Popular types of cryptocurrencies

2017-05-18 00:00:00:

Thinking about how to cover the topic, involuntarily reminded of the dictum popular in the last century that the 20th century is an era of rapid technological progress. However, at the turn of the century, that is, 16 years, there was a tendency for a significant increase in the rate of development of civilization. We already live not only in the technical, but in the technogenic age. This is due to the invention and development of information and computing technologies, and the worldwide spread of the Internet, which has covered almost the entire surface of the planet with an invisible web.

Progress on an unprecedented scale has affected almost all, without exception, means of human activity. Even 7 years ago, we did not even know that fundamental changes would occur in the field of financial relations. At that time, there were already electronic currencies and online resources for their exchange and withdrawal, but the phenomenon of digital money, which emerged in 2009 thanks to the efforts of a user known under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, marked the beginning of an era of a real financial revolution.

Cryptocurrencies, under the leadership of Bitcoin, have gained well-deserved fame in a short period of their existence and in the long term have every chance of completely replacing the fiduciary monetary units that are so widespread today. The victorious procession of Bitcoin and different coins (forks of the same Bitcoin) in the vastness of the virtual and real worlds continues today. Crypto money is slowly but steadily gaining leading positions in the global financial sector and becoming part of the everyday life of every average inhabitant of the planet.

Nowadays, cryptocurrency is not just a means for investment and mutual settlements, but also a testing ground for the development and implementation of technologies that can create a new financial world. The attractiveness of cryptocurrency, from an investment point of view, lies in its limited amount. For example, Bitcoins, as of 2015, generated about 75% of their total number, namely 21 million coins.

Cryptocurrencies, and especially Bitcoin, did not get a place in the sun easily. Lets go even further and note that despite the appearance of numerous forks, only the strongest survive in this struggle for survival, in conditions of fierce competition. We will try to highlight among the general mass the main types of cryptocurrencies that have established themselves in modern financial realities and continue to develop.

Lets try to hold a kind of cryptocurrency hit parade and make a top list of digital currency units.

Bitcoin

 Bitcoin became the basis for the creation of all existing peer-to-peer systems. On January 3, 2009, the first release of the cryptographic currency Bitcoin took place, the founder of all types of modern cryptocurrencies, with full decentralization. For the functioning of the system, there are enough client programs that are connected in a chain and form a self-sufficient node. All transactions between users do not require the involvement of intermediaries, although this option is available. Transactions are irreversible. According to the data, at the end of May 2017, the cost of one Bitcoin exceeded $ 1,700. However, the price of this cryptocurrency, like many others, is not constant. Speaking about the volatility of Bitcoin, one feature that has become established in recent years should be noted. In particular, after an unplanned drop in quotations, another jump in its rate occurs and it not only reaches the point from which the next recession began, but improves the previous indicator of the value of the cryptocurrency and it bets its own next record.

But the list of all cryptocurrencies is not limited to one Bitcoin, which is the most popular in the world, but also offers the most developed network infrastructure. Given that the first cryptocurrency has an open source code, they began to use it to create alternative currency units. Over the 5 years since the birth of Bitcoin, more than 2,000 varieties of digital money have appeared on the market. Most of them, despite their flashy names, are only forks (branches) of Bitcoin. That is, the Bitcoin program code became the basis for the creation of such currencies. In the cryptocurrency system, one of the first forks was Namecoin.

Namecoin

 The NMC was released in mid-April 2011 from Bitcoins original code, which has undergone minor changes. The maximum coin limit is 21 million. The NMC price is showing relative stability at the level of 30-50 cents per namecoin. The exception was July 2014, when the price of NMCs e-cash jumped to $ 10.

The blocks are calculated using standard mining hardware. The use of Merged Mining technology allows miners to simultaneously mine Bitcoins and Namecoins without reducing the efficiency of calculations. The market capitalization of the cryptocurrency as of July 2016 is $ 4.1 million. Number of coins mined: 12.6 million

Litecoin

This type of cryptocurrency is created without centralized administration and is also a fork of Bitcoin. In terms of capitalization, Litecoin is consistently one of the four leaders in world cryptographic currencies. During 2015-2016, it demonstrates a stable growth in value. At the end of May 2017, one LTC was worth approximately $ 27. By the end of 2020, 75% of all Litecoins (84 million) will be generated. According to many analysts, LTC is a worthy alternative to Bitcoin. Therefore, given the large size of capitalization, Litecoin always takes the first places in the cryptocurrency rating.

Feathercoin

Feathercoin is practically no different from Litecoin. At the same time, the developers of this electronic money paid more attention to the protection mechanism. In addition, their number will reach 336 million. Currently, about 131 million FTC are mined. The coin is worth just over one cent, and its capitalization is $ 1.6 million. The system is quite young since it started operating in 2013. It was in the year of foundation that the service was hacked by hackers, after which the developers improved the security system and after that the FTC entered the TOP of the worlds cryptocurrencies. The creators of the currency claim that at present the system can only be hacked if they exercise control over 51% of the capacity. From a practical point of view, this is not possible.

