Top 15 Most Important Cryptocurrencies 2024

A CRYPTOCURRENCY (or crypto currency) is a digital asset designed to work as a medium of exchange using cryptography to secure the transactions, to control the creation of additional units, and to verify the transfer of assets. Cryptocurrencies are classified as a subset of digital currencies and are also classified as a subset of alternative currencies and virtual currencies.

Bitcoin, created in 2009, was the first decentralized cryptocurrency. Since then, numerous cryptocurrencies have been created. These are frequently called altcoins, as a blend of bitcoin alternative. Bitcoin and its derivatives use decentralized control as opposed to centralized electronic money/centralized banking systems. The decentralized control is related to the use of bitcoin's blockchain transaction database in the role of a distributed ledger.

BITCOIN is a worldwide cryptocurrency and digital payment system called the first decentralized digital currency, as the system works without a central repository or single administrator. It was invented by an unknown person or group of people under the name Satoshi Nakamoto and released as open-source software in 2009. The system is peer-to-peer, and transactions take place between users directly, without an intermediary. These transactions are verified by network nodes and recorded in a public distributed ledger called a blockchain.

Bitcoins are created as a reward for a process known as mining. They can be exchanged for other currencies, products, and services. As of February 2015, over 100,000 merchants and vendors accepted bitcoin as payment. Bitcoin can also be held as an investment. According to research produced by Cambridge University in 2017, there are 2.9 to 5.8 million unique users using a cryptocurrency wallet, most of them using bitcoin.

A BLOCKCHAIN – originally block chain – is a continuously growing list of records, called blocks, which are linked and secured using cryptography. Each block typically contains a hash pointer as a link to a previous block, a timestamp and transaction data. By design, blockchains are inherently resistant to modification of the data. A blockchain can serve as "an open, distributed ledger that can record transactions between two parties efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way." For use as a distributed ledger, a blockchain is typically managed by a peer-to-peer network collectively adhering to a protocol for validating new blocks. Once recorded, the data in any given block cannot be altered retroactively without the alteration of all subsequent blocks, which requires collusion of the network majority.

A HARD FORK is a change of rules that allows creating new blocks not considered valid by the older software.

CRYPTOCURRENCY MARKET CAPITALIZATIONS | CoinMarketCap is a website for tracking capitalization of various cryptocurrencies.

