Most Common Cryptocurrencies to Invest in 2021

Bitcoin has not just been a trendsetter, ushering in a wave of cryptocurrencies built on a decentralized peer-to-peer network, it’s become the de facto standard for cryptocurrencies, inspiring an ever-growing legion of followers and spinoffs.

A cryptocurrency, broadly defined, is currency that takes the form of tokens or “coins” and exists on a distributed and decentralized ledger. Beyond that, the field of cryptocurrencies has expanded dramatically since Bitcoin was launched over a decade ago, and the next great digital token may be released tomorrow. Bitcoin continues to lead the pack of cryptocurrencies in terms of market capitalization, user base, and popularity. Other virtual currencies such as Ethereum are being used to create decentralized financial systems for those without access to traditional financial products. Some altcoins are being endorsed as they have newer features than Bitcoin, such as the ability to handle more transactions per second or use different consensus algorithms like proof-of-stake.

What Are Cryptocurrencies?

Before we take a closer look at some of these alternatives to Bitcoin, let’s step back and briefly examine what we mean by terms like cryptocurrency and altcoin. A cryptocurrency, broadly defined, is virtual or digital money which takes the form of tokens or “coins.” While some cryptocurrencies have ventured into the physical world with credit cards or other projects, the large majority remain entirely intangible.

The “crypto” in cryptocurrencies refers to complicated cryptography which allows for the creation and processing of digital currencies and their transactions across decentralized systems. Alongside this important “crypto” feature of these currencies is a common commitment to decentralization; cryptocurrencies are typically developed as code by teams who build in mechanisms for issuance (often, although not always, through a process called “mining”) and other controls.

Cryptocurrencies are almost always designed to be free from government manipulation and control, although as they have grown more popular this foundational aspect of the industry has come under fire. The currencies modeled after Bitcoin are collectively called altcoins, and in some cases “shitcoins,” and have often tried to present themselves as modified or improved versions of Bitcoin. While some of these currencies may have some impressive features that Bitcoin does not, matching the level of security that Bitcoin’s networks achieves has largely yet to be seen by an altcoin.

Below, we’ll examine some of the most important digital currencies other than Bitcoin. First, though, a caveat: it is impossible for a list like this to be entirely comprehensive. One reason for this is the fact that there are more than 4,000 cryptocurrencies in existence as of January 2021. While many of these cryptos have little to no following or trading volume, some enjoy immense popularity among dedicated communities of backers and investors.

Beyond that, the field of cryptocurrencies is always expanding, and the next great digital token may be released tomorrow. While Bitcoin is widely seen as a pioneer in the world of cryptocurrencies, analysts adopt many approaches for evaluating tokens other than BTC. It’s common, for instance, for analysts to attribute a great deal of importance to the ranking of coins relative to one another in terms of market cap. We’ve factored this into our consideration, but there are other reasons why a digital token may be included in the list, as well.

Crypto has been a hot topic ever since Bitcoin began climbing in price from its $5,000 low in March 2020 to its current price of $47,000. The growth of the crypto market as a whole has been just as impressive, with the current crypto market cap at almost $1.5 trillion. Such price increases make many people wonder whether cryptocurrency is still a good investment, and specifically what cryptocurrencies are the best cryptos to buy right now. This list is a selection from the Cryptocurrency investors and from the major reddit communities.

Before we begin with our list, let me make it clear that the crypto industry is an incredibly volatile and risky industry. It’s one of the riskier investments you can do, and you need to do your own research before putting any money in.

Never put in more than you can afford to lose, and do not let only this article convince you what to invest in. All that being said, let’s begin.

1. Nano. The fastest, feeless and green crypto

In our opinion, the single biggest opportunity in 2021 comes from Nano. Having already seen a price increase of 500% since a year ago, Nano is only getting started. So why Nano?

Nano has many properties that make us enthusiastic. First of all, transfers are instant. It takes an average of 0.14 seconds to fully confirm a Nano transaction. When you’re trying it out for yourself you’ll see that by the time you hit send and check to see whether it’s arrived, it’s already there. It does so while having the highest security in the market. Don’t take our word for it — Kraken considers Bitcoin deposits “secure” after 4 confirmations (40 minutes), while they consider Nano securely confirmed instantly. When Elon Musk talks about “least error & latency”, Nano is what comes to mind.

Second, Nano is feeless. That’s right, fees are absolutely $0. This isn’t some temporary gimmick either, transactions are feeless forever. Nano accomplishes this through the innovative Open Representative Voting mechanism.