Freycoin

The cryptocurrency was created in 2013 and another popular fork of Bitcoin. The main goal pursued by the developers was to encourage investors to invest money. In their opinion, economic destabilization is primarily caused by the accumulation of corporations. Therefore, the creators introduced a tax of 5% for the "idle" funds on the owners wallets. Thus, the company encourages investors to invest in turnover. Considering the rating of cryptocurrencies, it is worth emphasizing that the FRC are in the right economic position. The maximum number of coins planned to be issued is 100 million. Also, the system presents itself as a charitable organization, since 8 out of 10 coins go to donations.

Dogecoin

 DOGE is a fork of Litecoin. Currency hashing is performed using a modified Scrypt algorithm. Today, there are over 105 billion coins. But the main feature of DOGE is that this cryptocurrency system is not limited in quantity. In addition, transactions are carried out with a minimum commission rate, which is hardly felt by users, as well as a high transaction speed.

DOGE and LTC are mined simultaneously. By receiving Litecoins, the user automatically becomes the owner of Dogecoins. Therefore, both systems do not compete with each other for clients, but, on the contrary, allow you to earn currency using the same computing power. The payment system has a huge army of fans, regularly holds promotions and acts as a sponsor of sports events. Therefore, Dogecoin is in the TOP 10 cryptocurrencies in the world.

Ripple

 This cryptocurrency is open source, but not a fork. The program is completely unique. As of July 2016, the capitalization was $ 24.5 million, and in May 2017 it was already more than $ 13 billion. XRP is used as a payment unit. Currency price, block size, difficulty and other indicators have been showing relative stability over the past year. A feature of transactions is speed: it takes a few seconds to complete a transfer. In addition, considering the list of all cryptocurrencies, it should be noted that Ripple offers customers a minimum transaction fee of $ 0.00001. But even these means the system uses exclusively to maintain security, namely to protect against DDoS attacks.

NXT

 NXT is a standalone networking platform and is not a clone. To make payments within the system, Nextcoin is used, created using Proof-Of-Stake technology. We are talking about a service that does not need mining. All coins were mined at the beginning of the launch of the project and distributed among several dozen participants (73). In fact, NXT is not a cryptocurrency system, but a special platform for connecting a variety of applications, including virtual funds. The users wallet in the system is created using the Brain wallet technology, which provides for the entrance and disposal of funds through a passphrase. The system was created at the end of 2013 and is fully Russified.

Peercoin

Peercoin is among the most popular digital money. The system began operations in August 2012. The SHA-256 algorithm is used to calculate the blocks. System features:

    Minimum power required when forming blocks.
    Low commissions.
    High level of protection.

To date, the capitalization of the cryptocurrency is $ 8.3 million. More than 23 million coins have been issued, the number of which is not limited by anything. It is for this reason that PPC is subject to inflation, which is about 1% per year. Buying and storing Peircoins loses its meaning except for a resonant rise in value. Over the past year, the price of Pircoin has remained stable at $ 0.36.

Primecoin

Primecoin is a peer-to-peer payment system, and XPM is a fork of Bitcoin. Primecoin was created in 2013 by Sunny King, who is also the author of a number of electronic systems, but only XPM entered the TOP cryptocurrencies. The cost of one Primecoin is about 7-8 cents. Despite its low cost, this currency has specific features, namely:

    High speed of block generation.
    Efficiency of transactions.
    The system performs useful calculations using the number sequence technique developed by Alan Cunningham.
    No emission restrictions.

BlackCoin

 Of course, the list of all cryptocurrencies cannot be called complete without BlackCoin, since it is a product developed by Russian programmer Pavel Vasin. BlackCoin is another payment network tool for mutual settlements and accumulation of money, the principle of operation of which is almost similar to the Bitcoin cryptocurrency. The financial journal is open and decentralized.

The system has a number of advantages. For example, it takes less than one minute to complete a transaction in the system, which exceeds the performance of transactions when transferring funds from Bitcoin wallets by 10 times.

Considering the fact that the capitalization of cryptocurrencies is directly related to the number of transactions performed in the system, BlackCoin demonstrates high performance. Over the past years, a huge number of payments have been made, thanks to which the "black coin" is rightfully included in the top ten most popular cryptocurrencies.

It should be noted that after creating an electronic wallet, the user should keep it open. Thus, you can receive a cumulative income of 1% of the amount on the account.

Today, BlackCoins payment capabilities can be used not only in real time, but also through Coinkite terminal networks, which are installed all over the world.

Having considered the rating of the worlds most popular cryptocurrencies, we can say with confidence that almost all of them are clones of the famous Bitcoin, which they are very far from being popular. The privacy of the users of these systems is the main reason why they are constantly exposed to charges of fraud and money laundering.