With Bitcoin now topping the $1,500 mark and showing no signs of slowing down, it is easy to forget that there are other digital currencies out there. Some of them command a good deal of respect and I thought it time to mention a few of them along with an explanation of why they are attracting interest.
Here are the top 11 valued cryptocurrencies sorted on their dollar value today and, following the list, I have explained a little about why the top six (after Bitcoin) are creating such interest.
Bitcoin - $1,533
Byteball - $228
Zec (Z-Cash) - $97
Dash - $93
Ether (Ethereum) - $86
Gnosis - $83
Melon - $43
DigixDAO - $34
Monero - $26
Litecoin - $22
Auger - $17
The remainder of all altcoins (at least 700 plus in total) are valued at less than $20 with only 20 altcoins (cryptocurrencies) in total valued at $5 or more including Bitcoin. In fact, once you get outside of the top 35 coins in current value – everything else is worth less than one US dollar.
The other thing to remember here is that all other cryptocurrencies are linked first in value to Bitcoin and so the values used here are based on their equivalent dollar valued as assessed by Bitcoins value against the dollar. In short, if Bitcoin were worth less, many of those in positions 25 to 35 might even struggle to hit a dollar value in worth.
What you may notice about the list instantly is that there appears to be a sub-set of 5 currencies after Bitcoin with what I would call notable value. Byteball down to and including Gnosis are worth around twice or more the value of those below that. In the case of Byteball it is worth 5 times plus as much as Melon, the altcoin in 7th place.
What does make a cryptocurrency popular?
Well, the fact is that anything can make a cryptocurrency work provided enough people find their imagination stirred by it. Let’s have a look at why those in the top 6 have fired the imagination.
Bitcoin really doesn’t (or shouldn’t) need to be explained. It is the granddaddy of all cryptocurrencies with a lifespan so far of over 8 years and it is the one that everything else copied in some way.
It has also been massively tested and found to be not wanting in any real way. Bitcoin and its blockchain ledger has been bombarded by every testing hack imaginable and yet has survived them all.
Most of all the other cryptocurrencies benefit in some way when Bitcoin increases in value. All of them, to have anything going for them at all, need to offer something that seems to be missing from Bitcoin to have any chance of real independent success.
And, of course, many altcoins come and go with some showing much promise only to then decline in popularity.
Of the remaining 5 I want to look at, Byteball tops the list in value right now. This is a huge surprise to me because Byteball is very new, appearing on the crypto exchanges for the first time this year. What makes Byteball so popular? Well, in truth I don’t really know.
It’s clearly a bunch of stuff but it seems to me that the real secret to Byteball has been that to collect Byteball (mine it if you wish) one needs only to link a Bitcoin wallet to their program. In short, all you must do to get Byteball, it seems, is to have a Bitcoin wallet with some Bitcoin in that you link to your Byteball account or wallet.
Now of course that, on the face of it, seems very attractive because you would normally expect to have to buy a mining rig or share in a mining rig to acquire new cryptocurrency (proof of work) or, at the very least, stake existing coins using proof of stake. This appears to be proof of stake based mining where you can use your existing Bitcoin. An amazingly clever idea.
I was very tempted by this just a few short months back until I realized that some Bitcoin wallets linked to Byteball were wallets containing hundreds and (in some cases) thousands of Bitcoin. It seems, on first look, that the more Bitcoin you have, the more Byteball you'll get on distribution days (the next one is 10th May)
Sadly, I do not have thousands or even hundreds of Bitcoin in my wallet. Oh, to have a thousand Bitcoin at today’s value…
That fact, of course, would not be enough on its own to project Byteball to such dizzy heights of value so quickly - so what else about Byteball makes it so good? It has a sub-currency called blackbyte. If you want to make entirely anonymous, untraceable payments then you can use blackbyte instead of Byteball and you earn blackbyte by default simply by having Byteball.
Byteball runs on a decentralized platform (or blockchain).
