List of cryptocurrencies

Last updated

Since the creation of bitcoin in 2009, the number of new cryptocurrencies has expanded rapidly. [1]

Contents

The UK's Financial Conduct Authority estimated there were over 20,000 different cryptocurrencies by the start of 2023, although many of these were no longer traded and would never grow to a significant size. [2]



Active currencies by date of introduction

Year of introductionCurrencySymbolFounder(s) Hash algorithm Programming language of implementationConsensus mechanismNotes
2009 Bitcoin BTC, [3] XBT, Satoshi Nakamoto SHA-256d [4] [5] C++ [6] PoW [5] [7] The first and most widely used decentralized ledger currency, [8] with the highest market capitalization as of 2018. [9]
2011 Litecoin LTC, Ł Charlie Lee Scrypt C++ [10] PoW One of the first cryptocurrencies to use scrypt as a hashing algorithm.
2011 Namecoin NMCVincent Durham [11] [12] SHA-256d C++ [13] PoW Also acts as an alternative, decentralized DNS.
2012 Peercoin PPCSunny King
(pseudonym)[ citation needed ]
SHA-256d [ citation needed ] C++ [14] PoW & PoS The first cryptocurrency to use both PoW and PoS functions.
2013 Dogecoin DOGE, XDG, ÐJackson Palmer
& Billy Markus [15]
Scrypt [16] C++ [14] PoW Based on the Doge internet meme.
2013 Gridcoin GRCRob Hälford [17] Scrypt C++ [18] Decentralized PoS Linked to citizen science through the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing [19]
2013 Primecoin XPMSunny King
(pseudonym)[ citation needed ]
1CC/2CC/TWN [20] TypeScript, C++ [21] PoW [20] Uses the finding of prime chains composed of Cunningham chains and bi-twin chains for proof-of-work.
2013 Ripple [22] [23] XRPChris Larsen &
Jed McCaleb [24]
ECDSA [25] C++ [26] "Consensus"Designed for peer-to-peer debt transfer. Not based on bitcoin.
2013 Nxt NXTBCNext
(pseudonym)
SHA-256d [27] Java [28] PoS Specifically designed as a flexible platform to build applications and financial services around its protocol.
2014 Auroracoin AURBaldur Odinsson
(pseudonym) [29]
Scrypt C++ [30] PoW Created as an alternative currency for Iceland, intended to replace the Icelandic króna.
2014 Dash DASHEvan Duffield &
Kyle Hagan[ citation needed ]
X11 C++ [31] PoW & Proof of Service [nt 1] A bitcoin-based currency featuring instant transactions, decentralized governance and budgeting, and private transactions.
2014 NEO NEODa Hongfei & Erik Zhang SHA-256 & RIPEMD160 C# [32] dBFT China based cryptocurrency, formerly ANT Shares and ANT Coins. The names were changed in 2017 to NEO and GAS.
2014 MazaCoin MZCBTC Oyate Initiative SHA-256d C++ [33] PoW The underlying software is derived from that of another cryptocurrency, ZetaCoin.
2014 Monero XMRMonero Core TeamRandomX C++ [34] PoW Privacy-centric coin based on the CryptoNote protocol with improvements for scalability and decentralization.
2014 Titcoin TITEdward Mansfield & Richard Allen [35] SHA-256d TypeScript, C++ [36] PoW The first cryptocurrency to be nominated for a major adult industry award. [37]
2014 Verge XVGSunerokScrypt, x17, groestl, blake2s, and lyra2rev2 C, C++ [38] PoW Features anonymous transactions using Tor.
2014 Stellar XLM Jed McCaleb Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP) [39] C, C++ [40] Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP) [39] Open-source, decentralized global financial network.
2014 Vertcoin VTCDavid Muller [41] Verthash [42] C++ [43] PoW Aims to be ASIC resistant.
2015 Ethereum ETH, Ξ Vitalik Buterin [44] Ethash [45] C++, Go [46] PoW, PoS Supports Turing-complete smart contracts.
2015 Ethereum Classic ETC EtcHash/Thanos [47] PoW An alternative version of Ethereum [48] whose blockchain does not include the DAO hard fork. [49] Supports Turing-complete smart contracts.
2015 Nano XNO, ӾColin LeMahieu Blake2 C++ [ citation needed ] Open Representative Voting [50] Decentralized, feeless, open-source, peer-to-peer cryptocurrency. First to use a Block Lattice structure.
2015 Tether USDTJan Ludovicus van der Velde [51] Omnicore [52] PoW Tether claims to be backed by USD at a 1 to 1 ratio. The company has been unable to produce promised audits. [53]
2016 Firo FIROPoramin Insom [54] Merkle tree Proof [55] C++ [56] PoW The first financial system employing Zero-knowledge proof to protect users' privacy. [54] It conducted the world's first large-scale blockchain election for Thailand Democrat Party in 2018. [57]
2016 Zcash ZEC Zooko Wilcox Equihash C++ [58] PoW The first open, permissionless financial system employing zero-knowledge security.
2017 Bitcoin Cash BCH [59] SHA-256d PoW Hard fork from bitcoin, increased maximum block size from 1MB to 8MB (as of 2018, 32MB)
2017 EOS.IO EOS Dan Larimer WebAssembly, Rust, C, C++ [60] delegated PoS Feeless Smart contract platform for decentralized applications and decentralized autonomous corporations with a block time of 500 ms. [60]
2017 Cardano ADA, ₳ Charles Hoskinson Ouroboros, PoS Algorithm [61] Haskell [62] PoS Proof-of-stake blockchain platform: developed via evidence-based methods and peer-reviewed research. [63] [64] [65]
2017 Tron TRX Justin Sun Java, Solidity [66]
2018 AmbaCoin official cryptocurrency of the Cameroonian separatist entity of Ambazonia
2018 Nervos Network CKBKevin Wang, Daniel Lv, Terry TaiEaglesong Rust, JavaScript, C PoW Multi-layered blockchain smart contract platform [67]
2019 Algorand ALGO Silvio Micali Go [68] PoS Uses a verifiable random function to randomly select groups of users to certify blocks. [69]
2020 Avalanche AVAX Emin Gün Sirer, Kevin Sekniqi, Maofan "Ted" Yin PoS
2020 Shiba Inu SHIBRyoshi PoS
2020 Polkadot DOT Gavin Wood Rust PoS
2020 Solana SOLAnatoly Yakovenko Rust PoS
2021 DeSo DESONader al-Naji (aka diamondhands) [70] Go [71] PoW [72] Also a social media platform, resembling Twitter. [73] [74] Known as BitClout until September 2021. [70]
2021 SafeMoon SAFEMOONSafeMoon LLC Solidity [75] PoW

