Top 5 Crypto Currencies of all time !!

Top 5 Cryptocurrencies of all time

Undoubtedly, Cryptocurrencies are the biggest point of attraction for investers since last few months. Today, we talk about top 5 cryptocurrencies of all time .

   1. Bitcoin (BTC) 

A coin that needs no introduction, Bitcoin (BTC) is clearly

the most widely held and widely known Crypto of them all. It

was the first out of the gate having been introduced in 2008,

giving it name brand status in the Crypto world. However, if

the goal of a Cryptocurrency is to be fast, cheap and secure,

Bitcoin may not deserve all of the hype that it receives.

When Bitcoin was first introduced, it accomplished all three

of those objectives, however that is no longer the case. Like

all Cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin is based on Blockchain

technology, something I will explain in further detail later. For

now, all you need to know is that a block contains

transaction data, and it takes on average ten

minutes for a block to be processed. Like any digital file, a

block can only contain so much data, similar to a Word

document. Now that the popularity of Bitcoin has exploded,

transaction volume has skyrocketed beyond what the

Bitcoin Blockchain can handle.

This means that there is a constant backlog of transactions

waiting to be processed, leading to very slow transaction

speeds. If you want to have your transaction processed

faster, then you are able to essentially pay a higher fee to

skip the line. So as of now, Bitcoin has excessively high

transaction fees and painfully slow transaction speeds.

However it’s not all bad news. Bitcoin remains an extremely

secure Blockchain, arguably the most secure that there is.

Processing Bitcoin transactions remains computationally

intensive by design, which in short makes it more difficult for

hackers to maliciously alter transaction data. For transferring

large sums of money, Bitcoin remains an excellent option.

Security is the most important aspect of a high value

transaction, not fees or transaction speed.

2.BITCOIN CASH (BCH)

This problem is what those in the Crypto community refer to

as the scaling debate. If Bitcoin is to become a viable

currency, it needs to be faster and cheaper to use. In August

of 2017, a new currency was created called Bitcoin Cash

(BCH). 

The code is essentially the same as regular Bitcoin,

with two notable changes. The first is that the block size

was significantly expanded from 1MB to 8MB. As you will

recall, a block is just a bunch of data, typically transaction

data. Just like a Word document, a block can only hold so

much information. By expanding the block size, Bitcoin

Cash is able to process far more transactions than regular

Bitcoin, simply because it can store more transaction data in

each block. As a result, this also significantly reduces the

transfer fees as people no longer care about paying a higher

fee to skip the line. The second significant change is an

adjustable level of difficulty. In short, processing

transactions typically requires a lot of computing power, and

Bitcoin Cash was designed with the ability to adjust how

much computing power is required to process those

transactions. If there are lots of computers processing

transactions, the difficulty level will increase, and if there are

not enough computers processing transactions, the difficulty

will decrease. This ensures that transactions are processed

at a consistent rate.

However this does not come without consequence. Fastertransaction speeds are great from a retail perspective,however it comes at the expense of security. Bitcoin Cash isinherently less secure than traditional Bitcoin, making it apreferred choice for lower value transactions like a coffee.

3. ETHEREUM

Ether (ETH)

Coming in at number two, Ether is the second largest coin
by market cap (at the time of writing). The first thing I will
describe is the difference between Ether and Ethereum, as
this is something that people often seem to get confused
about.

Ethereum is a platform that was created for smart contracts
and decentralized apps. To explain smart contracts, think of
a simple contract like a trust as an example. Imagine you are
15 years old, and your wealthy grandparents pass away,
leaving you a large inheritance. Because you are so young,
your grandparents do not think you can be trusted with the
full amount right away, so they give it to a trustee to slowly
transfer you the funds over time. A contract might look like
this: $1,000,000 is held by a trustee, and every year on
January 1st, $100,000 is transferred to your account, until
you turn 18, when the remainder of the funds are given to
you at once. With a smart contract, the funds can essentially
be uploaded into the contract using digital currency, and be
programmed to transfer a set amount to your digital wallet
every year on January 1st.


Ethereum is the platform that smart contracts are built on,
and Ether is the digital currency that moves around on the
platform. In my example above, the $100,000 that is
transferred to the 15 year old is not transferred in USD or
CAD, it is transferred in Ether (ETH).


As mentioned, the Ethereum platform is also built for
decentralized apps (dapps). Forget the decentralized aspect
for a second, and just think of building applications for
something like the Apple app store. Using apps requires
computing power, which on the Ethereum platform is called
‘gas’. Gas can be purchased using Ether, which gives app
developers an incentive to make their applications very
efficient, thus requiring less gas and being cheaper to run. I
won’t go into more detail on that now, because
understanding the difference between Ether and the
Ethereum platform is really the key point here.


