The year 2017 could go down in history as the year of the crypto currencies. Especially Bitcoin caused a sensation: With an increase in value of more than 2,000 percent this year, it made all the tried and tested asset classes look old. Against this backdrop, cynics have for some time now been talking about a massive bubble, a fad or even fraud. However, there is much evidence that the cryptos will rise even more.

Bitcoin competition for 2018

All of the digital currencies together currently bring it to a market capitalization of more than 600 billion US dollars. Bitcoin, which is currently still regarded as the top dog among the cryptocurrencies, currently has a market capitalization of around 315 billion US dollars. Thus, Bitcoin currently still collects more than half of the funds invested in digital currencies. In the event of a fundamental paradigm shift, which would be accompanied by shifts to other coins, the following currencies could benefit:

Bitcoin Cash

Bitcoin's little brother was founded in August 2017 as a spin-off (hard fork). With a current market capitalization of about 40 billion US dollars, Bitcoin Cash ranks third among the world's largest cryptocurrencies behind its big brother and Ethereum. Bitcoin Cash convinces with a higher block size and more capacity. The aim of the optimization is to make it possible to process transactions faster and more cost-effectively. The number of shares in circulation is currently around 16.8 million, with a maximum offer of 21 million shares.

Ripple

With a current market capitalization of around 28 billion US dollars, Ripple is currently ranked fourth among the largest digital currencies. The Krypto-Taler was created by web developer Ryan Fugger, businessman Chris Larsen and programmer Jed McCaleb. The New York Times once described Ripple as a "cross between Western Union and a currency exchange without the high transaction costs". The circulating supply of Ripple amounts to a maximum of 100 billion units.

Litecoin

Litecoin has a market capitalization of around 17 billion US dollars in the current market environment. The digital currency was founded by former Google employee Charlie Lee. Lee wants to offer a faster alternative to Bitcoin with Litecoin. He himself said in an interview:"My vision is that people use Litecoin every day to buy things." The maximum coin limit for Litecoin is 84 million coins, currently there are about 54 million coins in circulation.

IOTA

The payment system, which is abbreviated with the acronym IOTA, currently has a market capitalization of around 11 billion US dollars. IOTA stands for Internet of Things and Tangle and refers primarily to "machine-to-machine"communication. Perhaps the most innovative digital currency of today could establish itself at the forefront of global cryptocurrencies in 2018. It was developed by the entrepreneurs and mathematicians David Sønstebø, Sergey Ivancheglo, Dominik Schiener and Dr. Serguei Popov.

By eliminating long and cost-intensive transactions and prospecting processes, IOTA has a clear advantage over traditional digital currencies. When a user makes a transfer with IOTA, two previous transactions are automatically validated, making each IOTA owner an IOTA"Miner". Unlike the blockchain technology of the first and second generation, IOTA is based on a distributed architecture called "The Tangle", which makes it possible to achieve three important crypto milestones: offline transactions, zero-cost transactions and infinite scalability. The maximum supply of coins amounts to almost 2.8 billion IOTA, and all coins are already in circulation.

Cardano

Despite its low profile, the Crypto-Taler Cardano, which is also still relatively unknown, manages to reach a market capitalization of 12.2 billion US dollars. The Cardano Blockchain was introduced a few months ago and started making massive profits from November 2017. There are currently around 26 billion coins in circulation. The maximum number of units is capped at 45 billion. Look at my other post on why I bought Cardano.

Monero

Monero, which is still relatively unknown at present, has a market capitalization of around 4.5 billion US dollars. Similar to Bitcoin, the inventor of Monero is anonymous. Monero attaches great importance to anonymity, so the details of each transaction are given exclusively to the sender and recipient. Accordingly, the currency is considered ideal for cybercriminals. The hackers behind the global WannaCry malware program for Microsoft Windows also demanded ransom payments in the form of Monero. There are currently around 15.5 million coins of anonymous money in circulation.

NEO

AntShares, the still relatively new crypto currency, was renamed NEO or NEO Coin at the beginning of August. Among crypto insiders, NEO is also known as the Chinese Ethereum. The coin has a current market capitalization of more than 5 billion US dollars. To counteract the growing scepticism about digital currencies, NEO founder Da Hongfei recently said in a "CNBC"interview:"I would say there is a bubble in this industry, but this is okay". NEO's current offering is 65 million out of a total of 100 million coins.

Verge

Among other things, programming pioneer John McAfee recently named the previously unpopular Verge, along with Monero, as the "best buy" among the current crypto-currencies. It now has a market capitalization of around 750 million US dollars. There are 14.4 billion of a possible 16.555 billion in circulation.

The crypto currency is not ICO-financed, but lives from thousands of members of the existing community. The Verge developer community has committed itself to the theme of "privacy". For example, networks such as Tor are used, which allows the original Bitcoin Blockchain technology to improve and speed up transactions. Multi-algorithms mining provides additional safety as well as an even distribution of the verge coins among the miners. 

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