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Date of Creation: January 3, 2009
Creator: Satoshi Nakamoto (pseudonymous individual or group) Supply: max 21 million BTC (to be reached at aprox 2140) Mining: Proof of Work - SHA-256 hashing algorithm Bitcoin was the first proper digital currency to come onto the scene - over two decades of digital cash and cryptographic work culminated in the creation of Bitcoin in 2009, ushering in the modern crypto era. Click here to learn more about Bitcoin in our introductory Bitcoin piece. |
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Date of Creation: July 30, 2015
Creator: Vitalik Buterin (Russian-Canadian computer scientist) Supply: Decreasing amount issued each year (aprox 100 million ETH expected at peak) Mining: Proof of Work - Ethash hashing algorithm (SHA3-256/SHA3-512 alternatively used); Proof of Stake coming soon Ethereum goes beyond Bitcoin by creating a blockchain with smart contract capabilities. Ethereum is a main runner up in the crypto scene. However, many in the cryptocurrency and cryptoasset industry believe that Ethereum has the potential to overtake Bitcoin as the king digital asset. Time will tell - in the meantime, click here for an introduction to Ethereum. |
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Date of Creation: October 7, 2011
Creator: Charlie Lee (former Google employee) Supply: max 84 million LTC Mining: Proof of Work - Scrypt-based hashing algorithm (memory-hard and prevents ASIC overuse) Litecoin is often considered the silver to Bitcoin's gold and attempts to be a more transaction-friendly cryptocurrency. Very similar to Bitcoin, Litecoin makes three main changes: (1) lower block time, (2) more coins available, and (3) memory-hard hashing algorithm that prevents ASIC overuse. Read more about this popular and transaction-focused cryptoasset here. |
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Date of Creation: 2012
Creator: Ripple Labs (original authors were Arthur Britto, David Schwartz, Ryan Fugger) Supply: fixed supply of 100 billion XRP Mining: n/a - all XRP tokens pre-created and released to public; no mining to obtain XRP Unlike Bitcoin and most other top cryptocurrencies and cryptoassets, the Ripple network (and the XRP tokens which are used on that network) are privately controlled by the firm that created them. This is unique in the crypto space. Additionally, Ripple is already being used around the globe for transactions processing by large financial institutions - the volume of transactions that the Ripple network can handle far exceed what is possible currently on Bitcoin. Learn more about this fast new promising cryptoasset here. |
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Date of Creation: June 11, 2016
Creator: IOTA Foundation (a non-profit in the IoT space in Germany); white paper published by Serguei Popov Supply: fixed supply of 2,779,530,283,277,761 (optimized for ternary computation) Mining: n/a - no mining of IOTA possible IOTA attempts to be the blockchain for the Internet of Things (IoT) - an industry just beginning but predicted to become very large in the coming decade. Created by a German non-profit, IOTA is attempting to power the coming IoT revolution. Learn more about IOTA here. |
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Date of Creation: January 18, 2014 (originally named XCoin)
Creator: Evan Duffield Supply: anticipated to be max 18 million DASH in existence (once inflation rate is effectively 0) Mining: Proof of Work - X11 hashing algorithm Dash attempts to be the digital cash of the cryptocurrency and digital asset space - it attempts to remedy some of Bitcoin's problems by providing a faster and more private approach to digital currency. Read more about the Dash network here. |