10 Alternative Cryptocurrencies You Should Look Out For Right Now

Cryptocurrencies are digital currencies that exist on a distributed and decentralized log in the form of tokens or coins. Since Bitcoin's launch about ten years ago, the world of cryptocurrencies has grown significantly, and the next big digital currency may be launched tomorrow. Although Bitcoin continues to lead the way in terms of popularity, market value, and user base, it has not just become the in reality standard for cryptocurrencies, inspiring an influx of cryptographic forms of money based on a decentralized distributed organization, it has likewise also become the actual standard for digital forms of money, rousing an always developing army of supporters and side projects.

Other digital currencies, for example, Ethereum, are being utilized to build more decentralized monetary frameworks for people who don't have access to conventional financial products. A lot of Altcoins are currently being embraced as they have fresher highlights than Bitcoin and Ethereum, such as the ability to process more transactions per second or utilize distinctive agreements; this write up will point out ten such Altcoins with great potentials to become a giant currency in the crypto world.

1. LiteCoin (LTC): LiteCoin was one of the first cryptocurrencies to join the ranks of Bitcoin, and it is sometimes regarded as a near relative of Bitcoin. LiteCoin is based on an open-source universal distributed ledger that is not managed by any centralized power. At the same time, Bitcoin and LiteCoin are similar in operation; there are a couple of key highlights that make them unique.

Charlie Lee, a graduate of MIT, a former Google employee, computer scientist, and the founder of LiteCoin is well-known, unlike Bitcoin's anonymous developer.

Transaction speed – Lee engineered the LiteCoin system to be four times faster than the Bitcoin system. As a result, LiteCoin will verify the validity of transactions far more quickly. However, there is some debate about whether LiteCoin's pace makes it less reliable.

Quantity of coins – Bitcoin will have 21 million coins until they are all found, while LiteCoin will have 84 million.

So why should you look at LiteCoin? LiteCoin had a market capitalization of 10.1 billion USD with a per-unit value of $153.88, making it the world's 6th largest cryptocurrency in January 2021. The price of LiteCoin is $196.29 as of April 2021, compared to $37.25 a year ago, resulting in a quintuple rise in price. So, if Bitcoin is a little too pricey for you to invest in, look into LiteCoin.

2. Binance Coin (BNB): Binance Coin was introduced in 2017 by Binance, the largest global cryptocurrency exchange platform. The coin can be traded for other cryptocurrencies or used to pay transaction fees on the Binance exchange platform. Binance Coin began as an ERC-20 token (a standard for developing and issuing smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain) that ran on the Ethereum blockchain before being moved to its own mainnet.

Binance Coin currently has a market capitalization of about 47 billion USD, making it one of the most valuable digital currencies traded. It's one of the bigger players in the space, but it's mostly used to pay Binance cryptocurrency exchange fees. That said, why do you think Binance Coin is worth considering? Two major factors will be highlighted below.

The first is its market capitalization. With a sum of around 47 billion USD and growing, it's one of the largest digital currencies accessible, indicating that it's gaining traction in the market.

The other factor is price performance. The price of this coin has soared from about 12 USD to over 300 USD, giving it a twenty-five times rise in a year, surpassed only by Cardano on this chart. Nevertheless, be cautious with this coin if you are going to invest because almost all of the price movement has occurred in the last three months. In reality, it peaked on February 18th and has largely maintained that level since then.

3. Bitcoin Cash (BCH): As it is one of the earliest and most popular hard forks of the original Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash holds a significant position in the history of altcoins. A split occurs in the cryptocurrency environment as a result of disagreements and contentions between developers and miners. Because of the decentralized structure of digital currencies, major adjustments to the programs defining the token or coin in question need general agreement. When various sides can't agree, the digital currency is split, with the original chain maintaining the original program and the new chain starting out as a new version of the previous coin, completely with a different program. As a result of one of these breaks, Bitcoin Cash was born in August of 2017.

The discussion that prompted the development of BCH had to do with the issue of versatility; the Bitcoin network has a block size limit of one megabyte (MB). BCH builds the square size from one megabyte to eight megabytes. The thought is that larger blocks will accommodate more transactions and thereby increase transaction speed and other improvements like the expulsion of the Segregated Witness convention, which affects block space. With this knowledge about Bitcoin Cash, why is it a digital currency to keep an eye on? Well, in January 2021, Bitcoin Cash had a market capitalization of $8.9 billion and a token value of around 500 USD but has recently leaped to over 1,500 USD.

