Cryptocurrencies

Bitcoin (₿) is a decentralised digital currency created in January 2009, by an individual or group - the identity of which is still a mystery to this day (!) - under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto.

Unlike traditional currencies, Bitcoin operates without a central bank or single administrator, as it can be sent from user to user on a decentralised network without the need for intermediaries. Using cryptography, network nodes verify transactions and record them in a public distributed ledger called a blockchain.

Bitcoin doesn't need any further introduction as it dominates crypto space!

The first virtual currency, Bitcoin, started out turbulently, but soon became popular and in high demand, inspiring so many other cryptocurrencies to rise!

Ethereum is a decentralised, open source blockchain platform whose native cryptocurrency is ether (ETH). Conceived in 2013 by programmer Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum enables the creation and maintenance of public ledgers, while it allows anyone to deploy permanent and immutable decentralised applications onto it, with which users can interact.

Decentralised finance (DeFi) applications provide a broad array of financial services without the need for typical financial intermediaries, allowing cryptocurrency users to borrow against their holdings or lend them out for interest.

Amongst others, Ethereum also enables the creation and exchange of NFTs (non-interchangeable tokens), which can be connected to digital artworks and sold as unique digital property.

Litecoin (LTC) is a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency and open-source software project released under the MIT/X11 license. Litecoin, founded in 2011, was one of the first altcoins, derived from Bitcoin's original open-source code.

Litecoin is based on an open-source global payment network that is not controlled by any central authority. With Litecoin, you get a faster block generation rate and a proof-of-work (PoW) scheme using Scrypt.

Cardano (ADA) is a third generation, decentralised proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain platform designed to be a more efficient alternative to proof-of-work (PoW) networks. PoW networks like Ethereum have limited scalability, interoperability, and sustainability due to infrastructure burdens such as increasing costs, energy consumption, and slow transaction times.

Charles Hoskinson, co-founder of Ethereum, understood the challenges PoW networks impose, and in 2015 he began developing Cardano and its primary cryptocurrency, ADA, finally launching the platform and ADA token in 2017.

Cardano is a blockchain platform, with a multi-asset ledger and verifiable smart contracts allowing the development of decentralised applications (DApp) and runs on the PoS Ouroboros consensus protocol, the first PoS protocol, proven to be secure, and informed by scholarly academic research.

Ripple (XRP), released in 2012 by Ripple Labs, Inc, is built upon a distributed open-source protocol and has XRP as the ledger's native cryptocurrency, powered by blockchain.

Ripple aims for banks and payment providers, as it enables secure, instant, and almost free global financial transactions with no chargebacks. Transactions are confirmed in less than 5 seconds, cost $0.0002 and can handle 1500 transactions per second!

Unlike most other cryptocurrencies that use PoW and/or PoS, the XRP blockchain employs a Unique Node List, in which a centralised trusted group makes decisions based on the Majority Rule. Ripple supports tokens representing fiat currency, cryptocurrency, commodities, or other units of value such as frequent flier miles or mobile minutes.

Stellar (XLM) or Stellar Lumens - where Stellar is the blockchain network and Lumens is the native tokens - is an open source, decentralised protocol for exchanging money or tokens using the Stellar Consensus Protocol.

Since its launch in 2014, Stellar’s goal has been to bridge the gap between fiat and crypto currencies by introducing tokenisation.

Similar to Ripple, Stellar enables users to send money and assets in ways that have traditionally been the domain of payment providers. Stellar provides, fast, low-cost transfers, allowing cross-border (trades between users) transactions with less friction using its cryptocurrency, lumens (XLM).

Chainlink (LINK) is a decentralised, blockchain-based oracle network built on Ethereum, that provides data from off-chain sources to on-chain sources and vice versa. Simply put, Chainlink allows smart contracts to access real world information that exists outside of the blockchain securely and reliable.

Launched in 2017, the Chainlink network marries the blockchain industry with the traditional economical structures to build more efficient, secure, and transparent processes, replacing middlemen with code!

EOS.IO (EOS) is a blockchain-based, decentralised platform used to develop, host, and run business applications, or dApps, as its core functionality enables the creation of blockchain-based applications in a similar way to web-based applications.

A crypto coin offering in 2018 raised $4.1 billion for Block.one, the company that developed an open-source operating system for blockchain technology called EOS.IO. EOS tokens are used as a payment system on the EOS network.
A direct competitor of Ethereum, EOS promises to be bigger, better, and faster!

Solana (SOL) is a decentralised blockchain built to enable scalable and user-friendly apps. It was officially launched in 2020 by the Solana Foundation, based in Switzerland. The Solana protocol introduced a unique combination of the innovative proof-of-history (PoH) consensus combined with the proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus.

Many of the people behind the Solana project, including one of the co-founders, have experience in building cell phone networks, which makes them particularly keen on keeping their focus on scalability and efficiency. The project aims at making Decentralised Finance accessible to all.