What are the Top 15 Cryptocurrencies?

Ever wondered what the difference is between all these blockchains? Why are there so many options? In this blog, we will go over what each of the top 15 cryptocurrencies are in 1 paragraph. Enjoy!

1. Bitcoin (BTC) - $20,454.91

Bitcoin was created on January 3rd, 2009 by an anonymous developer or group of developers under the alias of "Satoshi Nakamoto". Bitcoin uses a proof-of-work consensus algorithm and has a block time of about 10 minutes. Many people have concerns about Bitcoin's scalability due to these slow block times and that Bitcoin can only handle about 4.6 transactions per second. Bitcoin also has been criticized for using as much electricity as a country like Sweden.

2. Ethereum (ETH) - $1,576.48

Ethereum was created on September 15th, 2015, and expands on the technology of Bitcoin. Ethereum Classic was actually the first version of Ethereum, but Ethereum took over to fix a hack and other issues in Ethereum Classic. Ethereum is most well-known for the popularization of web3 and the creation of smart contracts. Smart contracts are what allow code to run on decentralized blockchains making Ethereum a lot more useful than pure cryptocurrencies (looking at you Bitcoin). Ethereum has been a part of many advances in blockchain technology such as decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and decentralized finance (Defi). Ethereum uses the proof-of-work consensus mechanism which means that it used a lot of energy just like Bitcoin. Ethereum is infamously known for having high gas fees which means you can end up paying a fortune whenever you do anything on the network.

3. Ethereum 2 (ETH2) - $1,576.47

Ethereum 2 supersedes Ethereum with the purpose of switching to the proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus algorithm. This means that Ethereum could reduce energy consumption by ~99.95%. The Ethereum Merge happened in a bunch of phases that merged the new PoS system with the rest of the blockchain. The phases went from December 1st, 2020 to September 15th, 2022. Ethereum merged this new consensus mechanism so all past transactions, applications, and smart contracts would not be forgotten instead of starting from scratch with a new blockchain. Anyone using Ethereum today is using Ethereum 2.

4. Tether (USDT) - $1.00

Tether was released on October 6th, 2014, and was the first stablecoin. This means that USDT will always have a value pegged to the US Dollar. There has been criticism though that the Hong Kong based company that runs Tether hasn't met their claims that the cryptocurrency is 100% backed by real US dollars. Because Tether is backed (without much proof) by a centralized company, they could be malicious and cause Tether's value to skyrocket or dive.

5. Binance Coin (BNB) - $324.76

BNB is a cryptocurrency on the BNB chain created by the crypto exchange company Binance. BNB chain uses "Proof of Staked Authority" which is a combination of proof of stake and proof of authority. Binance also has smart contracts which are compatible with Ethereum. Binance has been criticized for having a higher level of centralization which has led to multiple exploits on the network.

6. USD Coin (USDC) - $1.00

USDC is another stablecoin that was made by Coinbase and Circle in September 2018 to rival Tether. USDC is run on top of the Ethereum network and every single USDC is backed by 1 US dollar, unlike Tether. Some are worried about USDC because it is backed by centralized companies which means that USDC could be sabotaged.

7. XRP (XRP) - $0.46

XRP was created in 2012 and has been used with many banks and payment companies. XRP is used as a middle-man currency that allows you to trade from one currency to another on the Ripple blockchain. If you wanted Coin B and you had Coin A, you would sell Coin A for XRP, then buy Coin B with that XRP. There is 100 billion XRP total, but Ripple Labs owns about 2/3 of it and releases it periodically. XRP uses a custom consensus mechanism over proof-of-work or proof-of-stake because it has a faster transaction speed (about 3-5 seconds). XRP has been under some regulation scrutiny but still remains quite popular.

8. Binance USD (BUSD) - $1.00

Binance USD is yet another stablecoin pegged to the US Dollar and it was created in July 2017 by Binance. BUSD is 100% backed by themself and Paxos in cash and US Treasuries. BUSD was issued on the Ethereum blockchain by Paxos, but some of the BUSD is locked on Ethereum and is actually held on the Binance blockchain. BUSD is also centralized which creates the same concerns as USDT and USDC.

9. Dogecoin (DOGE) - $0.14

Dogecoin was a cryptocurrency released on December 6th, 2013 by Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer as a joke. This "meme coin" was made to make fun of the speculation in crypto at the time. After Elon Musk infamously invested in Dogecoin in 2021, the price skyrocketed and many people made a lot of money. The price then went downhill from there but very recently the price has started to jump back up again. Some consider it a legitimate investment whereas others see it as a one-time meme that will make many lose a lot of money.

10. Cardano (ADA) - $0.40

Cardano is a blockchain launched by Ethereum co-founder, Carles Hoskinson, in 2017. Cardano was proposed as an alternative to Ethereum mainly for it using the proof-of-stake consensus mechanism (which means it uses less energy). Cardano has smart contracts just like Ethereum. With Ethereum 2.0 now using proof-of-stake, some of Cardano's appeal has been lost. But, one major pro is that Cardano's transaction fees are much lower meaning that you won't have to go bankrupt to use it.

11. Solana (SOL) - $32.30

Solana is a more recently created blockchain that was started on March 16, 2022, by a group of multiple people. Solana is a much faster and cheaper alternative to Ethereum. It uses a new consensus mechanism called proof-of-history (PoH) which allows its average of 2,500 transactions per second (TPS) which is much faster than Ethereum's 35 TPS. The developers claim that it can handle over 50,000 TPS, but this has never been tested. People have been worried about Solana and how decentralized it actually is due to 12+ outages.

12. Polygon (MATIC) - $0.88

Another recent blockchain, Polygon formerly MATIC network started on Jun 1, 2020, as an alternative to Ethereum. Polygon is compatible with Ethereum, but it provides a faster transaction speed, better user experience, and a faster transaction per second (TPS) count. Polygon particularly attracts distributed app (dApp) developers due to the lower cost to run these dApps along with the better developer experience.

13. Polkadot (DOT) - $6.48

Polkadot was launched on May 26th, 2020, and is primarily maintained by the Web3 Foundation. Polkadot is designed to allow different blockchains to securely talk to each other without any intermediary. It is also designed to be speedy and scalable with its parallel blockchains ("parachains") to take the load off of the main network. The DOT token can be used to vote on what happens with Polkadot, staked for a profit, or traded for a different currency.

14. Shiba Inu (SHIB) - $0.000013

Shibu Inu is another "meme coin" launched in August 2020 by an anonymous developer named Ryoshi. SHIB has a huge supply of 1 quadrillion which explains why the price is so low, but the market cap is so high. SHIB differentiates itself from DOGE because it is compatible with Ethereum which means developers can create dApps for SHIB such as non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

15. Dai - $1.00

Dai is the last USD-pegged stablecoin on this list and was launched in December 2017 by MakerDAO. Dai is a much more favorable stablecoin to many because it is not centralized in any way. Instead of Dai being backed by a centralized company, when you buy Dai, you exchange it for another cryptocurrency called your collateral. This means Dai is backed by other cryptocurrencies instead of USD creating true decentralization. You can read more of the specifics here.

And That's It!

I hope you have learned something new and can start to understand why there are so many different cryptocurrencies. I highly encourage you to do more research on cryptocurrencies that may have interested you in this list.

Have a great day!