Currently, there is a large selection of various cryptocurrencies in the financial market, the number of which is only increasing every year. This is because digital money is of great interest to both the general public and large investors who are ready to invest in a rapidly developing market segment. Naturally, the main role in creating such a situation was played by the success of bitcoin, which is today the most famous, popular and sought-after cryptocurrency. However, this article will provide an overview not only of bitcoin, but also of other types of virtual money, which are deservedly considered quite promising.

Popular cryptocurrencies

The popularity rating of cryptocurrencies, without a doubt, is headed by bitcoin. It has the greatest capitalization, fame and relevance. However, various top lists of digital currencies today include several dozen names of monetary units, some of which appeared quite recently, while others were created not much later than bitcoin. Each of the cryptocurrencies described below has its own unique characteristics, however, there is something that unites them all - ever-growing interest and demand, which, in turn, are the reason for the rise in the price of most types of virtual money.

Bitcoin

The most popular cryptocurrency was created in late 2008 - early 2009. Currently, the capitalization of bitcoin has exceeded $140 billion, which is much more than that of other types of virtual money. The price of 1 btc overcame the bar of $8 thousand, which was another achievement of the digital currency. Naturally, it is bitcoin that acts as the main object of interest from potential investors and the subject of trading on various cryptocurrency exchanges.

At the same time, it is extremely important to understand that financial analysts are far from unanimous regarding the forecasts and prospects for further growth of the bitcoin rate. Some experts predict the preservation of the impressive dynamics of this type of cryptocurrency. However, some experts predict the exact opposite of this development, predicting the imminent fall of bitcoin.

Ethereum

The second most popular and capitalized cryptocurrency in the world. Despite its relatively small age, the trading volume of ethereum or ether, as this type of digital money is often called in Russian language, has reached $44 billion at the moment, far surpassing all other cryptocurrencies with the exception of bitcoin. The Ethereum payment system was launched in mid-2015. For a little over two years, the cryptocurrency was able to confidently come in second place, in some segments it is a confident competitor to bitcoin, which until recently seemed unattainable. Some experts consider ether to be the most promising type of virtual money.

Litecoin

Litecoin is a derivative (cryptocurrency experts use a special term - a fork) of bitcoin. The most popular digital currency is often called virtual gold, and Litecoin is called virtual silver by analogy. It appeared in 2011, rapidly gaining popularity and capitalization. However, today Litecoin occupies only the 6th place in terms of trading turnover, which does not prevent experts from classifying it as one of the promising cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin Cash

This type of virtual money appeared quite recently - on August 1, 2018. In fact, it is a fork of bitcoin, obtained as a result of the introduction of new rules for the blockchain of the latter. Bitcoin Cash (abbreviations adopted today - BCash, BCC and BCH) has a common history with Bitcoin, but is currently traded independently. In less than four months, the capitalization of the new digital currency amounted to almost $27 billion, which is one of the most significant increases in such a short period of time. Currently, in terms of capitalization, BCash holds the 4th place among all cryptocurrencies.

Monero

The main feature of the cryptocurrency is the highest level of anonymity of the payment system existing today. Monero was created on the basis of the original CryptoNote protocol in the spring of 2014. Currently, this type of virtual money is not in the top 10 in terms of capitalization. Nevertheless, the absence of cryptocurrency in the main ratings reduces interest in it, which allows you to make money on mining even with the help of a regular computer, which has long been impossible to do by mining more popular types of digital currencies.

Dash

The cryptocurrency was released in early 2014 under the name Xcoin. In the spring of 2015, it became known as Dash. Almost immediately after the appearance of this type of virtual money began to be in serious demand. In many respects, it is due to the presence of some characteristic features, the main of which is the decision-making on the further development of the system through the will of all members of the network. There was no such level of decentralization before the advent of Dash. It is not surprising that the price of cryptocurrency has increased several hundred times in three years, and the capitalization is almost $4.6 billion, which puts the cryptocurrency in 5th place in this indicator.

Zcash

This type of digital currency appeared about a year ago - in the fall of 2016. Almost immediately, Zcash (short name - ZEC) began to enjoy a rush demand, which allowed it to even enter the top 5 cryptocurrencies by capitalization for a short time. However, after some time, the price quite predictably fell somewhat. Nevertheless, despite the fact that today Zcash is not included in the ranking of the ten largest cryptocurrencies in terms of capitalization, this type of virtual money is still considered one of the most promising. This is due to the presence of serious advantages, the main of which is the high level of anonymity of transactions. The principle of operation of the payment system makes it almost impossible to track and control financial transactions carried out using ZCash.

