Nowadays cryptocurrencies are gaining more and more popularity: they are used to make payments, some even try to store their savings in the form of some kind of cryptocurrency, which is actually a bad idea. Still others make money on it all. Some of them buy and resell, and some buy video cards and hard drives from storefronts and make huge farms for the extraction of these cryptocurrencies.
In simple words, cryptocurrency is virtual money. The most popular cryptocurrency is bitcoin, along with it there are various altcoins — alternative coins to Bitcoin. The term “altcoin” was coined on the BitcoinTalk forum, and popularized by the Wall Street Journal.
Any cryptocurrency works on the basis of a blockchain — a decentralized, encrypted storage of information that does not belong to anyone, stored on a variety of devices.
- Bitcoin (BTC)
The very first cryptocurrency in the world, therefore, is the most popular. Bitcoin appeared in 2009. The development was handled by the Australian encryption specialist Craig Stephen Wright. Bitcoin guaranteed a 100% guarantee of the security and reliability of the transaction. On January 3, 2009, the first block and the first 50 bitcoins were generated, and on January 12 of the same year, the first transaction occurred — Craig Steven Wright transferred 10 bitcoins to Hal Finney.
Bitcoin is only growing and does not think to stop:
Bitcoin is built on the SHA-256 algorithm, there are not enough video cards to work with it, so they came up with special equipment — ASICs (application specific integrated circuit — a special-purpose integrated circuit). Most cryptocurrencies that copy bitcoin are built on SHA-256, for example, Bitcoin SV and Bitcoin Cash.
The capitalization at the moment is 1.17 trillion dollars.
- Ethereum (ETH)
In 2013, the founder of Bitcoin Magazine Vitalik Buterin proposed the concept, and on July 30, 2015, the network was already launched. Initially, Ethereum was created as a base for the affordable implementation of blockchain in third-party projects (the creation of decentralized applications), but over time it has grown into a payment system. Choosing a name for his brainchild, Buterin was sitting on Wikipedia, then he came across the word “ether”, referring to a hypothetical invisible medium that permeates the universe and allows light to travel. At that moment, he realized that this word, like no other, would be best suited for the name of his cryptocurrency.
Every day Ethereum becomes more popular and more expensive. Perhaps those interested should enter mining right now.
For Ethereum mining, the Ethash algorithm was specially developed, which is based on two algorithms: Dagger, developed by Vitalik himself, and Hashimoto, created by English programmer Thaddeus Dryja. Hashrate is measured in the number of megahashes per second — MH/s.
The capitalization of Ethereum currently stands at $ 538.43 million.
- Ethereum Classic (ETC)
At the start, the Ethereum software core had vulnerabilities, thanks to which attackers were able to steal funds from The Dao project. In July 2016, Vitalik Buterin decided to make a hard fork (introducing a new rule into the cryptocurrency protocol that requires software updates) in order to destroy the network branches and return the stolen funds. Some users disagreed: they decided that this was an interference with the decentralized algorithm of work, so they refused to upgrade, supporting the old branch of the blockchain, which later became known as Ethereum Classic.
The main advantage of the older brother of Ethereum is that he has a higher reward for a block (4 ETC) than the younger one. The cryptocurrency is relatively stable, judging by the span of a month or two.
The classic version of Ethereum works on the same Ethash algorithm.
The capitalization at the time of writing is 6.89 million dollars.
- Litecoin (LTC)
The cryptocurrency was developed in 2011 by Charles Lee. The main task of Litecoin was to correct the disadvantages of Bitcoin, preserve and improve its advantages. Two years after the launch, Litecoin was considered the main replacement for bitcoin, and in 2016 it was in second place in the ranking of the most expensive cryptocurrencies.
In mining, Litecoin uses the Scrypt hash function. The algorithm is interesting because it is resistant to hardware attacks, which is undoubtedly a big plus. When creating Scrypt, the main task was to complicate the block generation mechanism, this was achieved by increasing the requirements for resources that were used for computing operations. The amount of RAM is of great importance. Hashrate is measured in the number of megachashes per second, just like Ethash.
The capitalization currently stands at $ 13.74 million.
- Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
It is one of the hard forks of bitcoin. The date of the appearance of the cryptocurrency is considered to be August 1, 2017, it was then that a vote was held for the introduction of the SegWit2x protocol, which was supposed to increase the activity of transactions. The founders are a group of programmers consisting of Amory Sechet, a former Facebook employee and group leader, Hypo Yang, CEO of the ViaBTC mining pool, Jihan Wu, one of the co—founders of Bitman and Roger Ver, a co—owner bitcoin.com .
The bitcoin hard fork allowed increasing the block size from 1 MB to 2, and storing some of the data outside the blockchain. Thanks to some developments, it turned out to increase the size to 8 MB, and now the size of one block is already 32 MB.
Bitcoin Cash is a slightly more stable currency than a simple bitcoin, so Bitcoin Cash is a pretty good alternative to its progenitor.
Since Bitcoin Cash is a bitcoin hard fork, it works on the same algorithm — SHA—256.
While this article is being written, the capitalization of Bitcoin Cash is $ 11.17 million.
- Ravencoin (RVN)
The founders of Ravencoin are Joel Weight, Bruce Fenton and Tron Black. The cryptocurrency was created in 2017, and at the time of its release, anyone could buy it. The creators stated:
“Ravencoin is a free and open source project, will be released and mined transparently, without prior mining, developer distribution or any other similar installations. Ravencoin is not intended to be a form of money. It should prioritize user control, as well as remain independent of jurisdiction, while at the same time providing users with simple additional functions depending on their needs.”
The name “Ravencoin” literally translates as “coin of the crow” and arose in connection with the fascination of the creators of the series “Game of Thrones”, where the main way of transmitting information are crows.
The cost of Ravencoin is sagging in places, but not much, which makes it a good option for mining.
Recently, the cryptocurrency switched to the new KawPoW algorithm. Its main feature is protection from ASIC miners and prospects for centralization. This is achieved by alternating the X15 and SHA-512 algorithms.
Currently, the capitalization of Ravencoin is $ 1.35 million.
- Dash
Dash developer Evan Duffield has been thinking about adding anonymity to the bitcoin chain. In total, he found about 10 different solutions, but none of them were approved by the developers because they wanted to leave the bitcoin protocol unchanged. Immediately after that, Duffield decides to create his own cryptocurrency. Dash was meant as a project that would collect the best developments in the field of blockchain at that time. According to the developer, it took only one weekend to create the cryptocurrency. Initially, Evan gave his brainchild the name “XCoin”, later it became known as “Darkcoin”, and after a year of appearing on the market, he acquired his current name — Dash.
The cost of Dash is kept at about the same level, but its main advantage is not stability, but security.
Dash works on the X11 algorithm, which provides a high degree of security, because instead of one function, 11 is used here. Therefore, an attacker will need to hack all 11 functions before reaching his goal, which is unlikely, because the changes made will be visible immediately after hacking the first function, and developers will have plenty of time to protect the system.
The capitalization at the moment is $ 2 million.
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