Whenever you see an Initial Coin Offering, the majority of the
time these are built on the Ethereum platform. So when I
referenced previously that there are thousands of
Cryptocurrencies, most of these are actually powered by
Ethereum, even if the coins have their own name and
symbol. So the best way to think of Ethereum is as
somewhat of an operating system like iOS, where you can
build apps on top of the platform.


Ether also has the benefit of being what I like to think of as a
Crypto reserve currency. The vast majority of coins cannot
actually be purchased with traditional Fiat currencies like
USD or CAD, you instead have to first buy BTC or ETH, and
then exchange it for the coin of your choosing. ETH is
currently my preference for buying altcoins, as the
transaction speeds are faster than BTC, and the fees
involved are far less.

4. RIPPLE (XRP)

Ripple is one of the most contentious coins on the market

right now. Recently it has been hovering between second

and third place by market cap, which has resurfaced some

of the arguments against its use.

To understand this Crypto, we need to go back to 2004.

Before Ripple, and in fact, before even bitcoin launched,

Ripplepay was a peer-to-peer payment network, which was

basically a platform for exchanging IOU’s (debt) between

people. To solve the issue of counterfeiting and double

spending, Bitcoin and most Cryptocurrencies rely on proof

of work, an energy intensive method for validating

transactions. The problem with POW is that it is not easy to

scale. For one thing there is only so much computing power

and electricity in existence.

In contrast to Bitcoin, Ripple requires users to extend trust

to validating servers that produce this consensus. To put it

in simple terms, anyone can theoretically set up a server to

validate ripple transactions, but ripple has to approve them.

So, Ripple is highly centralized and the XRP token is more

akin to a PayPal account than a trustless system like bitcoin.

With Bitcoin, when transactions are validated (through

mining), new coins are created. In the Ripple system

however, all coins were pre-mined. This essentially means

that all coins that are going to exist already do. But the

company, its founders and associated foundations, still own

well over 60 billion of the 100 billion tokens.

Coinmarketcap.com chooses to calculate market value

based on ‘circulating tokens’ which ignores a large piece of

the supply. This means the supply of ripple is way larger

than many realize.

The Ripple blockchain seeks to replace existing payment

rails that connect Banks, Payment providers, Corporates

and exchanges in order to provide savings in costs and

time. Like many of the alternative Cryptocurrencies that

have emerged, XRP (the ripple token) offers far faster

speeds than Bitcoin. BTC transactions can take an hour to

settle, ETH more than 2 minutes and XRP about 4 seconds.

Another unique fact about Ripple is in their business model.

Rather than be a driving force to remove financial

intermediaries like banks, Ripple has chosen to create close

partnerships with them, to improve their existing businesses.

While many hardcore Crypto enthusiasts see this as a

betrayal, many people from the world of institutional finance

are interested to see how this technology can be used to

improve upon existing financial infrastructure.

5. LITECOIN (LTC) 

Back in the day, Bitcoin was the only Cryptocurrency that

existed. In 2011, a new coin was created called Litecoin,

creating for the first time an alternative to BTC. For the most

part, Bitcoin and Litecoin are fairly similar, as Litecoin

essentially branched off of Bitcoin (this is called a fork).

The main ideology behind Litecoin is to be “the silver to

Bitcoin’s gold.” The founders are not just trying to be poetic

here, they are trying to describe Litecoin as being more

functional than Bitcoin, in the same way that silver has more

industrial applications than gold.

I will highlight two main differences between Litecoin and

Bitcoin to explain what I mean. First, Litecoin uses a

different algorithm than Bitcoin. While Bitcoin uses SHA256,

Litecoin uses something called Scrypt. All that you need to

understand is that Scrypt is a less computationally intensive

algorithm, allowing blocks to be processed significantly

faster. To be exact, Litecoin blocks can be processed

approximately every 2.5 minutes, rather than every 10 for

Bitcoin. The next difference is in the total quantity of coins

that will eventually be in circulation. While we know that

Bitcoin will be capped out at 21 million coins, Litecoin will

keep on being produced until there are over 80 million coins

in circulation. Again, similar to Bitcoin Cash, with faster

transaction times security of the blockchain is reduced.

I don’t feel the need to go into further detail on LTC, as the

concept is fairly simple, and this overview is meant to be

high level.