Many cryptocoins are tiny: just 110 have a market capitalisation exceeding $100m. Some are fads; others are central to the budding field of decentralised finance
The movement is far from its destination. Now in its 13th year, bitcoin has become an investment sensation. But, Mr Bukele’s enthusiasm aside, it remains a poor and hardly used medium of exchange. A host of smaller cryptocurrencies, meanwhile, are rushing in. Fully 10,000 are listed on CoinMarketCap, a website, nearly twice as many as a year ago. Bitcoin accounts for 40% of the total value of all cryptocurrencies today, compared with 70% in January.
That still leaves 779 coins. Many are tiny: just 110 have a market capitalisation exceeding $100m. Some are fads and will prove fleeting. The more serious contenders fall into two categories: the “bitcoin clones” seek to fix the cryptocurrency’s flaws as a means of payment; and the “ether clones” aim to perform new functions.
Other clones try to fix bitcoin’s privacy problems. Since all bitcoin transactions are recorded on its blockchain, which is public, they leave a trail. On June 7th American officials said they had recovered $2.3m-worth of a ransom paid in bitcoin to the hackers whoin May, after identifying the virtual wallet they had used. Some coins try to provide greater anonymity by using masking tech.
More radical alternatives, such as Cardano and Tron, have switched to “proof of stake”, under which validators are rewarded in proportion to the number of coins they lock into an escrow wallet while transactions are verified. The process involves less hardware and fewer energy costs.
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