A third advantage of Open Representative Voting is that no mining is involved. Because of this, Nano has a good claim to being an extremely green cryptocurrency. To put this into context — a single Bitcoin transaction uses so much energy that you could drive a Tesla for 3000 miles with the same energy used. Nano on the other hand is so efficient that a single wind turbine can power the entire network. With the increasing focus on energy efficiency and saving the planet, this is going to become increasingly important.

The final impressive aspect of Nano that we would to highlight is its scalability. Nano has no upper limit. While Bitcoin tops out at 7 transactions per second on its best day, Nano has been tested at over 200 confirmations per second and scales with hardware. It uses whatever resources are available, and doesn’t stop growing.

Someone summarised it well by saying Nano is like Bitcoin, just 1000x faster, millions of times cheaper to use, with 30x the transaction capacity, 1 million times as energy efficient, while being more decentralised and more secure.

Despite all this, Nano is priced lower than Bitcoin. In fact, its market cap is about 1/1000th of Bitcoin’s. We personally see massive growth potential here, and Nano takes the #1 spot on our list by a landslide.

2. Ethereum. The platform crypto

Coming in at second place is far better-known crypto than Nano, yet it offers something very different. Ethereum (ETH) is the largest cryptocurrency when it comes to decentralized apps and smart contracts, and most of the Defi sector is built on top of it. It’s the father of the platform space and is still being developed.

What could potentially spell trouble for Ethereum is the high fees the chain is currently experiencing. Fees for smart contracts sometimes run into the hundreds of dollars, and people are desperately looking for alternatives. However, Ethereum started the lengthy process of switching to Ethereum 2.0 in December 2020.

While this process will take a while to complete (estimates are 2+ years), ETH will become a lot safer, faster, and more usable when it’s done. There are a lot of good developers working on this, and because of the large industry built on Ethereum, there is every incentive to make this project a success. While it’s always a gamble to invest in a product that is still being developed, we believe Ethereum’s broad backing and the fact that it’s the base layer for so many blockchains gives it a strong position in the long run.

The first Bitcoin alternative on our list, Ethereum, is a decentralized software platform that enables Smart Contracts and Decentralized Applications (DApps) to be built and run without any downtime, fraud, control, or interference from a third party. The goal behind Ethereum is to create a decentralized suite of financial products that anyone in the world can have free access to, regardless of nationality, ethnicity, or faith. This aspect makes the implications for those in some countries more compelling, as those without state infrastructure and state identifications can get access to bank accounts, loans, insurance, or a variety of other financial products.

The applications on Ethereum are run on its platform-specific cryptographic token, ether. Ether is like a vehicle for moving around on the Ethereum platform and is sought by mostly developers looking to develop and run applications inside Ethereum, or now, by investors looking to make purchases of other digital currencies using ether. Ether, launched in 2015, is currently the second-largest digital currency by market cap after Bitcoin, although it lags behind the dominant cryptocurrency by a significant margin. As of January 2021, ether's market cap is roughly 19% of Bitcoin's size.

In 2014, Ethereum launched a pre-sale for ether which received an overwhelming response; this helped to usher in the age of the initial coin offering (ICO). According to Ethereum, it can be used to “codify, decentralize, secure and trade just about anything.” Following the attack on the DAO in 2016, Ethereum was split into Ethereum (ETH) and Ethereum Classic (ETC). As of January 2021, Ethereum (ETH) had a market cap of $138.3 billion and a per token value of $1,218.59.

In 2021 Ethereum plans to change its consensus algorithm from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake. This move will allow Ethereum's network to run itself with far less energy as well as improved transaction speed. Proof-of-stake allows network participants to “stake” their ether to the network. This process helps to secure the network and process the transactions that occur. Those who do this are rewarded ether similar to an interest account. This is an alternative to Bitcoin’s proof-of-work mechanism where miners are rewarded more Bitcoin for processing transactions.

3. Bitcoin. The grandfather of the crypto space

While we wouldn’t bet on Bitcoin (BTC) in the long run (see #1 for why we think it will face stiff competition), it’s still got plenty of momentum behind it. It’s a household name and is by far the largest cryptocurrency on the planet. Having recently come under fire for the high fees ($30+) and the pollution caused by Bitcoin mining, Bitcoin nevertheless is seeing increased adoption by institutional investors.

We believe that in the long run, Bitcoin will be seen as the first version that failed to innovate, and we believe it’s unsuitable to be an actual currency, for now, the crypto space is still largely linked to Bitcoin’s price and it is a relatively safe bet, in crypto terms, for gains in the next year. Just don’t expect to be able to actually use it.

4. Binance Coin

The exchange token Binance coin (BNB) is a bit of an odd one out in the list. While it’s commonly derided for being a centralized cryptocurrency due to its link to Binance, no one can deny that it has a clear use case. Binance is one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges right now, and BNB is the exchange’s token. It can be used to lower your transaction fees, and nowadays serves as the native token of the Binance Chain and the Binance Smart Chain (BSC), both of which are seeing strong growth too.

