As has already been established in my previous post, I am pretty much a beginner in the cryptocurrency world. So all I had heard when I entered the scene was a cryptocurrency called Bitcoin. But when I actually started to get a bit deeper, I started noticing some other coins like ethereum, ripple, iron, etc. It did confuse me and I wanna help you guys out in decoding some of them in a series of posts over the next few days.
First of all, the big baddie: BITCOIN (BTC):
Bitcoin is a digital currency created in 2009 by a person who goes by the name Satoshi Nakamoto. It is made up of 100million units called satoshi after its founder. The main compelling point of bitcoin over traditional online payments is the low transaction fees and the fact that is operated by a decentralised authority. As the name 'cryptocurrency' suggests, Bitcoin does not exist physically. The basic use of bitcoin is for transactions for day to day products.
Moving on to the cryptocurrency with the second biggest market cap: ETHEREUM (ETH):
Ethereum is a cryptocurrency which was made public in 2015. The currency is actually known as Ether but it is commonly mistaken as Ethereum itself. The main difference from Bitcoin is that it generates new coins every year at a somewhat stable rate while for bitcoin the rate halves every 4 years. The transaction time for Ether is very small, usually in seconds, compared to ten minutes for Bitcoin. Ethereum can be used for daily transactions and for making applications on the platform.
RIPPLE (XRP):
Ripple was first created in 2012 by Ripple Labs Inc. According to them, they purport to enable "secure, instantly and nearly free global financial transactions of any size with no chargebacks." They promise to get you low transaction fees and to source liquidity in cross-border transactions. Ripple is only used for buying things.
Tether USD (USDT):
Tether USD was first created in 2015 by Tether. It is an Etherium based token made in collaboration with Ethfinex. It is backed by one US dollar and hence it strives to keep it's value around that mark. It has the fourth biggest market cap out of all the cryptocurrencies. According to them, "Tether was specifically designed to build the necessary bridge between fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies and offer stability, transparency and minimal transaction charges to users."
So, that is part one of this series covering about a dozen cryptocurrencies. Hope you guys enjoyed it and learnt something new. Peace.