4. DogeCoin (DOGE): Dogecoin was created in 2013 in Portland, Oregon, by Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer, and is named after the famous "Doge" meme of a Shiba Inu puppy. It was built to be "instant, enjoyable, and free from conventional banking fees," as its developers envisioned it as a light-hearted cryptocurrency. "2021 has been the year of DOGE" "Dogecoin's success can largely be attributed to what is known as the (Elon) Musk Effect," Says Ben Weiss, the CEO, and co-founder of CoinFlip. DOGE's cost has been known to twofold after tweets from the Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, who has called it his most loved digital currency to his 52 million Twitter followers.

While Bitcoin has a limit of 21 million coins, Dogecoin already has 129 billion in existence, with new blocks available to mine every year. In April 2021, it was only worth $0.05 but has grown by more than 13,000 percent, making it the fourth-biggest digital currency in terms of market capitalization. Its price reached a high of more than 70 cents in early May but has since dropped but is expected to hit a new high before the end of the third quarter of 2021

5. Tether (USDT): Tether was one of the first and most common of a group of cryptocurrencies known as stablecoins, which seek to eliminate uncertainty and enable cryptocurrency to function to be a store of significant worth rather than a volatile investment. Most digital currencies, including big ones like Bitcoin, have experienced regular periods of dramatic volatility. Tether's price is directly linked to the price of the USD, providing liquidity in an unstable cryptocurrency sector. The framework makes it easier for users to make transactions in situations where it would be difficult to convert between cash and cryptocurrency promptly. Tether defines itself as a "blockchain-enabled platform for decentralized applications."

USD-backed virtual currencies such as Tether, Gemini Dollar, and USD Coin are the most well-known stablecoins. Some stablecoins, on the other hand, use different forms of collateral. Others are backed by fiat currencies such as the euro or the yen, and others are backed by resources like gold and silver. Loans, as well as USD, are now part of tether's latest backing scheme. Despite the move and previous controversy, more Tether coins are still being created as demand grows. USDT now has a market capitalization of $34 billion, up from $3 million just two years earlier, and a per-token valuation of $1.00.

Despite the emergence of competitors over time, tether remains the most common stable coin and is commonly used for trade, bonds, and getting a return. The tether can be considered one of the riskier cryptocurrencies due to its transparency problems. However, it is still essential in the cryptocurrency world and is unlikely to go anywhere, so it is a good coin for an investor to consider.

6. Cardano (ADA): Cardano is a cryptocurrency developed by engineers, mathematicians, and cryptocurrency experts using a data analysis approach. Charles Hoskinson, one of Ethereum's five original founding members, was a co-founder of the project. After some disagreements with Ethereum's course, he left and assisted in the development of Cardano. Basically, the developers of Cardano seem to be attempting to merge the best features of a number of different cryptocurrencies. This process is being worked on by a group of scientists and academics. As a result, Cardano is proposed to be a more economical digital money that everybody can utilize. Why should you (or should you not) invest in Cardano?

Cardano's developers are the most open about their motivations for creating their own cryptocurrency, so if you're not into the secrecy of digital currencies, Cardano might be the route to go. Cardano's price has risen dramatically in the last year, far outpacing the two crypto-behemoths, Bitcoin and Ethereum. As of April 2021, Cardano is trading at a low price of $1.19. This compares to around $0.03 a year ago, representing a staggering 40-fold price rise. Cardano is now one of the best-performing cryptos in terms of price efficiency. It may also be a speculator's favorite due to its incredibly low price.

7. Monero (XMR): Monero is a secure, anonymous, and untraceable cryptocurrency. It works in the same way as Bitcoin does: via the blockchain. However, unlike Bitcoin, which isn't fully anonymous, Monero claims that it doesn't share the virtual identity with the distributed ledger. This open-source cryptocurrency was first released in April 2014, and it quickly gained popularity among cryptocurrency fans.

The creation of this cryptocurrency is entirely funded by donations and powered by the group. Monero was created with a strong emphasis on decentralization and scalability, and it uses a technique called "ring signatures" to provide total privacy. With this method, a group of cryptographic signatures emerges, at least one of which is a real participant, but since they all appear to be legitimate, the real one cannot be identified.