Is it a true cryptocurrency? Perhaps not. But for those looking to invest, there is clear value in crypto that almost everyone getting into cryptocurrency can profit from, and that will be heavily pushed by the largest exchange in the world.

Binance Coin is a utility cryptocurrency that operates as a payment method for the fees associated with trading on the Binance Exchange. Those who use the token as a means of payment for the exchange can trade at a discount. Binance Coin’s blockchain is also the platform that Binance’s decentralized exchange operates on. The Binance exchange was founded by Changpeng Zhao and the exchange is one of the most widely used exchanges in the world based on trading volumes.

Binance Coin was initially an ERC-20 token that operated on the Ethereum blockchain. It eventually had its own mainnet launch. The network uses a proof-of-stake consensus model. As of January 2021, Binance has a $6.8 billion market capitalization with one BNB having a value of $44.26.

5. Cardano - Ada

Cardano is another decentralized and Open source. You can use the Cardano Blockchain to send and receive Ada Cryptocurrency. This Cryptocurrency currently stands at $0.9 with 31,112,484,646 ADA circulating supply. Ada reached $1.1 in 2018.

Bitcoin takes more time for transaction which will make the users wait for a long time, and Ethereum is not scalable. Cardano was made to be a 3rd Gen Cryptocurrency. Cardano's Vision is to create an "Internet of Blockchains".

Cardano is an “Ouroboros proof-of-stake” cryptocurrency that was created with a research-based approach by engineers, mathematicians, and cryptography experts. The project was co-founded by Charles Hoskinson, one of the five initial founding members of Ethereum. After having some disagreements with the direction Ethereum was taking, he left and later helped to create Cardano.

The team behind Cardano created its blockchain through extensive experimentation and peer-reviewed research. The researchers behind the project have written over 90 papers on blockchain technology across a range of topics. This research is the backbone of Cardano.

Due to this rigorous process, Cardano seems to stand out among its proof-of-stake peers as well as other large cryptocurrencies. Cardano has also been dubbed the “Ethereum killer” as its blockchain is said to be capable of more. That said, Cardano is still in its early stages. While it has beaten Ethereum to the proof-of-stake consensus model it still has a long way to go in terms of decentralized financial applications.

Cardano aims to be the financial operating system of the world by establishing decentralized financial products similarly to Ethereum as well as providing solutions for chain interoperability, voter fraud, and legal contract tracing, among other things. As of January 2021, Cardano has a market capitalization of $9.8 billion and one ADA trades for $0.31.

6. Dogecoin

Dogecoin is an absolute wildcard that we added because well, who can dislike his Dogeness? Started as a meme token, Doge quickly gained prominence and nowadays is recently “shilled” by Elon Musk. We could write about its fundamentals, which to be honest are abysmal (high transfer fees, high inflation, low usage), but that’s not the point with Doge.

Doge is a pure funny coin, one whose value comes from the number of people who think it’s fun to create memes about the prime barker, and surprisingly this has launched Doge into the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap recently. Know getting in that this is by far the most speculative crypto on this list, and use it with play money only.

7. Litecoin- Silver to BTC

Litecoin, launched in 2011, was among the first cryptocurrencies to follow in the footsteps of Bitcoin and has often been referred to as “silver to Bitcoin’s gold.” It was created by Charlie Lee, an MIT graduate and former Google engineer. Litecoin is based on an open-source global payment network that is not controlled by any central authority and uses "scrypt" as a proof of work, which can be decoded with the help of CPUs of consumer-grade. Although Litecoin is like Bitcoin in many ways, it has a faster block generation rate and hence offers a faster transaction confirmation time. Other than developers, there are a growing number of merchants who accept Litecoin. As of January 2021, Litecoin had a market cap of $10.1 billion and a per token value of $153.88, making it the sixth-largest cryptocurrency in the world.

8. Polkadot (DOT)

Polkadot is a unique proof-of-stake cryptocurrency that is aimed at delivering interoperability between other blockchains. Its protocol is designed to connect permissioned and permissionless blockchains as well as oracles to allow systems to work together under one roof.

Polkadot’s core component is its relay chain that allows the interoperability of varying networks. It also allows for “parachains,” or parallel blockchains with their own native tokens for specific use cases.

Where this system differs from Ethereum is that rather than creating just decentralized applications on Polkadot, developers can create their own blockchain while also using the security that Polkadot’s chain already has. With Ethereum, developers can create new blockchains but they need to create their own security measures which can leave new and smaller projects open to attack, as the larger a blockchain the more security it has. This concept in Polkadot is known as shared security.

