Detailed Information About Many Cryptocoins ( Altcoins ) Below.
- Coin: Bitcoin (BTC)
Bitcoin is a type of digital currency in which encryption techniques are used to regulate the generation of units of currency and verify the transfer of funds, operating independently of a central bank. It was created in 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto (a mysterious person, or group of persons, whose identity has yet to be revealed).
In recent years Bitcoin has been used more widely as a store of value, rather than a transaction currency, and because of that has been dubbed the "Digital Gold."
- Coin: Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
Bitcoin Cash is a clone, or hard fork, of Bitcoin which came into existence in August 2017. Bitcoin Cash has a larger block size (8mb of transaction data per block), instead of Bitcoin's 1mb. This makes Bitcoin Cash transactions faster and cheaper, at the expense of slightly lower security (higher vulnerability to DoS attacks).
- Coin: Ethereum ( ETH )
Ethereum is a system on the Internet where people can make self-executing contracts (called Smart Contracts). Such contracts will run without any downtime, fraud, control or interference from a third party. Ether is the currency used to facilitate these contracts, as well as to pay people (miners) who provide computation power to run them
As an example, assume a smart contract for earthquake insurance. The blockchain can contain measurable parameters such as earthquake magnitude. When there's an insured event, the input conditions of a smart contract will be changed accordingly. As a result, the claims process will be triggered immediately, and the financial payout can be delivered to a customer without any delays.
Ethereum was proposed in late 2013 by Vitalik Buterin, a cryptocurrency researcher and programmer. A large number of people donated money to support the development of the system. The system came online in mid 2015.
- Coin: Dash (DASH)
Dash (Digital Cash) is a privacy-focused Bitcoin clone. It offers instant transactions (InstantSend), private transactions (PrivateSend) and operates a self-governing and self-funding model that enables the Dash network to pay individuals and businesses to perform work that adds value to the network.
- Coin: Monero (XMR)
Monero is a privacy-centric cryptocurrency that was created in April 2014. Monero aims to improve on existing cryptocurrency design by obscuring sender, recipient and amount of every transaction made as well as making the mining process more egalitarian (because it runs on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and FreeBSD)
- Coin: Litecoin (LTC)
Litecoin aspires to be the silver to Bitcoin's gold. Its distinctions from Bitcoin include having a decreased block generation time (2.5 minutes), increased maximum number of coins (4 times that of Bitcoin), different hashing algorithm, and a slightly modified GUI.
Litecoin was released in October 2011 by Charlie Lee, a former Google employee.
- Coin: Ripple (XRP)
Ripple is a real-time gross settlement system (RTGS), currency exchange and remittance network. It is built for enterprise (mostly, transactions between banks) and while it can be used person to person, that really isn't its primary focus. XRP is Ripple's internal token, although the system can run without it. XRP isn't mined like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and many other cryptocurrencies. Instead, it was issued at its inception.
The Ripple blockchain isn't open like those of other cryptocurrencies. XRP can be safely stored and kept, and uses cryptography to protect participants, but the nodes it's protecting aren't individuals but "trusted" operators registered in the Ripple network.
Tether is a cryptocurrency token claimed by its creators (Tether Limited, a company associated with Bitfinex exchange) to be backed by one dollar for each token issued. The primary objective is to facilitate transactions between cryptocurrency exchanges with a rate fixed to the United States dollar, allowing traders to take advantage of high speed arbitrage opportunities without resorting to slow bank wires.
- Coin: IOTA (IOT)
IOTA is a cryptocurrency with the goal of facilitating Internet-of-things payments. An example of an Internet-of-things transaction is a self-driving car paying for gas after fueling.
Instead of the blockchain, IOTA uses a technology called the Tangle which potentially becomes faster as more and more people use it. However, unlike the blockchain, its strength hasn't been widely tested yet.
