Almost everyone who has heard or studied on the internet about Bitcoins wants to invest in it for financial gains. The statistics tell that the general public is interested in Bitcoins more than ever. Coinbase, the biggest exchange for buying Bitcoin, has crashed several times in the past weeks because of the unusual traffic. Not only that, it also became the most downloaded app on Apple app beating Facebook, Whatsapp, and many other popular applications. If you think Bitcoin is out of your reach, you can still catch the cryptocurrency train by getting alternate currencies.
There are some alternate currencies where you can invest your funds and can expect to get some fruit out of it. This is not an investment advice from us. And obviously, the present performance doesn’t necessarily mean future growth as well. Let’s have a look at the available alternate currencies other than Bitcoins.
Ethereum (ETH)
Currently trading at $697.16
Ethereum acts a decentralized platform that runs smart contracts. Multiple users can agree on certain terms and sign them digitally. When the present conditions of the contract are fulfilled, the contract is executed automatically. This means that users can automatically carry out transactions on the blockchain. An example of this would be selling shares to someone if the share prices rise or drop to some certain level.
In Ethereum protocol, there is a price for each operation execution which is usually called burning or consuming gas. The cryptocurrency of Ethereum is called Ether and is used for transaction fees and computations.
Monero (XMR)
Currently trading at $324.36
Monero is a secure, untraceable, and private cryptocurrency. It is an open-sourced currency. The coin uses CryptoNight algorithm and is based on Proof of Work. Monero is improving among the existing cryptocurrencies by concealing the sender, recipient and the amount of each transaction.
Litecoin (LTC)
Currently trading at $300.32
Litecoin can also be called as a younger sibling to Bitcoin. It is the closest to Bitcoin with technical perspective and has only minor technical differences. Litecoin processes a block every 2.5 mins which is much quicker than Bitcoin which takes a good 10 minute in the processing. It uses a script in its proof-of-work algorithm.
Ripple (XRP)
Currently trading at $0.7608
At the moment, Ripple is the 3rd most popular coin according to its market standing. It is not a competitor to Bitcoin but rather claims itself to be a compliment. Ripple allows fast borderless transactions. It is peer to peer. An interesting thing about it is that unlike other cryptocurrencies, Ripple can’t be mined. There are 100 billion Ripples out there and as a result of each transaction a small number of Ripples are destroyed which adds a deflationary to the system.
IOTA (IOT)
Currently Trading at $3.96
IOTA is very different from the coins mentioned here. The main feature that distinguishes it from other currencies is its innovative feature of the block-less distributed ledger. No matter what the size of the transaction is, IOT processes it free. It is scalable, which means that an unlimited number of transactions can be handled at any given time and the confirmations are also received very quickly.