The decentralized status (as I am always reminding people) is so very critical to a cryptocurrency. Those that tell you that a decentralized process is not important are kidding themselves and taking everything on trust.
It is no surprise that all the top valued cryptocurrencies are decentralized without exception.
Decentralization insures that no authority can simply take the currency down or remove it. A centralized platform also means that the currency can be manipulated and controlled by an individual party. In effect, this means that one person can have their finger on the trigger and make the whole thing collapse in an instant.
Look at the traditional “centralized” currencies for proof. How many times did the Italian government decide to devalue the Lira before Italy adopted the Euro? Governments can erode a currency’s value at will.
Bitcoin, as the direct opposite example, will do what it will do based on people around the world adopting and using it. I know where my money is safer….
So that’s Byteball. There are more than the aspects I’ve listed that make Byteball popular of course but it’s a start if you’ve never heard of it before.
Zec (Z-Cash) is a cryptocurrency that has captured my imagination although it is not my favourite Bitcoin alternative, that honour goes to Ether (Ethereum) which I will come on to.
What makes Z-Cash great is the anonymous nature of how the transactions within Z-Cash work. Bitcoin transactions are to a large degree anonymous in that all you see is that a wallet sent money to a wallet. But the wallet addresses are visible publicly (through the blockchain ledger) and you can see how many Bitcoins are in them.
Zec goes a little further in that it records the transactions but does not show the wallet addresses or balances unless you want them to be shown. Thus, all you see publicly is that one unknown wallet sent money to another unknown wallet but the transaction is properly recorded and cannot be interfered with.
Small difference you might think between Z-Cash and Bitcoin but if you look at, for example, large companies who want to make a transaction with each other that isn’t immediately public then Z-Cash may well be the answer.
Again, there are other aspects of Z-Cash that make it glitter (including, of course, decentralized blockchain technology) but the big difference is this higher level of anonymity.
Z-Cash (along with Byteball and Ethereum) appear on pretty much every list of “most promising altcoins of 2017) and that is an extra factor that I like.
There is some talk that Ethereum and Z-Cash are teaming up on some projects and that makes those two more attractive to me plus, I must confess that I don’t yet know enough about Byteball to accurately judge its future attraction.
Dash is very similar in aspiration to Z-Cash. Its prominent feature is more anonymity and, to be fair to Dash (Digital Cash) they were on the anonymous gig before Z-Cash came into play but the general feeling is that, in the end, Z-Cash may meet that objective in a little more efficient manner than Dash will.
I don’t know if that is enough evidence to bank on but fortunately, my Bitclub Network GPU mining shares are interchangeable between Ethereum, Z-Cash, Dash and a few others so that’s a pretty good back-up.
I wouldn’t like to make the call between them as to which is better in the long run because the Dash network is expanding rapidly with a lot of merchants linking to this coin. BUT if Z-Cash and Ethereum do work together on projects it is more likely that Z-Cash may leave Dash behind on future value. Just my opinion folks so please don’t take action based on that, I am no expert.
And what of Ether (Ethereum). After Bitcoin, I have invested most heavily in Ethereum. I would very much like to be right in my belief that Ethereum and Z-Cash have great promise because I am currently mining both along with Bitcoin.
Ethereum is my personal favourite digital currency after Bitcoin. As I said, I mine this through Bitclub Network along with Bitcoin (I mine Z-Cash through a firm called Genesis Mining but at a much smaller rate).
I get much higher rewards with Ethereum but Z-Cash “harvests” are likely to increase over time so the long-term patient approach is hopefully merited here. I am hoping that Bitclub Network make more GPU mining shares available in the future as what I would really like to do is mine Z-Cash in higher numbers and mine Dash.
The big attraction with Ethereum is the versatility of the Ethereum blockchain. It appears to be the blockchain of all blockchains. I have heard it described as the “blockchain of all things”.
