The first thing that comes to many people’s minds when discussing cryptocurrencies, is Bitcoin. This is perhaps because Bitcoin is the oldest cryptocurrency in the market. The popularity of Bitcoin also comes from the fact that it has the highest supply in the world, with 16.5 million Dollars’ worth of Bitcoin in circulation.
Bitcoin is also quite valuable. A single Bitcoin is worth just under $12,000 dollars, which makes it a worthy investment. However, valuable and attractive as it may be, Bitcoin is not the only cryptocurrency in the market. It also has a fair share of its strengths and weaknesses, which makes a lot of people shy away from investing.
Fortunately, other amazing cryptocurrencies have come up in the market and if you are willing to take a break from Bitcoin, here are three alternative currencies to watch and invest in.
Ripple
Ripple was launched three years after Bitcoin. It is based on a ledger of distribution. The cryptocurrency goes through nodes and validation mechanisms which are similar to those of Bitcoin. The only difference between Bitcoin and Ripple is that the later has a higher level of governance.
In fact, there is an entire concession ledger of Ripple validators worldwide, and they are governed by banks and other major lending institutions. It is also important to note that Ripple is faster than many other cryptocurrencies in the market. Ripple transactions are usually completed within seconds, which is faster than the record time for many other currencies, Bitcoin included.
Popular use cases for Ripple include overseas remittance payments, as a medium of value exchange, and more recently, to fund and play on an ever increasing number of crypto casino gaming sites.
Ethereum
Ethereum was created by Vitalik Buterin. It is a peer-to-peer currency that operates as an infrastructure. Ethereum has been in existence for the past five years. When the creator ventured into its creation, he was aiming at coming up with a currency that would capitalize and improve on the weaknesses of its predecessors.
Ether is the altcoin connected to Ethereum, and its first offering raised $18.5 million dollars. The most amazing advantage that Ethereum has over Bitcoin is a faster block time. While Bitcoin takes a whole ten minute for a complete block to be made and verified, Ethereum takes 12 seconds.
The other main difference between the two currencies are the terms of the transaction. Bitcoin cost depends on the size of the block, which means it is quite static. Ethereum, on the other hand, calculates its cost based on a term known as gas. The cost of a transaction depends on the availability of the gas.
The additional features in Ethereum, therefore, make it more versatile, and make it ideal for transactions such as crowdsourcing and contracts.
Litecoin
Litecoin is very similar to Bitcoin, and borrows a lot of its qualities from Bitcoin. It was designed by Charlie Lee, but he made a few modifications to the cryptocurrency, which make it a little bit different from Bitcoin.
The transactions use a Scrypt algorithm, which increases block time and also reduces the transaction costs. However, to mine the cryptocurrency effectively, you will need high-speed Random Access Memory (RAM) as opposed to processing power.
When compared to Bitcoin, Litecoin block speed is faster which means that miners who need to double check their block generation process will save more time when they mine Litecoin than when they mine Bitcoin. If you transact huge volumes of currency within short periods of time, Litecoin might be the best cryptocurrency alternative for you.
In Conclusion To
Other cryptocurrencies that you might want to learn more about include Dash, NEM and IOTA. These are relatively newer to the market than Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum and Ripple.
Actually, if you have the time and the resources to invest in these cryptocurrencies, the best way to handle them is to try all of them out. Limiting your experience to one does not offer you the comparison you need to pick the best for you.
You can learn more about alternative cryptocurrencies online and reach out to trusted sellers for details and assistance when learning. Then, you can pick the ones that work best for your needs.