Top 10 Cryptocurrencies of 2017
2017 has undoubtedly been the most phenomenal year for crypto enthusiasts and investors. The overall market jumped from $17 billion on Jan. 1 2017 to a peak of $628 billion which turns out to be a whopping 3700% growth in one year. This was the year when the cryptocurrencies came to the mainstream financial market as a lot of investors rushed to the exchanges to grab their share of the pie.
While throughout the year there was a huge euphoria surrounding Bitcoin, a few altcoins have performed exceptionally well in the past two months and contributed significantly to the crypto markets. So as we are bidding the final adieu to 2017, let us take a quick look at the top 10 cryptocurrencies of the year.
#1 Bitcoin (BTC)
Bitcoin is the reason why cryptocurrencies became famous and yes even today it stands as the most popular cryptocurrency of the year. Bitcoin has been in news throughout the year and has managed to garner the attention of retail as well as institutional investors alike. Bitcoin’s immensely growing popularity has turned the tables in the favor of the cryptocurrency which has given stunning returns in spite of all the criticism coming from around the globe.
Starting the year of 2017 at $970, Bitcoin climbed to as high as $20,000. Bitcoin has been in a correction mode for past two weeks and is currently trading sub $13,000 level. However, it has a huge $216 billion market cap contributing over 30% to the overall market. With many institutional players jumping into dealing with Bitcoin, there are a lot of Bitcoin-related investment products scheduled to be launched in 2018.
#2 Ethereum (ETH)
Ethereum or Ether tokens is one of the most preferred choices of crypto enthusiasts, within altcoins. Some investors prefer Ethereum above Bitcoin as the Ethereum blockchain, in addition to trading Ether tokens also allows for developing several decentralized applications on its platforms. Majority of the ICOs launched in 2017 have been built on the Ethereum blockchain network.
Starting the year at merely sub $8 levels, Ethereum has given exceptional returns over 8800% on year-to-date basis. Currently, Ethereum grabs the number 3 spot in terms of market cap contribution with $67 billion market cap as on date. A lot of development relating to Ethereum scalability concerns and smart contracts is scheduled in 2018.
#3 Ripple (XRP)
This San-Francisco-based startup has received a lot of limelight this year. Ripple Technology is working with several banks and financial institutions to implement blockchain based solutions by replacing existing system to make instant global transfer of funds possible at a reduced cost.
The startup claims that its technology is more robust in comparison to its peers like Bitcoin, Ethereum and others with faster speed of fund transfers at reduced cost. Ripple started the year at the price of just 0.64 cents and is currently trading at $1.77.
Many banks have announced support to Ripple’s technology and have also started testing it practically within their system. This has made Ripple surge exceptionally, and in just past two weeks, this cryptocurrency was seen on a wild ride. As more banks join the Ripple platform, 2018 can provide a further boost to this altcoin.
#4 Litecoin (LTC)
Litecoin has proved to be another dark horse in the crypto market. Often a silent performer, Litecoin has given huge returns to its investors this year. Many analysts say that Litecoin as a major future competitor to Bitcoin as the cryptocurrency is backed by its solid blockchain technology which has more scalability provision in comparison to Bitcoin’s current status. Litecoin’s blockchain takes only 2.5 minutes to process a block in comparison to Bitcoin which takes 10 minutes.
Litecoin started the year at sub $4 levels and currently trading at $210 which is 8200% plus returns on year-to-date basis. Its all-time high is $322 as per our data.
#5 Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
Bitcoin Cash was created in August 2017 as the result of first hard fork in the Bitcoin blockchain. The hard fork was made due to difference in opinion between Bitcoin’s developer and miner’s communities. Bitcoin Cash has a larger block size of 8MB against Bitcoin’s 1MB which means that it can process more number of transactions at one time.
Thus many supporters of Bitcoin Cash call it as the “real Bitcoin”. At the time of fork, Bitcoin Cash was trading at around $290 and is currently trading at $2280.
#6 Monero (XMR)
Created in 2014, Monero is an open-source privacy oriented cryptocurrency that uses stealth addresses and ring signature in order to protect user identity on its platform. This means that the transaction history can be kept private.
Monero started the year at sub $14 levels and is currently trading at $311 which turns out to be over 2200% returns in just one year. It existing market cap is $4.93 billion.
#7 Dash (DASH)
Similar to Ethereum, Dash is a development platform and promotes itself as a peer-to-peer decentralized electronic cash. Dash has been developed on Bitcoin’s core code and hosts some additional features of privacy and quick transactions and also negligible fees in comparison to Bitcoin.
Dash which started the year around the price of $12, is currently trading at $960 levels which is a whopping 8000% return on year-to-date basis. Dash has a $7.5 billion market cap.
#8 ZCash (ZEC)
ZCash is a cryptocurrency based on blockchain platform that is developed using zero-knowledge proof constructions known as the zk-SNARKs. zk-SNARKs allows any two users to exchange their information without any need of revealing their identities. This means that ZCash blockchain will only have information regarding the transaction and not who was involved in the process.
Cash started the year at a price of $46 and is currently trading at $460, a 900% rise on year-to-date basis. Its current market cap is above $1 billion.
#9 IOTA (IOT)
IOTA is backed by Tangle which is a blockless distributed ledger which is very lightweight and scalable and also allows to transfer funds without any fees. Tangle is similar to blockchain but with some differences. Unlike blockchain, the consensus is an integrated part of the system and not decoupled thereby making a decentralized peer-to-peer network.
IOTA started the year at $0.43 and is currently trading at $3.90 with a market cap above $9 billion.
#10 Neo (NEO)
This is a non-profit community-based blockchain project which uses digital identity and blockchain technology in order to digitize assets and automate its management using smart contracts.
Neo started the year at $0.14 and is currently trading at around $70 with a market cap of $3 billion.
Conclusion
This year has been one of the finest years for cryptocurrencies as they managed to get a solid foothold in the global economic structure. However, for the digital currencies to be used a daily currency a lot still needs to be done on the development front which we can expect to happen in 2018 and in further years to come.