Created in January 2009, Bitcoin is the first ever decentralized digital currency. It is a non-government issued (decentralized) currency, the idea for which came from an anonymous entity with the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto.
Bitcoin uses cryptography to keep it secure (as opposed to being backed by banks or governments) and is a blockchain network. There are no physical bitcoins, only ledgers of balances maintained for transparency (with each record being encrypted). All bitcoin transactions are verified by a computing process known as “mining”. Many additional cryptocurrencies were created following Bitcoin.
The purpose of Bitcoin currency was to create an alternative to the common currencies printed by banks. The vision was for online payments to be sent from one entity to another, without going through a financial institution.
Bitcoin Cash is a cryptocurrency created in 2017 as an offshoot from Bitcoin. Bitcoin Cash allows for larger block sizes than Bitcoin, meaning it allows more transactions per block.In 2018, Bitcoin Cash further split into Bitcoin Cash ABC and Bitcoin Cash SV (Satoshi Vision).
Bitcoin Cash promises low fees and a stable payment system, with the world’s most secure blockchain technology. It is available to all and boasts of unrestricted growth, decentralized development and permissionless innovation.
In 2016, Canadian Banks began experimenting with the idea of a digital fiat currency called CAD-COIN. Today, it is issued by a regulated Money Services Business, and backed by fully reserved assets. It is redeemable on a 1:1 basis for Canadian Dollars.
Like USDT, it is also classified as a stable coin due to it’s consistent one-to-one ratio. CADC tokens are available as an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum network. It is Canada’s premier digital dollar stable coin.
Doge Coin was created as a “joke” cryptocurrency by two software engineers. It was meant to poke fun at the wild speculations in cryptocurrencies in 2013. It is considered to be the first ever “meme coin”.
Like Bitcoin and Litecoin, Dogecoin is an open-source cryptocurrency, with it’s blockchain technology derived from Litecoin. Dogecoin supporters use the coin as a tipping currency for social media content.
Unlike Bitcoin, which is simply meant to be a currency, Ethereum is a platform on which developers can build their own blockchain-based programs. Many social networks, advertising systems, payment services and stock exchanges are built on Ethereum. Ether is the cryptocurrency awarded to miners using the Ethereum protocols, created by Vitalk Buterin in 2013.
Ether is the cryptocurrency used to pay to run programs on the Ethereum platform. It is the only currency accepted for payment of transaction fees. Its blockchain technology is distributed across many different systems, making it highly secure.
Litecoin is an early spinoff of Bitcoin, created in 2011 by former Google engineer, Charlie Lee. It is nearly identical to Bitcoin. It is based on an open-source global payment network and is decentralized. It differs from Bitcoin in that it has a faster block generation rate because it uses an easier algorithm than Bitcoin.
It was first introduced as the “lite version of Bitcoin”, thus is foundational the same as Bitcoin, with a few feature tweaks to increase efficiency.
Ripple is both a cryptocurrency and digital payment network for financial institutions, created in 2012. Similar to the SWIFT system for international money and security transfers, Ripple is mainly a payment settlement asset exchange and remittance system.
The token used as cryptocurrency in this system is called XRP. XRP is unique in that it serves as an intermediate mechanism of exchange between two currencies or networks – it is a temporary denomination used during the transaction.
As a blockchain-based token, Ripple uses consensus mining, meaning a group of bank-owned servers confirm transactions rather than the traditional blockchain mining. This makes Ripple more energy efficient, time efficient and cost efficient than Bitcoin.
As an alternative to Dogecoin, Shiba Inu was created in 2020 (two years after the creation of Dogecoin). It is a meme coin, based on the Ethereum network. It features the Shiba Inn hunting dog as its mascot.
Its founder attributes its origins to “an experiment in decentralized spontaneous community building.” Its founding was an attempt at building a cryptocurrency project that was 100% run by the community, with no preassembled team or founding community. It was built simply on the foundation of a community that loves Shiva Inu dogs.
SOL is the cryptocurrency of the Solana network. Solana is an open-source project, built on a blockchain platform that hosts decentralized, scalable applications. Solana is exponentially faster than, and has lower transaction fees than rivals such as Ethereum.
Founded in 2017, SOL is considered a native cryptocurrency that uses a new technology called Proof of History blockchain. This technology makes Solana much more efficient and environmentally friendly than Ethereum (which is built on Proof of Work blockchain).
USDT (also called Tether) is a cryptocurrency that is hosted on the Ethereal and Bitcoin blockchains, among others. Its tokens are issued by Tether Limited, which is controlled by the owners of Bitfinex.
USDT is a stablecoin, which means that by design it will always be worth $1.00USD. It maintains $1.00USD in reserves for each USDT issued.
UNI is the cryptocurrency used by Uniswap, an automatic liquidity provider that is designed to make is easier to exchange Ethereum tokens. In essence, Uniswap allows users to trade crypto without an intermediary.
Founded in 2018, Uniswap is the largest decentralized exchange on the Ethereum blockchain, and has inspired other decentralized exchanges such as Curve and SushiSwap.