Polkadot was created by Gavin Wood, another member of the core founders of the Ethereum project who had differing opinions on the project's future. As of January 2021, Polkadot has a market capitalization of $11.2 billion and one DOT trades for $12.54.

9. Bitcoin Cash (BCH)- More scalable BTC

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) holds an important place in the history of altcoins because it is one of the earliest and most successful hard forks of the original Bitcoin. In the cryptocurrency world, a fork takes place as the result of debates and arguments between developers and miners. Due to the decentralized nature of digital currencies, wholesale changes to the code underlying the token or coin at hand must be made due to general consensus; the mechanism for this process varies according to the particular cryptocurrency.

When different factions can’t come to an agreement, sometimes the digital currency is split, with the original chain remaining true to its original code and the new chain beginning life as a new version of the prior coin, complete with changes to its code.

BCH began its life in August of 2017 as a result of one of these splits. The debate that led to the creation of BCH had to do with the issue of scalability; the Bitcoin network has a limit on the size of blocks: one megabyte (MB). BCH increases the block size from one MB to eight MB, with the idea being that larger blocks can hold more transactions within them, and therefore the transaction speed would be increased. It also makes other changes, including the removal of the Segregated Witness protocol which impacts block space. As of January 2021, BCH had a market cap of $8.9 billion and a value per token of $513.45.

10. Stellar (XLM)- Enterprise Blockchain

Stellar is an open blockchain network designed to provide enterprise solutions by connecting financial institutions for the purpose of large transactions. Huge transactions between banks and investment firms that typically would take several days, a number of intermediaries, and cost a good deal of money, can now be done nearly instantaneously with no intermediaries and cost little to nothing for those making the transaction.

While Stellar has positioned itself as an enterprise blockchain for institutional transactions, it is still an open blockchain that can be used by anyone. The system allows for cross-border transactions between any currencies. Stellar’s native currency is Lumens (XLM). The network requires users to hold Lumens to be able to transact on the network.

Stellar was founded by Jed McCaleb, a founding member of Ripple Labs and developer of the Ripple protocol. He eventually left his role with Ripple and went on to co-found the Stellar Development Foundation. Stellar Lumens have a market capitalization of $6.1 billion and are valued at $0.27 as of January 2021.

11. Chainlink

Chainlink is a decentralized oracle network that bridges the gap between smart contracts, like the ones on Ethereum, and data outside of it. Blockchains themselves do not have the ability to connect to outside applications in a trusted manner. Chainlink’s decentralized oracles allow smart contracts to communicate with outside data so that the contracts can be executed based on data that Ethereum itself cannot connect to.

Chainlink’s blog details a number of use cases for its system. One of the many use cases that are explained would be to monitor water supplies for pollution or illegal syphoning going on in certain cities. Sensors could be set up to monitor corporate consumption, water tables, and the levels of local bodies of water. A Chainlink oracle could track this data and feed it directly into a smart contract. The smart contract could be set up to execute fines, release flood warnings to cities, or invoice companies using too much of a city's water with the incoming data from the oracle.

Chainlink was developed by Sergey Nazarov along with Steve Ellis. As of January 2021, Chainlink's market capitalization is $8.6 billion, and one LINK is valued at $21.53.

12. Tether (USDT)

Tether was one of the first and most popular of a group of so-called stablecoins, cryptocurrencies that aim to peg their market value to a currency or other external reference point in order to reduce volatility. Because most digital currencies, even major ones like Bitcoin, have experienced frequent periods of dramatic volatility, Tether and other stablecoins attempt to smooth out price fluctuations in order to attract users who may otherwise be cautious. Tether’s price is tied directly to the price of the US dollar. The system allows users to more easily make transfers from other cryptocurrencies back to US dollars in a more timely manner than actually converting to normal currency.

Launched in 2014, Tether describes itself as "a blockchain-enabled platform designed to facilitate the use of fiat currencies in a digital manner." Effectively, this cryptocurrency allows individuals to utilize a blockchain network and related technologies to transact in traditional currencies while minimizing the volatility and complexity often associated with digital currencies. In January of 2021, Tether was the third-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, with a total market cap of $24.4 billion and a per-token value of $1.00.

13. Monero (XMR)

Monero is a secure, private, and untraceable currency. This open-source cryptocurrency was launched in April 2014 and soon garnered great interest among the cryptography community and enthusiasts. The development of this cryptocurrency is completely donation based and community driven. Monero has been launched with a strong focus on decentralization and scalability, and it enables complete privacy by using a special technique called “ring signatures.”

