Top 5 Cryptocurrency in the market:

Posted by Nayana Patil on March 25th, 2021

1. Bitcoin (BTC)

Bitcoin was created in 2008, it was the first ever cryptocurrency.It is the digital currency, based on the distributed ledger named Blockchain Technology.It aims to create an alternative for fiat currencies like USD,GBP,JPY etc.

Pros

• As it is the oldest one, it has a big community of developers and investors backing it for further growth.

Cons

• With very slow transaction speed, it is facing huge challenges in scaling up. 

2. Ethereum

It is the second most valuable cryptocurrency after BTC. It is a blockchain based platform for developing decentralized apps and smart contracts. It is the native cryptocurrency used for all the transactions on Ethereum’ blockchain

Pros

• It is the most popular platform for building smart contracts, something which means a big thing in the cryptocurrency world.

Cons

• It only supports one coding language -Solidity. Since developers need to learn a new language, it acts as the entry barrier for them.

• Like bitcoin, Ethereum is also facing serious issues regarding scalability. It still uses the obsolete mechanism to verify the transactions which are leading to network congestion.  

3. Ripple XRP

Ripple is a very unique cryptocurrency as it is focused on solving problems related to just one industry- International Payment Transfers. Of the total number of 100 billion XRP that will ever exist, 50 billion are owned by Ripple labs. There is a very different approach compared to most other top 10 currencies where there is no central entity holding the majority of the coins.

Pros

• An international money transfer takes about a week. On the other hand, XRP can make it happen within seconds.

• The fees are considerably lower when compared to what is charged by financial institutions and other cryptocurrencies.

Cons

• Since the company itself owns half of the coins, it is often criticized for being centralized whereas decentralization is the core idea behind cryptocurrencies.

• Banks and financial institutions, which are Ripple’s biggest users, have started developing their own cryptocurrencies for international payments.

  4.Litecoin (LTC)
  

Litecoin was created way back in 2011 by Charlie Lee, an ex-Google employee. It was built on the blockchain of Bitcoin itself, with the purpose of improving it. Like Bitcoin, Litecoin is also just a digital currency and does not provide a platform for smart contracts.It has one of the most popular cryptocurrencies as it has stood the test of time and has been around for over 7 years.

Pros

• Litecoin transactions take around 2.5 minutes while it takes 10 minutes to complete a Bitcoin transaction. This is the reason that it is called the “Lite” coin.

• Average Litecoin transaction fees are around --content--.179 against .8 of Bitcoin.

Cons

• Except for transaction speed, there is no other offering from Litecoin which can significantly differentiate it from others. It is facing stiff competition from coins that offer privacy, smart contracts, and international payments, etc.

• Like Bitcoin mining, Litecoin mining is also expensive and restricted to those

• 5.Stellar Lumen
  

Stellar was founded in 2014 by Jed McCaleb who is also the founder of Ripple. In fact, Ripple was hard forked into Stellar and the Stellar Development Foundation was born. Like Ripple, Stellar is also focused on making cross-border payments more efficient.

Pros

• Stellar is more decentralized as compared to its closest competitor, Ripple. Also, being a non-profit, it inspires more trust than others.

Cons

• There are many coins that are targeting this space of international payments, including the number 3 on our list of Top 10 cryptocurrencies — Ripple.