What is Altcoin and Which Coin Should We Invest First?
Altcoin or Altcoin is a non-Bitcoin digital currency. It is derived from the words Alternative which means choice and Coin which means coin. In short, it is an alternative coin. Since Bitcoin emerged in 2008 and it has inspired many people around the world to create their own digital currency. For those who are still not sure what Bitcoin is? Be sure to check out our article on what is Bitcoin and all answers about Bitcoin is in one place.
Currently, there are more than 5000 Altcoins around the world, and of course, we can trade Altcoin just like Bitcoin. Altcoins currently account for around 35% of the total crypto market. It will help to understand the percentage of Bitcoin traded value. Initially, almost all of the crypto market was traded with Bitcoin, and in 2018, when altcoins were so popular that at one point, Ethereum accounted for nearly 30% of the market. As a result, the proportion of Bitcoin trading compared to the market (Bitcoin Dominance Rate) fell. After that, the Bitcoin in the orange chart rebounded to be the most popular as usual, but it can be seen that the Altcoin trading is still quiet. Quite a lot
Each type of Altcoin has its own strengths and weaknesses. Some of them may require mining like Bitcoin. Or some of them are not designed as a currency to spend like Bitcoin. Let’s try to get to know the famous Altcoin.
What is Ethereum?
Ethereum, or Ethereum (ETH), is another well-known altcoin with the second largest trading volume after Bitcoin. But it’s a decentralized platform. (Decentralized software platform) to enable Smart Contracts and Decentralized Applications (DApps) to run. Without fraud, throttling, interference, and instability, the use of Ethereum happens only through the crypto token used for this platform, known as Ether.
Ethereum claims that the platform can be used to encrypt, decentralize, store, and trade almost anything, for example, assuming we’re buy altcoins a house with cash. But we are not sure if we transfer money first. Will the seller hand over the house to us or not? As a salesperson, we are not sure if the buyer really has the money or not if the money is not placed first. When there is no intermediary that both parties can trust, we can use Smart Contract to enter the contract. By allowing the other party to invest money first then the money will be transferred to the owner of the house only after the transfer of ownership has been completed for the comfort of both parties
Ethereum was created by Vitalik Buterin, a young Russian genius. He was once on the Bitcoin development team before branching out to create Ethereum and backed by giants like JP Morgan Chase, Microsoft, and Intel.
Ethereum itself is actually not just a cryptocurrency. Instead, it is an Ether-based blockchain. The New York Times describes Ethereum as the only computer running on a network of users. And users are rewarded with Ether, similar to Bitcoin mining. Ethereum is shareable storage of all transaction data. It is also a system that allows developers to build on it to make other programs as well, while Bitcoin can’t. Read more about the ethereum white paper here.
What is Ripple?
Ripple (XRP) or Ripple is both the name of the platform and the currency itself It is designed so that financial transactions can happen instantly especially international money transfers The main difference from Bitcoin is that Ripple is not designed to be easily used by ordinary people like Bitcoin. But it wants to solve the problem of international money transfers around the world, and Ripple has been selling all of its tokens or coins since it first launched. And no more coins are released through bitcoin mining. This requires much less energy and operating costs.
Ripple was originally thought to have been around in 2004 but actually got its start in 2012 when Jed McCaleb, the creator of the Donkey network, invited investors around the world to invest in its first project, Ripple Labs, co-founded by Chris Larsen today. Ripple is backed by a number of companies around the world including Google and Siam Commercial Bank of UK has joined the Ripple Net network for faster, more convenient international transactions instead of the traditional SWIFT system.
It is said that Ripple is similar to the Joker because the token itself can be transformed into anything and used for any transaction from using the dollar to the baht or whether to transfer credit card points or points for airlines with very low processing time and fees
What is Litecoin?
Litecoin, or Litecoin (LTC), was created by former Google engineer Charlie Lee as another altcoin of choice for investors. The goal is to develop the concept of Bitcoin itself even further.
The main difference is New blocks on the blockchain are generated very fast, compared to Bitcoin where new blocks are created every about ten minutes. This makes transactions or transfers of Litecoin coins much faster than Bitcoin. But the disadvantage is Litecoin’s blockchain itself is much larger than Bitcoin. And it may be easier to create a faulty block.
Litecoin is limited, just like Bitcoin. It has a maximum volume of 84 million and will be logged through mining. No different from Bitcoin
What is Bitcoin Cash?
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is an Altcoin that is directly separated from Bitcoin. By the way, we call it a hard fork. It is caused by a group of developers and bitcoin miners who believe that Bitcoin itself will be in trouble in the future as more transactions occur in the system. Although there have been attempts to solve the problem by other methods before. But there are still concerns that the speed and the lower fees incurred In exchange for the security may be less as compared to Bitcoin…
Conclusion
Bitcoin is the most widely used digital currency, driven by ease of trading and incentives for mining. This chapter details the basics of technology behind the Bitcoin network. It also describes the basic processes, opportunities, and rewards of mining activities.
