Altcoins
10 Best Altcoins of May 2024 – Forbes Consultant
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The definition of an altcoin has evolved since its inception cryptocurrency when only a handful of crypto assets existed. Then anything else bitcoin (BTC) was considered an altcoin.
Today the world of cryptocurrencies is much broader. There are a wide variety of coins and tokens with use cases that go far beyond a medium of exchange, meaning they are not necessarily competitors to bitcoin.
However, for lack of a better definition, the basic definition of altcoin is any crypto asset other than bitcoin.
Here’s a look at the top 10 altcoins by market cap, excluding stablecoins. We have excluded stablecoins as they are designed to maintain a stable price and are not generally considered a speculative investment.
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1. Ethereum (ETH)
- Market capitalization: $389.2 billion
Of the $2.5 trillion that represents the total market capitalization of the more than 26,000 crypto assets available today, more than $389 billion is held in Ethereumthe largest altcoin on the market.
Unlike bitcoin, characterized as a “decentralized currency,” think of Ethereum as a distributed computing network where users can use the blockchain to run decentralized applications, or dApps, and host smart contracts.
“BTC is a store of value while ETH is a decentralized playground where builders can determine the future of blockchain technology innovations,” says Walker Holmes, vice president of metaverse platform MetaTope.
Critics of Ethereum point to the high fees for conducting transactions. But with thousands of apps and other altcoins powered by its blockchain, Ethereum is here to stay.
2. BNB (BNB)
- Market capitalization: $82.5 billion
BNB is a utility token that can be used to pay trading fees and get discounted trades on Binance exchange. You can also use BNB outside of Binance cryptocurrency exchange for payment processing, such as booking travel arrangements.
Critics say that BNB is not decentralized like other altcoins. However, the value of the coin itself has also helped fuel investor interest in the exchange since BNB began gaining popularity in 2021.
3. Solana (G)
- Market capitalization: $79.3 billion
Developed to help power decentralized finance and apps, as well as smart contracts, Solana works on a unique hybrid proof-of-stake and proof-of-history mechanism to process transactions quickly and securely.
Solana is one of the fastest blockchains around. However, it has also faced criticism for being too centralized with very few validation nodes compared to Ethereum, says Whitney Setiawan, research analyst at digital asset exchange Bitrue.
Holmes says Solana is a highly scalable blockchain solution with very low fees but has experienced outages and downtime.
4. XRP (XRP)
- Market capitalization: $32.0 billion
XRP can be used to facilitate exchanges of different types of currencies with the digital technology and payment processing company Ripple Labs. Founded in 2012, Ripple Labs is practically a dinosaur in the fast-paced world of cryptocurrencies. However, while many other coins have come and gone over the past decade, Ripple Labs and its currency, XRP, have maintained their celebrated status throughout the cryptosphere.
In fact, XRP’s XRP Ledger offered the first decentralized exchange, or DEX, with a protocol that allows for custom tokenization. This open-source technology is also known to be more eco-friendly than other competing cryptocurrencies, which may contribute to its overall popularity.
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4. Dogecoin (DOGE)
- Market capitalization: $26.3 billion
Dogecoin is the original memetic currencyfamously started as a joke in 2013. However, thanks to a dedicated community and creative memes, it has quickly evolved into a major cryptocurrency.
Richard Gardner, CEO of financial software provider Modulus Global, highlights this DOGE it has had some big supporters but remains riskier than bitcoin.
“Altcoins like DOGE can fluctuate to extreme lows and highs depending on market volatility as they have yet to demonstrate real-world use cases,” says Garry Krugljakow, founder of the 0VIX protocol, a decentralized app that enables lending and cryptocurrency lending.
5. Cardan (ADA)
- Market capitalization: $20.7 billion
Cardano was one of the first to adopt the betting test consensus mechanism, which speeds up transaction times by removing the competitive and energy-intensive problem-solving dimension of platforms like bitcoin.
“Cardano is a thought leader in the industry who pioneered proof-of-stake consensus mechanisms,” says Holmes. “ADA is a blockchain solution that promises low fees with higher levels of security than many of its counterparts.”
But Daniel Logvin, CEO of blockchain network provider and consultancy LedgerByte, says the altcoin has over-promised and has yet to deliver.
6. Avalanche (AVAX)
- Market capitalization: $17.7 billion
Developed as a layer one blockchain for dApps and other networks, Avalanche has become one of the main rivals of the global altcoin, Ethereum. In particular, the AVAX network is trying to oust Ethereum as the blockchain of choice for smart contracts. The way the new blockchain hopes to achieve this is through higher transaction output without affecting scalability.
Like Ethereum, Avalanche is attempting to solve Vitalek Buterin’s famous blockchain trilemma of security, scalability, and decentralization. The blockchain trilemma states that developers must sacrifice at least one of these three components to enable maximum productivity with the other two. Avalanche attempts to solve the trilemma by using three interoperable blockchains as part of its development.
7. Toncoin (TON)
- Market capitalization: $17.2 billion
Developed in 2018 by Telegram, the encrypted messaging system, Toncoin is a Layer-1 blockchain whose name originally stood for “Telegram Open Network” but has since been changed to simply “The Open Network.”
TON was originally released so that in-application clients could easily settle transactions within the Telegram app. However, it has become a community-driven blockchain, whose proof-of-stake network maintains extremely fast processing and validation times.
8. Shiba Inu (SHIB)
- Market capitalization: $15.5 billion
Shiba Inu, an Ethereum-based meme coin, was developed in 2020. SHIB was created by “Ryoshi,” an anonymous developer who claimed that the goal of the coin was to find out whether an organization could function without any central leadership. With cryptocurrency majors like Elon Musk and Vitalek Buterin quickly throwing their weight behind him, Shiba Inu seems to prove that Ryoshi’s hope is possible.
In October 2021, Shiba Inu briefly supplanted Dogecoin as the world’s most valuable meme coin by market capitalization. Additionally, some niche retailers have started accepting the coin as payment following its success among cryptocurrency investors. But don’t start trying to pay for your dinner with SHIB just yet. An organized social media effort by the Shiba Inu community to convince McDonald’s to accept the coin as a form of payment ultimately failed.
9. Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
- Market capitalization: $12.4 billion
This peer-to-peer electronic cash system aims to become a decentralized, permissionless global payment system. Bitcoin Cash is an alternative to the original bitcoin payment system, the oldest cryptocurrency in the world.
Created by a hard fork in the Bitcoin blockchain, Bitcoin Cash was launched in 2017, eight years after the original Bitcoin blockchain went online.
10. Polka dot (DOT)
- Market capitalization: $12.2 billion
This altcoin powers the Polkadot ecosystem, where developers can build blockchains for specific purposes as spokes that connect to the main Polkadot blockchain hub, says Max Thake, co-founder of peaq, a blockchain network built on Polka dot. DOT is the native token for Polkadot.
“(There is) sustained demand for DOT from projects aiming to build on Polkadot,” he says.
This altcoin has better shared security and is a leader in development activity and many projects, says James Wo, CEO of blockchain and cryptocurrency investment firm Digital Finance Group. But the project’s progress has been slow and it lacks stellar applications to help boost its ecosystem, he says.