Bitcoin came around 2009 when it was first valued at under a cent towards later on reaching the very top of the list of over 2000 different currencies.
Its all-time high almost hit 20,000 back in January of 2018, but besides from being suppressed by the frequent market dips with the rest of its crypto peers, Bitcoin has some issues that make it a rather slow and expensive option for sending global payments, especially microtransactions.
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Best Alternative Cryptocurrencies To Bitcoin
With scalability issues and the miners holding a rather expensive monopoly over creating new blocks, there are numerous alternatives to Bitcoin.
These alternative currencies are called altcoins and actually represent digital assets that were created based on the model of Bitcoin but are said to offer improvements to the original crypto.
Here are some of the best alternative currencies in the market that came after Bitcoin (BTC).
Best Cryptocurrency To Invest In Now
Ethereum (ETH)
Ethereum is a lot faster than Bitcoin, although the network itself has developed scalability issues over the time when more people started to use the platform especially for Dapp development.
Precisely the Dapp development part makes it a second generation cryptocurrency as ETH brought the concept of smart contracts, now making the second largest currency in the market.
Ripple (XRP)
Regardless of its ranking, as XRP is holding the third spot on the global ranking list of cryptocurrencies, Ripple truly represents a refreshment in the world of blockchain.
This is especially the case when it comes to the swiftness of XRP, as Ripple is said to be one of the fastest currencies in the market able to compete with Visa transactions that can range to validating 50,000 transactions in a second.
ZCash (ZEC)
If you are looking for a way to keep your data ultimately private, ZCash might be the best alternative currency for you.
This crypto is known as a privacy coin which means that users’ transaction data is completely invisible to anyone, that way advocating for utter security, safety and privacy, thanks to zk-SNARKS technology.
ZCash might be ranked lower than another famous privacy coin, Monero (XMR), but as ZCash is releasing Shielded Addresses without having a turbulent history of vulnerabilities like XMR, ZEC represents one of the best privacy coins and alternative currencies.
Cardano (ADA)
Cardano is aiming at becoming a third generation cryptocurrency, which could be achieved in case ADA finds the perfect solution for scalability, sustainability, and interoperability.
Cardano is being operated by three different dev teams, one of which is lead by Charles Hoskinson, the founder of ADA and the co-founder of Ethereum.
ADA is a rather prompt way of sending transactions for low fees and it stands out with its unique protocol Ouroboros.
Stellar Lumens (XLM)
Stellar made quite an impact on the market for the past several months as it managed to bounce up towards getting closer to the top 5 list by taking the spot of the 6th largest currency.
Stellar is somewhat similar to Ripple (XRP), and it aims at enabling simple, decentralized and cheap means of payments and sending microtransactions, especially in the developing countries.
Altogether, XLM makes up for one of the fastest cryptos as well.
Litecoin (LTC)
Litecoin might have had a rough year by losing its long-held spot of the 5th largest digital asset; however, Litecoin still represents one of the fastest and most successful hard forks derived from Bitcoin.
Litecoin is led by Charlie Lee, who had brought this crypto to being one of the top altcoins in the market, also significantly improving the original vision of Bitcoin.
Litecoin is best known by Lightning Network and the ability to enable fast and low-cost micropayments. Keywords: best cryptocurrency to invest in now, best cryptocurrency to invest 2017, best cryptocurrency to invest 2018, virtual currency list, litecoin bitcoin, best cheap cryptocurrency, top 5 cryptocurrency