With this technique, there appears a group of cryptographic signatures including at least one real participant, but since they all appear valid, the real one cannot be isolated. Because of exceptional security mechanisms like this, Monero has developed something of an unsavory reputation—it has been linked to criminal operations around the world. While this is a prime candidate for making criminal transactions anonymously, the privacy inherent in Monero is also helpful to dissidents of oppressive regimes around the world. As of January 2021, Monero had a market cap of $2.8 billion and a per-token value of $158.37.

14. XRP Ripple Digital Asset for Real-Time Global Payments

Ripple is a real-time gross settlement system, currency exchange and remittance network created by Ripple Labs Inc., a US-based technology company. Released in 2012, Ripple is built upon a distributed open source protocol, and supports tokens representing fiat currency, cryptocurrency, commodities, or other units of value such as frequent flier miles or mobile minutes. Ripple purports to enable "secure, instantly and nearly free global financial transactions of any size with no chargebacks." The ledger employs the native cryptocurrency known as XRP.

In December 2020, Ripple Labs and two of its executives were sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for selling XRP tokens, which the SEC classified as unregistered securities.

Ripple was conceived by Jed McCaleb and built by Arthur Britto and David Schwartz who then approached Ryan Fugger who had debuted in 2005 as a financial service to provide secure payment options to members of an online community via a global network.[4][5] Fugger had developed a system called OpenCoin which would transform into Ripple.[6][7] The company also created its own form of digital currency referred to as XRP to allow financial institutions to transfer money with negligible fees and wait-time.[8] In 2013, the company reported interest from banks for using its payment system.[9]

By 2018, over 100 banks had signed up, but most of them were only using Ripple's XCurrent messaging technology, while avoiding the XRP cryptocurrency due to its volatility problems.[10] Representatives of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), whose market dominance is being challenged by Ripple, have argued that the scalability issues of Ripple and other blockchain solutions remain unsolved, confining them to bilateral and intra-bank applications.[10] A Ripple executive acknowledged in 2018 that "We started out with your classic blockchain, which we love. But the feedback from the banks is you can’t put the whole world on a blockchain."[11]

Ripple relies on a common shared ledger, which is a distributed database storing information about all Ripple accounts. Chris Larsen told the Stanford Graduate School of Business that the network was managed by a network of independent servers which compare their transaction records, and that servers could in theory belong to anyone, including banks or market makers.[6] Ripple validates accounts and balances instantly for payment transmission and delivers payment notification within a few seconds.[12] Payments are irreversible, and there are no chargebacks.[13]

Ripple Labs continued as the primary contributors of code to the consensus verification system behind Ripple, which can "integrate with banks’ existing networks."[14] Since 2013, the protocol has been adopted by an increasing number of financial institutions to "offer an alternative remittance option" to consumers.[15] By December 2014 Ripple Labs began working with global payments service Earthport, combining Ripple's software with Earthport's payment services system. The partnership marked the first network usage of the Ripple protocol.[16] On December 29, 2017, XRP briefly became the second largest cryptocurrency, with a market capitalization of US$73 billion.[17]

Ripple is a payment settlement, currency exchange, and remittance system that intends to create a more efficient way of transferring assets – both domestically and internationally. “Ripple” refers to a privately owned company responsible for developing the cryptocurrency XRP and the RippleNet network. It should be noted that Ripple is both a cryptocurrency and a payment settlement platform. Ripple uses a consensus ledger and a network of validating servers along with the cryptocurrency XRP to facilitate transfers. The RippleNet network is currently being used by more than 300 financial institutions, including American Express and Santander. Ripple helps make money transfers cheaper, faster, and more convenient for institutions and their customers across the globe.

15. Uniswap

Uniswap is a decentralized finance protocol that is used to exchange cryptocurrencies. Uniswap is also the name of the company that initially built the Uniswap protocol. The protocol facilitates automated transactions between cryptocurrency tokens on the Ethereum blockchain through the use of smart contracts. As of October 2020, Uniswap was estimated to be the largest decentralized exchange and the fourth-largest cryptocurrency exchange overall by daily trading volume.[1] In March 2021, Uniswap was generating fees of approximately US$2–3 million daily for the liquidity providers who facilitate liquid markets for the cryptocurrencies being exchanged.[2]

Uniswap is a decentralized finance protocol that is used to exchange cryptocurrencies and tokens; it is provided on blockchain networks that are decentralized, running open-source software, as opposed to any centralized intermediary.[1][8] This is in contrast to cryptocurrency exchanges that are run by centralized companies such as Coinbase, Binance and OKEx.