Inactive currencies

ReleaseCurrencySymbolFounder(s) Hash algorithm Programming language of implementationCryptocurrency blockchain
(PoS, PoW, or other)
Notes
2014 Coinye KOI, COYE Scrypt PoW Used American hip hop artist Kanye West as its mascot, abandoned after he filed a trademark lawsuit.
OneCoin Ruja Ignatova and Stephen GreenwoodA Ponzi scheme promoted as a cryptocurrency.
2017 BitConnect BCCBitConnect was described as an open source, all-in-one bitcoin and crypto community platform but was later discovered to be a Ponzi scheme.
2018 KodakCoin Kodak and WENN DigitalEthash [76] KodakCoin is a "photographer-centric" blockchain cryptocurrency used for payments for licensing photographs.
Petro Venezuelan Government onixCoin [77] C++ [78] Stated by Nicolás Maduro to be backed by Venezuela's reserves of oil. As of August 2018 it does not appear to function as a currency. [79]
PlusToken A ponzi scheme which mainly had investors in China and South Korea. [80]

See also

Notes

  1. Via Masternodes containing 1000 DASH held as collateral for "Proof of Service". Through an automated voting mechanism, one Masternode is selected per block and receives 45% of mining rewards.

Related Research Articles

Proof of work (PoW) is a form of cryptographic proof in which one party proves to others that a certain amount of a specific computational effort has been expended. Verifiers can subsequently confirm this expenditure with minimal effort on their part. The concept was invented by Moni Naor and Cynthia Dwork in 1993 as a way to deter denial-of-service attacks and other service abuses such as spam on a network by requiring some work from a service requester, usually meaning processing time by a computer. The term "proof of work" was first coined and formalized in a 1999 paper by Markus Jakobsson and Ari Juels. The concept was adapted to digital tokens by Hal Finney in 2004 through the idea of "reusable proof of work" using the 160-bit secure hash algorithm 1 (SHA-1).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bitcoin</span> Decentralized digital currency

Bitcoin is the first decentralized cryptocurrency. Nodes in the peer-to-peer bitcoin network verify transactions through cryptography and record them in a public distributed ledger, called a blockchain, without central oversight. Consensus between nodes is achieved using a computationally intensive process based on proof of work, called mining, that requires increasing quantities of electricity and guarantees the security of the bitcoin blockchain.

Namecoin is a cryptocurrency originally forked from bitcoin software. It uses proof-of-work algorithm. Like bitcoin, it is limited to 21 million.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cryptocurrency</span> Digital currency not reliant on a central authority

A cryptocurrency, crypto-currency, or crypto is a digital currency designed to work as a medium of exchange through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it.