Top 15 Most Important Cryptocurrencies 2024

• $68,789 - The Big Number - "Bitcoin has not yet reached its previous record high - $68,789.63 - but investors are watching as it gets tantalizingly close. On Friday morning, its price hovered around $62,000."
• $82,000: Bitcoin price tops $82,000 for first time amid ‘Trump pump’ - "Traders hope president-elect will favour cryptocurrencies when he returns to the White House."
• Binance - since 2017. "At Binance, we believe that everyone should have the freedom to earn, hold, spend, share and give their money - no matter who you are or where you come from. Today, Binance is the world’s leading blockchain ecosystem, with a product suite that includes the largest digital asset exchange. Our mission is to be the infrastructure provider for crypto in tomorrow’s world. Our platform is trusted by millions worldwide, and features an unmatched portfolio of financial product offerings."
• Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System - "In 2008, a person using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto published a white paper explaining the basics of Bitcoin."
• bitcoin is surging again - "Bitcoin is rocketing higher, topping $35,000 for the first time since May 2022. It’s up 20% over the past five days." Updated 10:50 PM EDT, Tue October 24, 2023.
• Bitcoin stages a $1 trillion comeback - "Following bitcoin's gains in 2023, investors have returned in droves in recent weeks, pushing the asset's market capitalization above $1 trillion for the first time since its 2021 heyday, based on data from CoinMarketCap. In contrast to traditional currencies, the supply of bitcoin is limited and is expected to peak in 2140, according to the price-tracking website for cryptocurrencies."
• Bitcoin surges to a new record high as mainstream money flows into crypto - "Bitcoin, the world's first and by-far largest digital currency, was trading at $68,791, topping the previous record of $68,789 reached on November 10, 2021."
• Coinbase - since 2012. "The future of money is here. We're the most trusted place for people and businesses to buy, sell, and manage crypto." Digital currency exchange headquartered in San Francisco, California, United States. They broker exchanges of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Litecoin, Tezos, and many other cryptocurrencies, with fiat currencies in approximately 32 countries, and bitcoin transactions and storage in 190 countries worldwide. It is currently the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States by trading volume.
• ‘Crypto Punks’ Behind Trump’s Murky New Business Venture - "The serial entrepreneurs behind Donald J. Trump’s new cryptocurrency project have left a trail of lawsuits, unpaid debt and tax liens. Mr. Herro and Mr. Folkman are the forces behind World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency venture that Mr. Trump and his three sons announced on a livestream last month. The company’s promotional materials, reviewed by The New York Times, called 18-year-old Barron Trump a crypto 'visionary.'"
• Ethereum just completed The Merge - "Here’s how much energy it’s saving. ‘A step into a more sustainable future for cryptocurrencies.’"
• How does ethereum’s ‘merge’ make the cryptocurrency greener? - "The second biggest blockchain has changed the way it validates transactions on its decentralised ledger."
• How To Get Rich In Crypto: Four Tether Executives Are Now Billionaires - "Members of the secretive management team behind the $83 billion Tether stablecoin have literally minted their own fortunes."
• ‘I am not Satoshi Nakamoto’: Subject of HBO documentary denies he invented bitcoin - "The identity of bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto has long been one of the biggest mysteries of the internet age. A new HBO documentary, 'Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery,' claims to have an answer."
• Magacoin: pro-Trump cryptocurrency attracts over 1,000 people to sign up - "Magacoin bills itself as the ‘digital currency for the MAGA community’ but data from the site shows most of the cryptocurrency is allocated to its self-style creator."
• Man Who Accidentally Threw Hard Drive Containing 8,000 Bitcoins Worth Half A Billion Dollars In Landfill Sues Local City Council For Not Excavating The Site - "James Howells, etched in the history books for accidentally discarding Bitcoin, which is worth more than half a billion dollars today, took a major step in retrieving them."
• Missing Cryptoqueen’s murky links to Bulgarian underworld - "Ruja Ignatova, a Bulgarian woman wanted by the FBI after scamming investors out of $4.5bn through her fake cryptocurrency, before vanishing into thin air. Close ties to a suspected Bulgarian organised crime boss and allegations she was brutally murdered. Did Ms Ignatova enjoy the stolen billions or was she killed by the very people paid to protect her? Oxford University graduate Ruja Ignatova was born in Bulgaria and raised in Germany, pursuing a successful career in finance before launching the cryptocurrency OneCoin in 2014."
• Peter Todd Was ‘Unmasked’ as Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto. Now He’s in Hiding - "Peter Todd has gone underground after an HBO documentary named him as the creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, whose real identity has long remained a mystery."
• This could make bitcoin bigger than ever - "After plunging this spring, bitcoin is now trading above $60,000 - not far off the all-time high of more than $64,800 achieved in April. It's jumped more than 40% so far this month. Driving the gains: Investors are excited about the anticipated launch of the first bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund. The ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF will go live on Tuesday."
• Today's Cryptocurrency Prices by Market Cap - CoinMarketCap.
• We asked ChatGPT what will be the Bitcoin price in 2024 - "This price range suggests a potential upside of 98%-133% from BTC's current price. ChatGPT's Bitcoin price prediction for 2024. Source: ChatGPT."
• What is bitcoin halving & will it affect the price? - "Process has coincided with a rise in price in the past and is due to take place again on Saturday."
• WHO OWNS THE MOST BITCOIN 2024 - "Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, is presumed to be the largest holder of the currency, in possession of 1.1 million BTC (>$50 billion)."