Changes to the protocol are voted on by owners of a native cryptocurrency and governance token called UNI, and then implemented by a team of developers. UNI coins were initially distributed to early users of the protocol.[9] Each Ethereum address that had interacted with Uniswap prior to September 1, 2020 received the ability to claim 400 UNI tokens (worth approximately $1,400 at the time). The market capitalization for the UNI token is over $500 million as of October 2020.[1]

16. VeChain

VeChain is a blockchain platform designed to enhance supply chain management and business processes. Its goal is to streamline these processes and information flow for complex supply chains through the use of distributed ledger technology (DLT).

The Vechain platform contains two distinct tokens: VeChain Token (VET) and VeChainThor Energy (VTHO). The former is used to transfer value across VeChain’s network, and the latter is used as energy or "gas" to power smart contract transactions.

VeChain is an enterprise blockchain platform that aims to provide a full view of an organization by disintermediating information from data silos.

VeChain also plans to become a leading platform for initial coin offerings (ICOs) and for conducting transactions between Internet of Things (IoT) connected devices.

VeChain makes use of two tokens: VeChain token (VET) as a value layer and VeChain Thor Energy (VTHO) as a smart contract layer.

VeChain states that its goal is “to build a trust-free and distributed business ecosystem platform to enable transparent information flow, efficient collaboration, and high-speed value transfers.1

Supply chain data for business processes are currently compartmentalized in silos among multiple stakeholders. This affects information flow, which is again divided among stakeholders.

According to VeChain’s white paper, blockchain technology can break “this asymmetric information problem and allow ownership of data to return to and empower its owner.” The VeChain platform claims to provide a 360-degree view of necessary information linked to a product and its business processes—such as storage, transportation, and supply—to authorized stakeholders and create greater market transparency.1

For example, the platform can be used to track quality, authenticity, storage temperature, transportation medium, and last-mile delivery of a medicine pack or an alcohol bottle right from the manufacturing facility through to the final delivery to the end customer. To accomplish this goal, VeChain uses smart chips or Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags and sensors that broadcast key information onto the blockchain network that can be accessed in real-time by authorized stakeholders.

The application of sensors means that all parameters related to the product can be constantly monitored and problems, if any, can be communicated back to the relevant stakeholders. Manufacturers and customers are informed if a drug packet is stored outside a prescribed temperature range, allowing for service improvements and better quality control.

In another example, the VeChain platform can enable automobile owners to own their data and use it to negotiate better terms and policies with their insurance companies.

17. Stellar

Stellar, or Stellar Lumens, is an open source, decentralized protocol for digital currency to fiat money transfers which allows cross-border transactions between any pair of currencies. (Add above)

18. Theta

THETA is a cryptocurrency that powers Theta's decentralized video delivery network, powered by users and an innovative new blockchain.

19. USD Coin

USD Coin (USDC) is a digital stablecoin that is pegged to the United States dollar and runs on the Ethereum, Stellar, Algorand, and Solana blockchains.[1][2][3] Each USDC is backed by a dollar held in reserve, and USDC reserves are regularly audited by Grant Thornton, LLP.[4] USD Coin is managed by a consortium called Centre,[5] which was founded by Circle and includes members from the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase[6] and Bitcoin mining company Bitmain,[5] an investor in Circle.[7]

USDC was first announced on the 15th of May 2018 by Circle,[4] and was launched in September of 2018.[8] As of April 2021, $12 billion[9] USDC are in circulation.[10]

On March 29, 2021, Visa announced that it would allow the use of USDC to settle transactions on its payment network.[11]

20. Filecoin

Filecoin (⨎) is an open-source, public cryptocurrency and digital payment system intended to be a blockchain-based cooperative digital storage and data retrieval method.[1][2][3][4] It is made by Protocol Labs and builds on top of InterPlanetary File System,[1] allowing users to rent unused hard drive space.[5] A blockchain mechanism is used to register the deals.[6] It is a decentralized storage system that aims to “store humanity’s most important information.” Filecoin is open protocol and backed by a blockchain that records commitments made by the network’s participants, with transactions made using FIL, the blockchain’s native currency. The blockchain is based on both proof-of-replication and proof-of-spacetime.

The project was launched in August 2017 and raised over $200 million within 30 minutes.[6][7] It is ranked 8th in terms of market cap.[8]

Filecoin aims to store data in a decentralized manner. Unlike cloud storage companies like Amazon Web Services or Cloudflare, which are prone to the problems of centralization, Filecoin leverages its decentralized nature to protect the integrity of a data’s location, making it easily retrievable and hard to censor.

Decentralized storage systems like Filecoin allow people to be their own custodians of their data, as well as makes the web more accessible to people worldwide. Since participating in the Filecoin network by mining and storing is directly related to winning more block rewards, Filecoin incentivizes participants to act honestly and store as much data as possible.[citation needed]

Eth based.

