10 years after the launch of the first cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, there are thousands of cryptocoins in the market today, each one with a particular function. But which of them are called to truly change the world?
The majority of cryptos now operate on the laid the foundations of Bitcoin project . It was conceived in an attempt to disrrupt the status quo and offer a workable alternative to the mainstream financial systems.
Bitcoin white paper advanced “a purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution”.
Bitcoin and other advanced cryptos projects are solving numerous problems stated in the white paper, and therefore convincing many experts that this form of digital currency is the future of money.
Here I shortlist five of the most outstanding crypto projects that shows a real-life potential. Ethereum, Stellar, EOS , IOTA, and Dash.
ETHEREUM
Since the Ethereum network launch back in July 2015, its currency – or ether (ETH) – has been massively popular for investors. It´s success is due te of its faster transaction speed, compared to Bitcoin, and quick widespread adoption. Ethereum basicaly is a open-source, decentralised, public-distributed computing platform that holds smart contracts: which are applications that performe exactly as programmed without any possibility of censorship, downtime, third-party interference or fraud. It didnt take long for the project to be established as the second-biggest crypto in terms of market capitalisation. Ethereum is co-founded by a Russian-Canadian programmer by the name of Vitalik Buterin, a popular character in the crypto sphere.
DASH (DASH)
Dash is a portmanteau of “digital” and “cash” and is again an open source peer-to-peer cryptocurrency which offers the same just the same performance as bitcoin, but has advanced features such as private transactions, instant transactions and ‘Decentralised Governance Blockchain Budget’ (DGBB). its impressive transaction speed, which compares very favourably against bitcoin, and other cryptos made it a favorite amongst cryptoinvestors.
Dash designed by Evan Duffield –first called XCoin and then Darkcoin for its anonymity and pace. Dash’s processing time made it an immediate success in the crypto community.
Dash’s platform has been likened to PayPal, it offers instant transactions (InstantSend), and private transactions (PrivateSend).
STELLAR (XLM)
Stellar network is an open-source blockchain which promotes cross-border transactions with the same level of access for all users involved. It kicked off in 2014, at first Stellar was a spin-off from Ripple Labs. Stellar Network motivation in themarket is to push currencies to the background,digital or fiat, enabling users access to a cheaper, more efficient way and quicker cross-border transactions.
Initially there are 100 billion Lumens (the trading coin) created though the supply is infinite as lumens have an annual growth of 1%. The transaction time is minimal, between 2-5 seconds to complete. Not only is the network is fast, also the cost of a transaction is only .0001 XLM.
IOTA (IOTA)
IOTA project aims to be the distributed ledger for the rising Internet of Things (IoT). Its growing legion of supporters are sure that as a cryptocurrency IOTA, using unique Tangle computing architecture, has many advantages upon blockchain-based cryptos. Namely: it is modular; decentralised; infinitely scalable; and has zero transaction fees.
David Sønstebø, IOTA founder believes he has designed a solution that will be the backbone of the ever increasing IoT world. He believes that IOTA (an acronym of Internet of Things Application ) an open-source distributed ledger protocol that stretches “beyond blockchain” – is developed to allow the “paradigm shift” by establishing a “de facto standardised ‘ledger of everything’”.
The IOTA ledger will allow data exchange between sensor-equipped devices amongst themselves automatically. The IOTA cryptocurrency is just one aspect of the overall IOTA platform, and it has been designed to become the universal method of payment for the future machine-to-machine transactions on the IOTA network.
EOS (EOS)
Can EOS.IO be the so called“Ethereum killer” that its numerous avid supporters predict it will be? Well the signs seam to be certainly promising. The white paper of this Hong Kong-based project was only revealed in 2017, and it did take no long for EOS (EOS) – the cryptocurrency token– to break into the top-10 cryptos in terms of market cap.
The EOS.IO platform was developed by Dan Lanister and recently launched in late January 2018 by block.one its aim is the promotion of DApps and smart contracts, in particular. Surprisingly, block.one raised over $4 billion in its Initial Coin Offering (ICO) – an absolute record. With such a financial muscle means R+D can carry on a large scale for decades.