Top 5 Major Cryptocurrencies: Basic Comparison

I wanted to make a quick article regarding the current Top 5 major cryptocurrencies with some basic comparisons, so there is some saved information I can then compare a year from now.

As you probably know (if you’re a regular on this website, I’m sure you already know) most cryptocurrencies change price rapidly. Bitcoin in particular appears to be a giant bubble. I’m interested in seeing how it performs throughout time.

An easy way to do this is to compare Bitcoin with its top competitors. These include Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Ripple, and Litecoin. These were chosen because they entail the highest Market Caps in the crypto world.

All data and information was grabbed March 8, 2018.

A few charts compare the top five (in price):

All 5 Cryptocurrencies

Excluding Bitcoin

Just Ripple

(Hard to see this one from the other graphs)

The Crypto Breakdown

Bitcoin

Market Cap: ~160 Billion (Down nearly half since mid-December – See Chart Below)

Price: ~$9,500.00

The primary, definitely most well-known crypto. Bitcoin is a highly decentralized and open source coin. It is also an open ledger, so transparency is not an issue, but privacy is complicated. Someone cannot see your personal information, but can see your Bitcoin address, which could cause issues.

Ethereum

Market Cap: ~70 Billion

Price: ~$713.00

Similar to Bitcoin with regard to their distributed ledgers; Ethereum has faster transactions than Bitcoin. While Bitcoin is focused on finding a payment alternative (to traditional methods), Ethereum is more focused on creating a platform which facilitates P2P contracts/applications.

Ripple

Market Cap: ~33 Billion

Price: ~$0.85

Ripple is more of a closed ledger cryptocurrency. It is owner by a private company; it is not open source such as Bitcoin. They utilize an “amendment system”: where developers must vote and agree on a change to get it passed. This is more efficient than Bitcoin, but the private company aspect reminds me a little too much of the Federal Reserve.

Bitcoin Cash

Market Cap: ~18 Billion

Price: ~$1,050.00

Developers and miners in Bitcoin were worried about the future that Bitcoin was heading toward. They were worried that Bitcoin may become corrupted (whether through decreased transparency or other issues present from the SegWit2x change). This resulted in a “hard fork” that directly led to the creation of Bitcoin Cash.

Litecoin

Market Cap: ~10 Billion

Price: ~$180.00

Litecoin is also very similar to Bitcoin. However, there are a few key differences, the most notable being that there are significantly more Litecoins than Bitcoins in existence (21 million vs 84 million). As of last month (February, 2018) it was also 400% faster than Bitcoin. Litecoin also uses “Scrypt” algorithm, whereas Bitcoin uses the common SHA-256 algorithm.