Litecoin is a decentralized peer-to-peer cryptocurrency and open-source software project released under the MIT/X11 license. Inspired by Bitcoin, Litecoin was among the earliest altcoins, starting in October 2011. In technical details, the Litecoin main chain shares a slightly modified Bitcoin codebase. The practical effects of those codebase differences are lower transaction fees, faster transaction confirmations, and faster mining difficulty retargeting. Due to its underlying similarities to Bitcoin, Litecoin has historically been referred to as the "silver to Bitcoin's gold." In 2022, Litecoin added optional privacy features via soft fork through the MWEB upgrade.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dogecoin</span> Cryptocurrency

Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency created by software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer, who decided to create a payment system as a joke, making fun of the wild speculation in cryptocurrencies at the time. It is considered both the first "meme coin", and more specifically the first "dog coin". Despite its satirical nature, some consider it a legitimate investment prospect. Dogecoin features the face of the Shiba Inu dog from the "doge" meme as its logo and namesake. It was introduced on December 6, 2013, and quickly developed its own online community, reaching a peak market capitalization of over US$85 billion on May 5, 2021. As of 2021, it is the sleeve sponsor of Watford Football Club.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vitalik Buterin</span> Canadian programmer (born 1994)

Vitaly Dmitrievich Buterin, better known as Vitalik Buterin, is a Canadian computer programmer and co-founder of Ethereum. Buterin became involved with cryptocurrency early in its inception, co-founding Bitcoin Magazine in 2011. In 2014, Buterin deployed the Ethereum blockchain with Gavin Wood, Charles Hoskinson, Anthony Di Iorio, and Joseph Lubin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Counterparty (platform)</span> Cryptocurrency platform

Counterparty is a peer-to-peer financial platform and distributed, open source Internet protocol built on top of the Bitcoin blockchain and network. It was one of the most well-known "Bitcoin 2.0" platforms in 2014, along with Mastercoin, Ethereum, Colored Coins, Ripple and BitShares.

CryptoNote is an application layer protocol designed for use with cryptocurrencies that aims to solve specific problems identified in Bitcoin. Namely:

Monero is a cryptocurrency which uses a blockchain with privacy-enhancing technologies to obfuscate transactions to achieve anonymity and fungibility. Observers cannot decipher addresses trading Monero, transaction amounts, address balances, or transaction histories.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cardano (blockchain platform)</span> Public blockchain platform

Cardano is a public blockchain platform. It is open-source and decentralized, with consensus achieved using proof of stake. It can facilitate peer-to-peer transactions with its internal cryptocurrency, ADA.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bitcoin scalability problem</span> Scaling problem in bitcoin processing

The Bitcoin scalability problem refers to the limited capability of the Bitcoin network to handle large amounts of transaction data on its platform in a short span of time. It is related to the fact that records in the Bitcoin blockchain are limited in size and frequency.

A cryptocurrency wallet is a device, physical medium, program or an online service which stores the public and/or private keys for cryptocurrency transactions. In addition to this basic function of storing the keys, a cryptocurrency wallet more often offers the functionality of encrypting and/or signing information. Signing can for example result in executing a smart contract, a cryptocurrency transaction, identification, or legally signing a 'document'.

Tether is a cryptocurrency stablecoin, launched by the company Tether Limited Inc. in 2014. As of January 2024, Tether's website lists fourteen protocols and blockchains on which Tether has been minted.

A cryptocurrency bubble is a phenomenon where the market increasingly considers the going price of cryptocurrency assets to be inflated against their hypothetical value. The history of cryptocurrency has been marked by several speculative bubbles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Polkadot (cryptocurrency)</span> Cryptocurrency

Polkadot is a blockchain platform and cryptocurrency. The native cryptocurrency for the Polkadot blockchain is the DOT. It is designed to allow blockchains to exchange messages and perform transactions with each other without a trusted third-party. This allows for cross-chain transfers of data or assets, between different blockchains, and for decentralized applications (DApps) to be built using the Polkadot Network.

A stablecoin is a type of cryptocurrency where the value of the digital asset is supposed to be pegged to a reference asset, which is either fiat money, exchange-traded commodities, or another cryptocurrency.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ouroboros (protocol)</span> Blockchain protocol

Ouroboros is a family of proof-of-stake consensus protocols used in the Cardano and Polkadot blockchains. It can run both permissionless and permissioned blockchains.

Aggelos Kiayias FRSE is a Greek cryptographer and computer scientist, currently a professor at the University of Edinburgh and the Chief Science Officer at Input Output Global, the company behind Cardano.

The general notion of cryptocurrencies in Europe denotes the processes of legislative regulation, distribution, circulation, and storage of cryptocurrencies in Europe. In April 2023, the EU Parliament passed the Markets in Crypto Act (MiCA) unified legal framework for crypto-assets within the European Union.

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