The BuyT Desk
Bitcoin is the most talked-about cryptocurrency at this moment. At the time of writing this piece, the price of 1 bitcoin is hovering at 46,990 USD* which translates to roughly around Rs 35 Lakh*. The price surge of bitcoin has given a return of 205% to its investors so far. Bitcoin is the oldest and most circulated virtual currency with a market cap of 835 billion dollars.
But bitcoin is not alone, there are several more virtual currencies that are drawing attention. These currencies work on peer to peer technology and are not regulated by any central bank. These upcoming cryptocurrencies are also called Altcoins which means alternative coins as they are turning out to be an alternative to bitcoins. Let’s look at some of the popular Altcoins –
Dogecoin
Present Price – Rs 3.27*
After announcing a $ 1.5 billion investment in bitcoin, industrialist Elon Musk bought another digital currency Dogecoin. After Elon Musk’s announcement on Twitter, that ‘Dogecoin is people’s crypto’ the price of Dogecoin increased by 16% in one day. It was launched in 2013 by IBM software engineer Billy Markus and Adobe engineer Jackson Palmer. Instead of choosing a fancy name, they named the currency after a Japanese dog Sheeba Inu. It is a decentralized peer-to-peer digital currency, so that money can be sent online easily. This is an internet currency. There are many ways to buy Dogecoin. You can buy them, trade them. Their website states “You can use DogeCoin by participating in our community”. You can also buy Dogecoin from Faucet. It is a website which provides you with a small number of Dogecoin so that you can understand it. Mining is only for advanced users, as it requires a lot of technical knowledge.
Litecoin
Price – Rs 12,101*
Litecoin was launch in 2011 and is known to be a lighter version of bitcoin and are called the silver to bitcoin gold. Litecoin is based on the same code as bitcoin. Former Google and Coinbase engineer Charlie Lee is the founder of Litecoin. He added more speed to the code and made Litecoin a bit faster than Bitcoin. It uses a scrypt based network. The cost of Litecoin is lower than bitcoin. Litecoin is the sixth largest cryptocurrency in the world.
Ethereum
Price- Rs 99,619*
Ethereum is the technology platform that facilitates cryptocurrency transaction with a small fee. Their own currency is in the form of a token which is called ETH but they allow transaction of other cryptocurrencies as well. The official website of Ethereunm states- “Ethereum is a technology that is home to digital money, global payments and applications”. The Ethereum platform builds a decentralized platform for the financial transaction which can be accessed by anyone around the globe. Ether was launched in 2015.
XRP Ripple
Price- Rs 32.042*
Ripple was launched in 2012 and it works as an open-source platform for payment and it supports various cryptocurrencies. Their own currency is called XRP. This currency is used as a cross border settlement. Many banks have partnerships with it so that they can improve their cross border payments. Most of the cryptocurrency is based on bitcoin coding. But in the case of Ripple a fresh code was written right from the scratch. Unlike other cryptocurrencies, Ripple cannot be mined.
Recently the US Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a lawsuit against them. They are the world’s third-largest cryptocurrency platform. This lawsuit has been registered for the illegal sale of unregistered securities.
*The price of cryptocurrency varies on a daily basis. The price attributed is the value of the currency on the day this piece was written. It may change.
