Bitcoin and Other Primary Currencies

Cryptocurrencies and blockchain have been popular in recent years. As of 2018, there were 1,624 kinds of cryptocurrencies to be traded in various exchanges, and the numbers of tokens are still increasing. Among which, there are several primary currencies you must learn.

BTC
As the ancestor of cryptocurrency, the discussions, community members, holders and market value have always been ranking the top in the market. Although the jamming transactions and handling fee have become the biggest problem for Bitcoin, its popularity still retains. However, the increasing transactions led to the expansion issues of Bitcoins; therefore, the first fork under Bitcoin thus created.

BCC
Bitcoin Cash is a “fork” of Bitcoin. The fork is categorized in to hard fork and soft fork, which represented the alterations or updates of the technology; and BCC was produced through hard fork. BCC’s characteristics are mostly the same as Bitcoin, and the only difference is the scalability.

ETH
ETH has been one of the popular currencies in recent years. It has multiple usages, fast transaction speed, and low handling fee, which is why it has been deeply favored by the market. Also, Ethereum has always been up for trying out new technologies and it is easier to deploy smart contract; therefore, it is the most significant application within blockchain, and it allows common programming to be added into the blockchain. In 2016, the Ethereum community decided to use the hard fork technology to trace back all the transactions before ETH being hacked, which resulted in the first hard fork for ETH.

ETC
Ethereum Classic was also created through hard fork; therefore, the original ETH still exists. However, most of the people recognize the newly issued currency as STH, the original ETH thus became ETC. For the reason that ETC maintain the original POW structure in its subsequent development, it showed the sign of its intention to separate from ETH.

LTC
Litecoin is one of the currencies issued the early stage. Although the basic structure of Litecoin is derived from BTC, there are still some stark differences.

1. As compared to Bitcoin, Litecoin processes four times faster.

2. The total issuance amount of Litecoin is four times as compared to Bitcoin.

3. The mining machines for Bitcoin and Litecoin cannot be used universally.

USDT
USDT is a cryptocurrency issued by Tether referencing the USD. The price floatation is minimized and its exchange rate against the USD is 1:1. Such feature is still used by most of the exchanges for currency settlement. However, the operation of USDT different from the general cryptocurrency, which is not decentralized. Although the rules are still established by Tether, it could freeze the capital that was freeze by the hackers immediately.

Different cryptocurrency has different features that may have advantages and disadvantages. How to ensure the transaction safety and the safety for digital asset holders shall be the most significant issues for all the transactions. However, due to the convenience of cryptocurrency, it will become the future trend. And we believe that, in the near future, cryptocurrencies may bring better trust and convenience for the public in the future under the satisfactory system and technologies.