The geniuses that put the Ethereum project together realized that, whilst Bitcoin was a very successful alternative currency that was beginning to offer great store of value, the Bitcoin blockchain was fundamentally simple (albeit robust) and a more capable and complex blockchain opened the door to much greater uses.
In short, Ethereum is all about their very clever blockchain technology.
They have realized that companies are far more likely to get excited about something that offers the facility for secure project development.
In essence, you can build organizations, crowd-funding projects and even your own cryptocurrency using the Ethereum blockchain. Smart Contracts can be anything. Property deeds, contractual agreements, wills, public or private notices and so on. But basically, anything that you can imagine that has an application that could go global can be built on the Ethereum blockchain.
It’s probably easier to show you examples of what can be done with the Ethereum smart contract set up rather than try to explain it. If you click the link below you will be able to see samples of what has already been built on Ethereum as tests or even live ventures.
Ethereum is censorship resistant, globally available and provides guarantees about future operations of the platform. With Ethereum you can eliminate middlemen and counterparty risk.
When I started to really understand where Ethereum was going it blew me away. It is a bit complicated to grasp (I still don’t grasp it fully) but imagine a global network of people acting without the need for solicitors, being able to document legally binding agreements that could be viewed publicly on demand in a system that was impossible to defraud or manipulate.
And by people, also include companies, charities and any other organization. If you start to go down that road you start to understand a little about how Ethereum can work.
Naturally, any digital currency associated with such hi-tech application is very likely to grow in value and don’t worry if you don’t fully understand all of this, because I don’t either. What I do understand though is that for a cryptocurrency to work, it must incite the imagination and have a story behind it that offers change and improvement. It must also stand out as being different and progressive in an arena that seems to be populated by clones.
Ethereum cracks the mold and has gone much further than anything before it. With so many advantages, it is hard to see it failing in any respect but again, that is just my opinion.
Gnosis is, like Byteball, one that has seemingly appeared out of nowhere with very little noise, press or drum banging at all. It was very much based on Ethereum and described as “next generation” – an amazing statement really when you consider how new all this cryptocurrency stuff is. In fact, the main men in the creation of Ethereum (Vitalik Buterin and Joe Lubin) are advisors to the Gnosis board.
Gnosis is built on the Ethereum blockchain (that also helps to explain how clever Ethereum is) and is focusing on financial markets and prediction. Gnosis appear to be going after the financial industry in a big way and is likely to become very well known, very soon. The Gnosis coin or token doubled in value when officially launched on the crypto exchanges just days.
The big market that Gnosis is after is the insurance market.
This from their website:
“Gnosis will enable an evolution in the insurance market. Markets can be created for every event with an uncertain outcome, while smart contracts can handle the policy.
This disintermediates pricing and paperwork by crowdsourcing actuarial work and eliminating the need for costly middlemen. In addition, new forms of dynamic and micro-insurance products can be created using our infinitely flexible markets. We have created a mock up for a flight insurance app, and plan to pursue other opportunities in insurance.”
Gnosis is unusual in that it isn’t a currency yet in its own right, even though Gnosis tokens can be traded on exchanges. Effectively Gnosis is all about the predictions market and can use any cryptocurrency as a method of payment or reward on the “project” that is being created or the outcome of the prediction being proposed.
So, it runs on the Ethereum blockchain but could use, for example, Bitcoin as the “reward” or payment under any contract it created.
At some point yet to be announced, GNO (gnosis) tokens will be launched and, unusually, 90% of them (there will be 10 million in total) will, according to what I have read, be auctioned.
I do hope that all makes sense. If you take only one message from this newsletter today, hopefully it will be this. The world of money and indeed commerce is changing dramatically and you should get onboard with it.
I am working on a new project with a close friend to try to bring worthwhile educational (and fun) content to the web based on cryptocurrency so look out for that – we will be launching, when ready, under the name of “Cryptomaniacs” and I look forward to sharing that with you and continuing to explore the world of Bitcoin and altcoins.
