7 Cryptocurrencies That You Are Missing Out On
The greatest gift Satoshi gave us wasn’t Bitcoin — it was blockchain.
Blockchain has a broad range of applications, right from creating smart contracts to building DeFi (Decentralised Finance) apps. The technology has got market movers like Elon Musk saying that a “Mars economy will run on crypto.”
Cryptocurrencies represent more than a digital payment system, and there are 100s of them other than Bitcoin. These alternatives to Bitcoin are called altcoins . Many aren’t that popular. This can be attributed to how active their communities are and the investor backing that they get.
Here are 7 altcoins that have exploited the blockchain technology “better” than Bitcoin.
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1. Ethereum(ETH)
Ethereum is the second most popular & expensive crypto after Bitcoin. Some people actually expect it to overtake Bitcoin in the next few years. The currency has a lot of applications built on it, including other cryptocurrencies.
Proposed in 2015 by Vitalik Buterin, its use of smart contracts has made it the most widely used blockchain. A smart contract is a piece of code (software) running on the Ethereum network. It is a permissionless type of account on the network that automatically enforces user contracts. A contract can be any agreement between two parties, for example a loan agreement.
Smart contracts are hotcake in the world of blockchain. So if you are a developer, you need to take keen interest in this area. In fact, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange has support for this technology on one of its networks (Binance Smart Chain).
2. Dai
Dai is a decentralized stablecoin. It is pegged to the US dollar to maintain an almost 1:1 ratio with the price of the dollar, hence the name stablecoin. Unlike other stablecoins like Gemini Dollar (GUSD), which is centralized and backed by US dollars in the bank, Dai is backed by Ethereum using smart contracts.
Since its introduction in 2017, the currency hopes to offer a viable alternative to the estimated 1.8 billion people globally who do not own a bank account.
3. Binance Coin(BNB)
This is the native coin of the Binance Chain. It is used to trade and pay for transaction fees on the world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance.
Using it on the exchange comes with many advantages, such as trading discounts. Additionally, if you have any supported crypto that is less than $120, you can convert it to BNB. The point here is that you can then withdraw to fiat in case you had another asset where you couldn’t meet the minimum trade/ liquidation requirements.
4. Nano
The idea behind this cryptocurrency is to create a currency with no transaction fees. There is no mining involved as with most cryptocurrencies, but instead the nodes vote on who gets to create a block.
Nano also presents a novel approach to blockchain, called block lattice. In this design, each account has its own blockchain. In most other cryptocurrencies, the blockchain network keeps track of the transactions while with Nano, only the holders’ account balances are followed. Account holders are able to update their accounts without waiting for the whole network.
5. Monero(XMR)
This is a privacy based cryptocurrency — transactions on this network are anonymous. It’s a common myth that Bitcoin is anonymous. No, it isn’t. Anyone can check the blockchain records and see to whom what was sent. With Monero, the sender, receiver and the amount being sent are all kept confidential.
Monero is also a fungible token, meaning that funds sent are mutually interchangeable. This is not the case with Bitcoin, though.
Monero is also designed to be ASCII resistant, meaning that it can be efficiently mined using CPUs (i.e. your home desktop or even laptop). This is in line with the Egalitarian principle that Satoshi intended — an inclusive decentralized system.
On the other hand, Bitcoin seems to have veered off from its creator’s vision. This can be seen by how its mining power is distributed, with China accounting for 65% of all global mining.
6. Dogecoin
Launched in 2013, the currency is majorly used to tip content creators on social media platforms like Twitter & Reddit. Dogecoin was intentionally created with an inflationary supply to keep its price low.
The coin features the image of a Shiba Inu (Japanese dog) as its logo. This is meant to present it as a “fun” crypto. Dogecoin has also become a market favorite in the past few months with Elon Musk driving its price by as much as 50% in one day using his market-moving tweets.
7. Tron
In 2017, Tron launched as the world’s first decentralized digital entertainment platform. The platform aims to build a distributed content hosting space which is cost friendly for both content creators and users.
It does this by cutting out the middleman, hence giving content creators direct access to their audience. There’s no need for them to host their media on platforms like Netflix.
Many big companies like Samsung and Baofeng have already signed partnerships with Tron. Samsung’s phones, from S10 Galaxy onwards, will be supporting the cryptocurrency.
Baofeng (“the Chinese Netflix”) will also be incorporating Tron within its hardware and infrastructure. Furthermore, Baofeng intends to “provide partial rewards to users of BFC Coverage Cloud after its main network goes online, which in part will reward users who will be distributed as BFC credits to all BFC co-op clouds.”
Conclusion
If you are new to cryptocurrency, feel free to get any of these altcoins and more to see how they work. This will give you familiarity with crypto terms like wallets, addresses and keys. If you are a developer, begin by learning how Bitcoin works. The rest are if the cryptocurrencies are simply variations of how they use its technology.
