed an opportunity much earlier than anyone else did have reaped rich returns on their investments. Invented to bypass conventional middlemen in the financial economy, cryptocurrencies have emerged as an alternative to blue-chip shares and commodities investments. Though many associate cryptocurrencies with Bitcoin, there are other such tokens which have offered great returns on investments as well. Here, we look at 10 such cryptocurrencies that have attracted equal, if not more, interest from investors of all kinds.
Bitcoin (BTC)
Current Value: $2.41 trillion
Inception Year: 2014
An unknown, still anonymous Satoshi Nakamoto created the framework for the first kind of cryptocurrency tokens that we know today. At first, hardly anyone, except for some tech geeks, took Bitcoin seriously, which required miners to come up with a code that met the cryptocurrency algorithm’s requirement to get rewarded with Bitcoins.
There’s one challenge that makes Bitcoin more valuable than gold- the system was designed to create just 21 million Bitcoins. With 19.9 million Bitcoins already mined till 2024, Bitcoin’s value is reaching astronomical valuations.
Ethereum (ETH)
Current Value: $528 billion
Inception Year: 2015
Conceptualised by 19-year-old Canadian-Russian programmer Vitalik Buterin. Ethereum, coded ETH, was developed as a proof of concept for decetralised applications (DApps) used in the blockchain ecosystem. It was meant to be something similar to what we now know as Android —an open-source system where anyone can bid for ETH coins through DApps, unlike Bitcoin, where only qualified coders can attempt to win Bitcoins.
Ethereum’s supply isn’t limited, and Buterin, along with other coders have been working to adjusting the supply cap as required to maintain its flexibility. If holding Bitcoin is akin to gold, holding Ethereum is like investing in silver- giving more room for potential investors to continue building their investments.
Binance Coin (BNB)
Current Value: $117 billion
Inception Year: 2017
BNB, or Binance Coin, was created by tech entrepreneur Changpen Zhao as the native utility token of the Binance cryptocurrency exchange. This one has been designed to be a unique combination of Ethereum’s Proof of Stake (PoS) and Bitcoin’s Proof of Authority (PoA) mechanism to validate transactions, helping it emerge as a one-size-fits-all solution for decentralised blockchain transactions.
This has helped BNB to handle more than three times the volume of transactions as Bitcoin or Ethereum, but this cryptocurrency is mostly used in the Binance cryptocurrency ecosystem, with its success tied to the exchange. Nevertheless, it remains a valuable investment for those who are loyal to the platform.
Solana (SOL)
Current Value: $75 billion
Inception Year: 2017
Developed by Anatoly Yakovenko, this one has been created to offer the highest speed and syncronization amongst all cryptocurrencies. It has a remarkable transaction speed of almost 65,000 per second, achieved through its Proof of History consensus mechanism, an alternative to the PoA and PoS that’s increasingly being adopted at scale.
Though Solana doesn’t have a fixed cap on the tokens it offers, there are currently 500 million SOL tokens created, and it can be increased, though its values are expected to rise as more are awarded or hoarded
XRP (Ripple)
Current Value: $128 billion
Inception Year: 2012
Developed by three engineers to create a better version of Bitcoin, Ripple or XRP as it now referred to, is a pre-mined cryptocurrency that can be used for real-world applications. Though some don’t consider it a cryptocurrency, XRP has made it to the US Government’s strategic crypto reserve, as it can be bought and sold for any financial transactions just as any fiat currency.
Though there are 100 billion XRP tokens, about 55% are in circulation currently, with the rest remaining in escrow with the creators, the Ripple Foundation. There haven’t been any talks of mining more XRP tokens yet, and the Ripple Foundation burns small amounts of them intermittently to create a deflationary pressure
Aptos (APT)
Current Value: $2.8 billion
Inception Year: 2022
A fairly recent addition to the cryptocurrency space, Aptos aims to meet more of the demands for a scalable DApps provider to help boost Web3 adoption. Developed as a Proof of Stake (PoS) blockchain to deliver high-value transactions, APT aims to facilitate high-speed transactions through its easy-to-adapt infrastructure.
Dogecoin (DOGE)
Current Value: $15 billion
Inception Year: 2013
Created by developers as a joke during the height of the Bitcoin craze, Dogecoin became a sensational investment vehicle within weeks. Encouraged by the response, the developers behind it created a strong community around it, even though this ‘memecoin’ doesn’t have an intrinsic value. These DOGE coins are freely available on most exchanges, with many investing in them mostly for speculative purposes.
Cardano (ADA)
Current Value: $30.3 billion
Inception Year: 2017
Designed as a peer-to-peer, proof-of-stake blockchain platform, Cardano’s architecture allows for the scalable implementation of smart contracts. Offering a solution similar to Ethereum’s Cardano aims to offer a blockchain-based token that aims to be better than Ethereum. In fact, the co-creator Charles Hoskinson was one of the initial members working on Ethereum, and he made sure Cardano offers much more than Ethereum does.
Avalanche (AVAX)
Current Value: $10 billion
Inception Year: 2020
Developed by Cornell University alumni-led startup Ava Labs, Avalanche was launched as a consensus protocol based cryptocurrency designed to meet financial industry requirements. This one is known for its fast smart contracts platforms with the most validators of any proof of stake based blockchain platform. Currently, Avalanche has a total token cap of 720 million. To maintain the demand supply dynamics, Ava Labs charges some tokens as transaction fees, eventually burning them to avoid increasing the total tokens in circulation.
Polkadot (DOT)
Current Value: $6.3 billion
Inception Year: 2020
Developed by Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood, this cryptocurrency facilities interoperability between various blockchains to access data and tokens from each other. An active platform for developers, Polkadot competes with Cardano for market share but still has a long way to go. It has been working. Investing in Polkadot has been quite expensive, with developers requiring a lot of time to understand the system before commencing their mining operations.
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