21. Tron

TRON is a Blockchain-based decentralized operating system based on a cryptocurrency native to the system, known as TRX.

The TRON protocol, maintained primarily by the TRON Foundation, distributes computing resources equally among TRX holders with internal pricing mechanisms such as bandwidth and energy.[15] TRON provides a decentralized virtual machine, which can execute a program using an international network of public nodes. The network has zero transaction fees and conducts approximately 2,000 transactions per second.

The implementations of TRON require minimal transaction fees in order to prevent malicious users from performing DDoS attacks for free. In this respect, EOS.IO and TRON are quite similar, due to the negligible fees, high transactions per second, and high reliability, and as such are regarded as a new generation of blockchain systems.[16] Some researchers defined TRON as an Ethereum clone, with no fundamental differences.[17] The transactions per second rate on Tron's blockchain was questioned because it was far below its theoretical claim.[18]

TRON was founded by Justin Sun in 2017.[1] TRON Foundation raised $70 million in 2017 through an Initial coin offering shortly before China outlawed the digital tokens.[2]

The white paper of TRON was accused of plagiarism.[3] Researchers from Digital Asset Research (DAR) have discovered multiple instances of code copied from other projects in the Tron code base. It is also accused of violating the GNU Lesser General Public License v3.0 (LGPL) because the project does not mention that its client, Java-Tron, was derived from EthereumJ. These accusations were denied by the TRON Foundation, the organization behind the design of the system.[4]

In 2018, TRON switched its protocol from an ERC-20 token on top of Ethereum to an independent peer-to-peer network. After that, marketed to rival Ethereum. On 25 July 2018, the TRON Foundation announced it had finished the acquisition of Bittorrent, the biggest peer-to-peer file sharing network.[5] Upon this acquisition, in August 2018, BitTorrent Founder Bram Cohen also disclosed that he was leaving the company to found Chia, an alternative to bitcoin created to be a less energy-intensive cryptocurrency.[6]

By January 2019, TRON had a total market cap of about $1.6 billion.[7] Despite this market performance, some authors viewed TRON as a typical case of the complex and disordered nature of cryptocurrencies.[8][9] In February 2019, after being acquired by Tron Foundation, BitTorrent started its own token sale based on the TRON network.[10][11]

In May, 2019, the cyber-security testing service HackerOne revealed[12] that just one computer could have brought TRON’s entire blockchain to a halt.[13] The revelation showed that a barrage of requests sent by a single PC could be used to squeeze the power of the blockchain's CPU, overload the memory, and perform a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack.[14]

22. Wrapped Bitcoin

Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) is an ERC-20 token that represents Bitcoin (BTC) on the Ethereum blockchain. A key advantage of WBTC is its integration into the world of Ethereum wallets, dapps, and smart contracts.

Through a WBTC partner, 1 Bitcoin can be converted to 1 Wrapped Bitcoin, and vice-versa. WBTC was created to allow Bitcoin holders to participate in decentralized finance (“DeFi”) apps that are popular on Ethereum. The BTC that backs WBTC is transparently verifiable through a “proof of reserve” system that verifies the 1:1 backing between minted WBTC tokens and Bitcoin stored by custodians. WBTC is maintained by a group called the WBTC DAO that now consists of over 30 members. It was originally started by BitGo, Ren, and Kyber.

23. Solana- Scalable Ethereum

Solana is a fast, secure, and censorship resistant blockchain providing the open infrastructure required for global adoption.

24. QTUM

Qtum is an open sourced public blockchain platform, leveraging the security of UTXO while enabling multiple virtual machines including EVM and the revolutionary x86 VM. Qtum is PoS based and boasts a Decentralized Governance Protocol (DGP) allowing specific blockchain settings to be modified by making use of smart contracts. For instance, the block size of Qtum can be increased without the need of a hard fork.

One of the most promising contenders for Ethereum’s title is QTUM, a hybrid cryptocurrency technology that takes the best attributes of bitcoin and Ethereum before blending them together. The result is a solution that resembles bitcoin core, but also includes an Abstract Accounting Layer that gives QTUM’s blockchain smart contract functionality via a more robust x86 Virtual Machine.

Essentially this is an off-layer scaling solution akin to what bitcoin seeks in SegWit and the Lightning Network, combined with the ability to build and host smart contracts. This has made QTUM a popular destination for developers, who appreciate the protective clauses installed in the platform that make it nigh impossible to commit the kinds of coding infractions that might one day become a multi-million-dollar problem. They also appreciate the presence of second-layer storage, despite its implications on decentralization, because stable business applications are their primary desire, as well they should be.