VertCoin

A digital coin with this name was released in January 2014. A feature of the cryptocurrency is the efficiency of mining carried out using video cards. Mining vertcoins using ASIC processors is almost impossible, which is explained by the peculiarities of this payment system. Otherwise, in most of its parameters, VertCoin differs little from other types of virtual currency, so it is difficult to predict the prospects for its further development.

BitShares

The BitShares virtual money platform (abbreviated as BTS) was developed in 2013 by one of the most famous cryptocurrency specialists, Dan Larimer. A feature of this type of digital currency is the absence of a mining procedure, since the process of processing and confirming transactions is carried out by special delegates who are selected from among the participants in the payment system. As a result, it has high performance, which does not depend, as for most cryptocurrencies, on the number of miners. Despite the fact that the capitalization of BitShares at the moment is approximately $340 million, the cryptocurrency shows a stable, although not as rapid as that of bitcoin, the growth of the rate.

Factom

The appearance of Factom took place in the fall of 2015. Over the past two years, the new cryptocurrency has become quite popular, which is a logical consequence of the presence of a number of serious advantages. These include:

• High mining speed. This is because the number of users mining Factom is currently relatively small;
• Efficiency of transactions. It is achieved by the peculiarities of the protocol provided by the payment system and its maximum openness;
• There are no restrictions associated with writing data to blocks of an efficiently operating blockchain system.

NEM (XEM)

This type of virtual money is especially popular on exchanges in Japan, where it was developed in early 2015, and other Asian countries. A cryptocurrency called XEM uses NEM blockchain technology, which explains the frequent use of two names for the same type of digital currency. Despite the fact that initially all the stipulated number of monetary units was issued, XEM mining is quite possible. It is necessary to process data on transactions made in the system by generating new database blocks. Currently, the capitalization of this type of digital money is almost $1.9 billion, which puts it in 11th place in the ranking of the largest cryptocurrencies.

Dogecoin

The virtual coin was first introduced to the financial market in December 2013 Its main feature is a fairly fast mining process, which leads to a constant increase in the number of issued monetary units. Currently, their number has exceeded 111 billion with a capitalization of $218 million. The basis of the Dogecoin virtual platform is the Litecoin described above, which, in turn, acts as a fork of the most popular and well-known cryptocurrency today – bitcoin.

MaidSafeCoin

Launched in the spring of 2014, the MaidSafeCoin cryptocurrency was originally based on the Bitcoin blockchain. However, the developers are currently creating their own blockchain system, which will further increase the security and decentralization of the virtual money platform. Of course, the goal of launching MaidSafeCoin is to create a decentralized Internet with its own digital currency.

DigiByte

Created in 2013 and launched on the market in 2014, the virtual coin is based on the blockchain system of the same name. The main feature of DigiByte is the high speed of transaction processing and the complete openness of the payment system. The creators of this type of cryptocurrency call it the first professional virtual currency.

Nautiluscoin

The Nautiluscoin cryptocurrency was created in 2014. It immediately began to be positioned as a modern version of virtual money, the main advantages of which were the speed of financial transactions using a digital coin, as well as a short period of time for recalculating one block of the database, which is only 1 minute. Another feature of the payment system is the creation and operation of a special stabilization fund (NSF), which is designed to ensure stable growth of the cryptocurrency rate.

Clams

Launched on the market in May 2014, the cryptocurrency with the short name Clams is today one of the most democratic virtual money platforms. However, it is not included in the top 10 largest cryptocurrencies by capitalization, while showing a fairly stable growth rate. However, predicting the prospects of this type of digital currency is very problematic.

Siacoin

The main feature of the Siacoin project (short for SC) is that it acts not only as virtual money, but at the same time serves as a platform that provides the possibility of decentralized cloud storage of files. It is created by combining the disk space of the computers participating in the network. This unique combination of functionality makes Siacoin one of the most promising projects currently underway.

Decred

This type of virtual currency appeared in December 2015. However, within a year and a half after that, the payment system was actively tested and refined, after which it was fully presented on the market only in April 2017. Cryptocurrency does not stand out among others with some revolutionary developments, so it is simply unrealistic to predict its future prospects.

VeriCoin

The cryptocurrency was founded in May 2014. Its main advantages are ease of use, transaction processing speed and the efficiency of initial mining. Due to this, this type of virtual money is developing quite quickly and steadily, although it is not included in the rating of the most popular and sought-after cryptocurrencies on the market.

Einsteinium

Another cryptocurrency that appeared in 2014 in Montreal is Einsteinium (abbreviated as EMC2). Today, this type of digital money is not in the top 100, having a capitalization of $13.84 million, however, it must be understood that the main purpose of creating a virtual coin is to finance scientific developments related to IT projects and cryptography around the world. This task is quite successfully solved, which is also facilitated by the activities of the Einsteinium charitable foundation of the same name.