In 2019, Bitcoin investors watched on their cryptocurrency tracker as the Bitcoin price increased by $7,000 in a matter of only 5 months. This caused a major uproar and a large interest in cryptocurrencies, especially the top ones. Now the top crypto coins are in the middle of everyone’s attention.
So let’s discuss 5 facts about the top 5 crypto coins!
1. Bitcoin
Cryptocurrency mining is the process of issuing new Bitcoins or confirming transactions by solving complex mathematical problems.
When Bitcoin was created there were originally only 21 million coins in the network. Currently, over 17 million are circulating.
Every four years, the number of created coins and miner rewards is reduced by half. After every halfing starts a new reward era. Altogether there will be 34 eras. The last Bitcoin will be mined in 121 years, in the year 2140.
2. Ethereum
Ethereum is an open source network based on the blockchain technology. It is also the first platform for smart contracts and decentralized applications (dApps).
Ethereum is the brainchild of Vitalik Buterin, a Russian-Canadian programmer. He found out about crypto coins from his father and in 2013, at the age of 19, he released the Ethereum Whitepaper.
The project was funded by a crowdfunding campaign in the summer of 2014 and was launched in 2015, becoming the second largest crypto coin the next year.
3. XRP
XRP is the native token of Ripple, a blockchain-based network for cross-border monetary transactions. It was co-founded by Jed McCaleb, who later went on to create Stellar.
Ripple is considered to be the most institutionalized blockchain-based platform nowadays working with a variety of entities and financial institutions.
During the crypto bull market in 2017, Chris Larsen, the co-founder of the Ripple system, became the fifth richest man in the world surpassing Mark Zuckerberg. This happened after XRP replaced Ether as the second largest coin by market cap.
4. Bitcoin Cash
Bitcoin Cash was created on December 2017. The total supply of Bitcoin Cash is 21 million.
Bitcoin Cash is a hard fork of Bitcoin and was created to solve the scalability issue and reduce transfer costs. Each block in the Bitcoin Cash system has a memory of 8 MB compared to 1 MB.
5. Litecoin
Litecoin was among the first Altcoins created in October 2011 by Charlie Lee. Litecoin is similar to Bitcoin in most aspects except transaction time. The transaction time is fixed 2.5 minutes while in the Bitcoin network transfers usually take around 9 minutes.
Many new crypto investors don’t know this, but Litecoin used to be the second biggest crypto coin by market cap. Until Ethereum took its place in 2016, Litecoin was considered the second best cryptocurrency after Bitcoin.
As crypto prices are rising higher, the interest in crypto coins is increasing too. Crypto trading is also improving in popularity because of its profitable nature. If you want to succeed in crypto trading and monitoring your holdings, use a crypto tracker. To do this in the most efficient way, check out this guide on crypto portfolio management.
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