Monero's privacy is beneficial to victims of authoritarian Governments all over the world because of extraordinary security measures like this. Monero had a market capitalization of 2.8 billion USD and a per-token value of about 158 USD in January 2021. As a result, it's essentially a black-market currency. It was worth 252.25 USD in April 2021 compared to a price of about 47 USD a year ago. Monero has increased more than five times in the last year, which makes it a good digital currency to keep an eye on.

8.   Polkadot (DOT): Polkadot is a revolutionary proof-of-stake cryptocurrency that aims to deliver interoperability between other blockchains. It was created in 2016 by Peter Czaban, Robert Habermeier, and Gavin Wood, who is also a co-founder of Ethereum. Its protocol connects permissioned blockchains and blockchains without permission, as well as oracles, allowing systems to collaborate under one framework.

Polkadot's central component is its relay chain, which enables network interconnectivity. For unique use cases, it also allows for "parachains," or parallel blockchains with their own native tokens.  Developers can create their own blockchain while using the protection that Polkadot's chain already has.

This framework differs from Ethereum in that instead of creating only decentralized applications on Polkadot; they can create their own blockchain while using the security that Polkadot's chain already has. Engineers can create new blockchains with Ethereum, but they must undertake their own security efforts, which can expose new and smaller projects to attack, as the larger a blockchain is, the more secure it is. Polkadot refers to this concept as "shared security." So, why should this digital coin be looked at by an investor?

In January 2021, Polkadot had a market capitalization of over 11 billion USD, and one unit trades for over 12 USD. Polkadot has risen to be the eighth biggest digital currency in the world.

9. Stellar's Lumens (XLM): Jed McCaleb, a founding member of Ripple Labs and the creator of the Ripple protocol, created Stellar, an open blockchain network. He subsequently left Ripple and went on to found the Stellar Development Foundation with his co-founders. The stellar ecosystem is designed to link financial institutions for the purpose of large transactions, providing enterprise solutions. The platform entered the market with the intention of making foreign money transfers, such as remittance payments, more streamlined. Stellar prioritizes the interests of individuals over the needs of large financial institutions.

The platform is able to link individuals, organizations, and payment systems all over the world in this way. Today, the forum is made up of an international group of people and organizations from all over the world. Big transfers from banks and investment companies that used to take days to involve a variety of middlemen and cost a lot of money can now be completed almost instantly, with no middlemen and with little to no cost to the parties involved.

Now, what makes this digital currency one to have an interest in?

Since falling victim to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, when the entire capital systems were in freefall, Stellar Lumen (XLM) has returned a whopping 238.43 percent Year-To-Date. In January 2021, Stellar Lumens had a market capitalization of 6.1 billion USD and are priced at 0.27 USD. Also, in May 2021, Stellar Lumens was trading at 0.425594 USD, up 6.40 percent, with a market capitalization of 9.68 billion USD and a trading volume of 1.18 billion USD. It is steadily approaching the 10 billion USD share price valuation, which would classify it as a big digital asset.

10. Ripple (XRP): Ripple, unlike most other cryptocurrencies, does not need to be "mined," It was first released by Ripple'S creators. Ripple is the name of the organization that handles the XRP currency's communications and payments. Ripple operates with a blockchain that is actually participating banks and financial institutions rather than a public blockchain like Ethereum or Bitcoin. Many people like the concept of cryptocurrencies but are concerned that their funds would be at risk in an unregulated online setting. Ripple aims to provide some of that protection, which is both one of its best and worst features. After all, several people like the concept of cryptocurrencies since they are decentralized and do not need the involvement of large banks or investors. However, perhaps the most significant disadvantage is its low price in reference to other cryptocurrencies. Ripple is currently valued at 0.56 USD in April 2021. To make matters worse, Ripple was trading at 1.13 USD some years back. As a result, it's now worth less than half of what it was in 2019. To know how XRP will behave in 2021, and how 2020 affected it, it's necessary to look back a few years and look at the waves that XRP has experienced in its history. We won’t be able to go in-depth on that but you can visit their official websites to read more.

Why should you invest (or not) in Ripple? As is common in the cryptocurrency world, overall ecosystem trends play a role, and XRP is known to move in lockstep with other coins, most notably Bitcoin.

More importantly, mainstream adoption is a major market mover because Ripple's platform meets the needs of many financial institutions and other businesses in the industry, so every time it is embraced by a well-known brand, it will add to its appeal.

Photo by Pierre Borthiry on Unsplash