25. ETC

The first hard fork that the cryptocurrency community witnessed was Ethereum forking from Ethereum Classic in 2013, which created a new prototype with ambitions to fill the gaps in Ethereum’s code. The controversy surrounded a hack where one individual stole over $50 million in ETH from a smart contract that was holding them in escrow as part of the original DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) project.

After the hacker created a glitch that withdrew ETH from users instead of depositing it, the community voted to create a new chain that was backwards-compatible with the old one, so that mistakes like these could be reversed, and coins returned to their rightful owners. The hard fork installed a new update to the old Ethereum’s code which made it impossible to backtrack, even in the case of heinous breaches, of which there have been several. Ethereum Classic is continually being upgraded in this manner, thanks to a vibrant and active community, and keeps on pace with other projects despite its age.

26. NEO

Neo was founded 2014 and has grown into a first-class smart contract platform. It is backed by a global developer community who continue to drive the blockchain forward.

NEO is what people like to refer to as “China’s Ethereum,” and for good reason. First, the two are very similar, and bill themselves as hosts of decentralized applications (dApps), ICOs, and smart contracts. They’re both open source, but while Ethereum is supported by a democratic foundation of developers, NEO has the full backing of China’s government. This has made it popular domestically but also abroad, and for its unique value proposition as well.

NEO uses a more energy-efficient consensus mechanism called dBFT (decentralized Byzantium Fault Tolerant) instead of proof-of-work, making it much faster at a rate of 10,000 transactions per second. Moreover, it supports more computer languages than Ethereum. People can build dApps with Java, C#, and soon Python and Go, making this option accessible to startups with big ideas while helping to add to its long-term viability.

27. Cosmos

Cosmos is an ever-expanding ecosystem of interconnected apps and services, built for a decentralized future.

Cosmos aims to become an “internet of blockchains” which is going to solve these problems once and for all. Cosmos’s architecture consists of several independent blockchains called “Zones” attached to a central blockchain called “Hub”.

The interoperability achieved by Cosmos has some extremely interesting use-cases:

DEX: Since Cosmos is linking so many blockchains with each other, it goes without saying that it can easily enable different ecosystems to interact with one another. This a perfect setting for a decentralized exchange.

Cross chain transactions: Similarly, one zone can avail the services of another zone through the Cosmos hub.

Ethereum Scaling: This is one of the more use cases. Any EVM based zone which is connected to the Cosmos hub will be, as per the architecture, powered by the Tendermint consensus system as well. This will enable these zones to scale up faster.

28. EOS

EOS.IO is a blockchain protocol based on the cryptocurrency EOS. The smart contract platform claims to eliminate transaction fees and also conduct millions of transactions per second.

Ethereum is the second most popular cryptocurrency in the world, just behind Bitcoin. In 2017 it increased its value by more than 10,000% and reached an all-time high of $130 billion in market capitalization. Not only this, but hundreds of cryptocurrency tokens have been built on top of the Ethereum blockchain and it is also home to over a thousand dApps.

When it comes to EOS, although it is still in its early days, it has performed exceptionally well. As I mentioned earlier in my EOS vs Ethereum guide, the project raised more than $2.5 billion during its one-year ICO.

During the ICO, investors were buying, selling and trading the EOS coin, pushing EOS to a market cap of more than $17 billion. This is very impressive for a project that is yet to release its final product.

However, EOS is yet to achieve anything like what Ethereum has achieved. With that being said though, if EOS can achieve their goals, then it will be a significantly better blockchain than Ethereum.

If EOS can achieve instant, free and millions of EOS transactions per second, it will be very difficult for Ethereum to match that level of performance. However, if Ethereum can implement ‘Proof of Stake’, ‘Sharding’ and ‘Plasma’ successfully, I think it will be tough for Ethereum alternatives to pass Ethereum.

But just like EOS, there is no guarantee that they will be able to achieve this. Let this be a reminder that the cryptocurrency market is a difficult industry to predict, and it is also one of the fastest-changing industries in the world!

Cryptocurrency is a very volatile and irrational market. In the short run, prices can easily drop 30% in a day, or triple in a week. What we personally like to do is look towards the longer-term trends, and figure out which cryptocurrencies have the strongest fundamentals to merit high valuations through their possible usage in the real world, away from exchanges and speculators. We hope this list can help you and would like to reiterate once again that it’s of the utmost importance to do your own research before buying in. Good luck, and may the gains be on your side.

References:

https://www.waftr.com/best-cryptocurrencies-to-buy/

https://www.investopedia.com/tech/most-important-cryptocurrencies-other-than-bitcoin/

https://8marketcap.com/cryptos/