Imagine you had understood the potential of Internet in the mid 1990s, alongside the founders of Hotmail, Google, and Amazon. Their companies ended up disrupting huge swaths of our economy and changed the way we live. Historically, these opportunities come every one or two decades. If you had understood the Internet back then, you could have positioned yourself extremely well to benefit from its growth. But maybe you missed out.
Two decades later, the next large opportunity is here. When world famous venture capitalists Marc Andreessen, Tim Draper and Peter Thiel call cryptocurrencies Web 3.0, they aren’t talking about just Bitcoin. They’re talking about the entire token economy.
Sure, its main use today is speculation, but so was the Internet in the 1990s. The new economy that cryptocurrencies bring from peer-to-peer interaction, elimination of middlemen fees, censorship resistance, and micro-payments will be enormous. And it’s crucial to understand more than just Bitcoin or Ethereum, because it is the entire token economy that will affect us going forward.
This introductory guide by Cryptonim.com seeks to answer what the current 100 biggest cryptocurrencies do, while defining the technical terms in accessible language.
BEFORE YOU GO ON: Visit https://cryptonim.com to sign up for the betalaunch of our website that will provide the most up to date information on all these coins, and more.
What is bitcoin?
Bitcoin, often called ‘Digital Gold’, is the world’s first decentralized ledger cryptocurrency based on blockchain. Bitcoin is designed to be a digital cash system that does not rely on a central trusted source.
What is Ethereum?
Ethereum is an open software platform based on blockchain technology. Users of the Ethereum platform can build and deploy decentralized applications without building their own blockchain.
What is Ripple?
Ripple is a blockchain-based infrastructure that helps banks with international currency transactions. Ripple hopes to make international wire transfers and exchange between fiat currencies faster, more secure and cost less.
What is Bitcoin Cash?
Bitcoin Cash is a fork of Bitcoin that was created in August of 2017. Publicly led by Jihan Wu of Bitmain and Roger Ver, Bitcoin Cash aims to speed up transactions by increasing Bitcoin’s block-size parameter.
What is Litecoin?
Litecoin is a cryptocurrency created by Charlie Lee that is based off of Bitcoin. Launched in October 2011, many see Litecoin as the silver to Bitcoin’s gold.
What is IOTA?
IOTA is focused on the future of IoT (Internet of Things) and the machine to machine economy, where machines would communicate directly to each. IOTA uses the Tangle algorithm, which allows transactions to scale faster as the network grows.
What is Cardano?
Cardano is an open-sourced blockchain project established by Charles Hoskinson, a co-founder of Ethereum. Cardano, sometimes known as the “Ethereum of Japan”, has a strong focus on the mathematical and scientific side of blockchain development.
What is Dash?
Dash, short for Digital Cash, is a cryptocurrency based on Bitcoin. Unlike Bitcoin, Dash uses a network of Masternodes, in addition to miners, to verify transactions, allowing for cheaper and faster transactions.
What is Bitcoin Gold?
Bitcoin Gold is a fork of Bitcoin that uses the Equihash mining algorithm (also used by Zcash) to prevent ASIC mining capability. ASIC mining machines ran the risk of centralizing mining power, since they are difficult to acquire and expensive.
