Cryptocurrencies have been around for nearly a decade, with Bitcoin having been conceptualized during the 2008–09 financial crisis, and in that time the global (fringe) economy has taken a leap forward in how transactions are processed; without need for a central authority.
An especially momentous year for crypto, 2017 saw Bitcoin break past the $1000 mark (a momentous occasion at the time) and soar all the way up to $17,000 with no way to determine what’ll happen before the year is out. 2017 also marked the inception of many new cryptocurrencies, some of which the Voleo SimuTrader app now supports! Interested? Download SimuTrader for iPhone and Android.
Bitcoin
Launched: January 2009
Bitcoin is the original and leading cryptocurrency. The anonymous developer, or developers, behind Bitcoin notably developed blockchain technology, creating the distributed ledger. The process to create a Bitcoin is done via a process called mining whereby computers solve mathematical problems to add network transactions to block and receive a monetary award in the form of the cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin Cash
Launched: August 2017
A spin-off of Bitcoin, Bitcoin cash was created when network miners could not agree on how the scaling debate should be settled. Supporters of a fork in the cryptocurrency felt that a larger block size could better serve the currency during the scaling process and with network consensus reached, the new currency was born!
Unique value proposition (UVP): Bitcoin Cash allows more transactions to be processed via an 8 MB block size, while Bitcoin maintains a 1 MB block size.
Ether
Launched: July 2015
Ethereum is a decentralized platform that enables smart contracts and distributed applications to be built and run without any downtown, fraud, control, or interface from a third party. In the Ethereum blockchain, miners work to earn Ether, a type of crypto token that fuels the network.
UVP: Ethereum wants to be a “world computer” that would decentralize the existing model. This allows smart contracts to facilitate the exchange of anything of value. Also, many initial coin offerings (ICOs) leverage the Ethereum network for their projects and offerings.
Ethereum Classic
Launched: July 2016
Ethereum Classic shares many of the same traits as Ethereum, however was born out of the DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) attack and a philosophical disagreement in the Ethereum Committee about how to recover from that attack.
UVP: The new developers will continue to diverge away from Ethereum in how it handles hacks and disagreements.
Litecoin
Launched: October 2011
Litecoin is like Bitcoin in many ways, although it has a faster block generation rate and hence offers a faster transaction confirmation.
UVP: The first cryptocurrency to use the Scrypt, which can be decoded with the help of consumer central processing units (CPUs), hardware used to mine cryptocurrencies.
Monero
Launched: April 2014
Monero is a secure, private and untraceable currency. The development of this cryptocurrency is completely donation-based and community driven. Monero has a strong focus on decentralization and scalability, and enables complete privacy by using a special technique called ‘ring signatures.’
UVP: Privacy-centric coin.
Zcash
Launched: October 2016
Zcash claims to provide extra security or privacy where all transactions are recorded and published on a blockchain, but details such as the sender, recipient, and amount remain private.
UVP: First open, permission less cryptocurrency that can fully protest the privacy of transactions using zero-knowledge cryptography.
Dash (Digital Cash)
Launched: January 2014
Dash aims to be the most user-friendly and most on-chain-scalable cryptocurrency in existence. Dash leverages Bitcoin’s features, but also operates a self-governing and self-funding model that allows the network to pay people to perform work that add value to the network.
UVP: Because Dash has a decentralized governance and budgeting system, it is a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).
While they’re intended to be built with real security, the reality is that cryptocurrencies are enormously volatile. Just like with any investment, it’s not wise to put a majority of your resources towards just one asset — especially one that moves particularly dramatically without underlying assets that stocks have (like revenues and real estate). But, at Voleo we understand that cryptocurrencies are the way of the future and so we believe that practice will make us better equipped to handle purchasing cryptocurrencies with real, hard earned cash. We look forward to your crypto-trades in Voleo SimuTrader!
