Before we outline these other cryptocurrencies from Bitcoin, we need to understand what exactly cryptocurrencies are? A cryptocurrency is just virtual money stored in the form of coins. They are medium of storing or saving money. However, coins rise and fall in value momentarily, so if you want to make maximum profit from crypto, buy them when their value is low and sell when it’s high. Bitcoin is the most popular cryptocurrency in the market. Still, other cryptocurrencies are better than bitcoin, currencies that could even beat Bitcoin in value in the future, and naturally, you can either buy or mine a cryptocurrency. Below are a few cryptocurrencies you can invest in other than bitcoin.
Ethereum(ETH):
Ethereum is currently the fastest growing cryptocurrency. ETH was founded in 2015 by Russian Canadian programmer, Vitalik Buterin, who is also a co-founder of the Bitcoin magazine. In March 2020, Ethereum was valued at 133.76 US dollars. Now, it’s worth approximately 363 US dollars. That’s close to a 200% increment in value in just four months!! If ETH continues at this rate, it might hit 1000 US dollars by the beginning of 2021. In 2014, ETH launched a pre-sale, which had a massive response from people worldwide. As of January 2020, ETH had a market cap of 15.6 billion US dollars, and currently, it has reached 42.65 billion dollars.
Ripple(XRP):
Ripple is another valued cryptocurrency in the market. Co-founded by Chris Larsen and Jed McCaleb, Ripple was launched and fully operational in 2012. It gives allows banks to make cross-border payments at lower costs, and unlike other cryptocurrencies, Ripple doesn’t require mining. In other words, it doesn’t use the computer’s CPU or GPU power as much as other cryptocurrencies. Ripple currently has a market cap of approximately 29 billion dollars, close to half the market cap of Ethereum.
Litecoin(LTC):
LTC is also another variant of cryptocurrency you can invest in, and as expected, it’s not as expensive as Bitcoin. Litecoin was founded by computer scientist and current managing director of the Litecoin Foundation, Charlie Lee. Launched two years right after Bitcoin, (2011), Litecoin was perceived to be a “Bitcoin second class,” in other words, it was seen as a younger sibling to Bitcoin. However, Litecoin hasn’t particularly had a huge increment in value over the years, with an all-time high of 360.66 dollars for 1 LTC and a market cap of 3.78billion dollars. Compared with its superiors, LTC might not look like a big investment, but you never can tell how high it could get to in the future. It still holds the record of the 6th largest cryptocurrency in the world, so before you ignore this crypto, think about it.
Tether (USDT):
Tether is also a valid form of digital money. Although its value is nowhere close to the first three. 1 USDT is valued between 0.99 to 1 dollar, but you’ll be shocked as it’s the market cap is a whopping 6.5 billion dollars. That’s impressive for a cryptocurrency that small in value. USDT was founded by Vatomic co-founder, Craig Sellars and was launched in July 2014.
These four different cryptos are pretty much the most popular after Bitcoin. So if you’re looking to invest in crypto and don’t want to start with Bitcoin, you can try out these other guys.