• BITCOIN | BTC - since 2009. "The Internet of Money." ("A cryptocurrency for the masses.") Bitcoin is different than any currency you’ve used before, so it's very important to understand some key points. Unlike government issued money that can be inflated at will, the supply of Bitcoin is mathematically limited to twenty one million bitcoins and that can never be changed. Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer currency. Peer-to-peer means that no central authority issues new money or tracks transactions. These tasks are managed collectively by the network. Besides being created as a reward for mining, bitcoin can be exchanged for other currencies, products, and services. As of February 2015, over 100,000 merchants and vendors accepted bitcoin as payment. Bitcoin can also be held as an investment. According to research produced by Cambridge University in 2017, there are 2.9 to 5.8 million unique users using a cryptocurrency wallet, most of them using bitcoin.
• Bitcoin Cash | BCH - since 2017. "Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash." (Hard fork of the cryptocurrency bitcoin.) "Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash." Bitcoin Cash brings sound money to the world, fulfilling the original promise of Bitcoin as "Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash". Merchants and users are empowered with low fees and reliable confirmations. The future shines brightly with unrestricted growth, global adoption, permissionless innovation, and decentralized development.
• Bitcoin Gold | BTG - since 2017. "Make Bitcoin Decentralized Again." Bitcoin Gold is a hard fork of the open source cryptocurrency Bitcoin. The fork occurred on 24 October 2017, at block height 491407. Bitcoin Gold decentralizes mining by adopting a PoW algorithm, Equihash, which cannot be run faster on the specialty equipment used for Bitcoin mining (ASIC miners.) This gives ordinary users a fair opportunity to mine with ubiquitous GPUs.
• Cardano | ADA - since 2015. "Making the world work better for all." Cardano is a blockchain platform for changemakers, innovators, and visionaries, with the tools and technologies required to create possibility for the many, as well as the few, and bring about positive global change. Cardano is a decentralised public blockchain and cryptocurrency project and is fully open source. Cardano is developing a smart contract platform which seeks to deliver more advanced features than any protocol previously developed. It is the first blockchain platform to evolve out of a scientific philosophy and a research-first driven approach. The development team consists of a large global collective of expert engineers and researchers
• Dash | DASH - since 2014. "Your money, your way." Move Dash in a second for less than a cent. Any amount, any time, anywhere. Use Dash to make instant, private payments online or in-store using our secure open-source platform hosted by thousands of users around the world.
• Dogecoin | DOGE - since 2013. "Dogecoin is an open source peer-to-peer digital currency, favored by Shiba Inus worldwide." Dogecoin is an open source peer-to-peer digital currency, favored by Shiba Inus worldwide. Dogecoin is a decentralized, peer-to-peer digital currency that enables you to easily send money online. Think of it as "the internet currency."
• EOSIO | EOS - since 2018. "Fast, flexible, and forward-driven." Open-source blockchain platform that helps developers, investors, and businesses build with confidence. Scalable decentralized applications can now be built and tested in a public environment. Blockchain that operates as a smart contract platform for the deployment of decentralized applications and decentralized autonomous corporations.
• Ethereum | ETH - since 2015. "Ethereum is the community-run technology powering the cryptocurrency, ether (ETH) and thousands of decentralized applications." Build unstoppable applications. Ethereum is a decentralized platform that runs smart contracts: applications that run exactly as programmed without any possibility of downtime, censorship, fraud or third-party interference. These apps run on a custom built blockchain, an enormously powerful shared global infrastructure that can move value around and represent the ownership of property. This enables developers to create markets, store registries of debts or promises, move funds in accordance with instructions given long in the past (like a will or a futures contract) and many other things that have not been invented yet, all without a middleman or counterparty risk.
• Ethereum Classic | ETC - since 2015. "Decentralized. Immutable. Unstoppable." Decentralized platform that runs smart contracts: applications that run exactly as programmed without any possibility of downtime, censorship, fraud or third party interference. Continuation of the original Ethereum blockchain - the classic version preserving untampered history; free from external interference and subjective tampering of transactions.
• IOTA | MIOTA - since 2016. "The Backbone of the IOT is here." Open-source distributed ledger and cryptocurrency designed for the Internet of things (IoT). Scalable, Decentralized, Modular, No Fees. As the Internet-of-Things keep expanding, the need for interoperability and sharing of resources become a necessity. IOTA enables companies to explore new business-2-business models by making every technological resource a potential service to be traded on an open market in real time, with no fees.
• Litecoin | LTC - since 2011. "Thee Future of Money." Global decentralized based on blockchain technology. Litecoin is securely stored in a wallet on your computer, tablet, phone or laptop. Download yours and start sending and receiving payments with an address and a click.
• Monero | XMR - since 2014. "Private Digital Currency." Monero is a secure, private, and untraceable cryptocurrency. It is open-source and accessible to all. With Monero, you are your own bank. Only you control and are responsible for your funds. Your accounts and transactions are kept private from prying eyes.
• NEM | XEM - since 2015. "Because together, everything is possible." One ecosystem, two blockchains, a world of possibility. Peer-to-peer cryptocurrency and blockchain platform launched on March 31, 2015. NEM’s blockchain platform was designed and coded from the ground up for scale and speed. NEM’s permissioned private blockchain delivers industry-leading transaction rates for internal ledgers.
• NEO | NEO - since 2014. "An Open Network For Smart Economy." on-profit community-based blockchain project that utilizes blockchain technology and digital identity to digitize assets, to automate the management of digital assets using smart contracts, and to realize a "smart economy" with a distributed network.
• Ripple | XRP - since 2012. "Move Money to All Corners of the World." Discover why hundreds of financial institutions choose RippleNet to provide a better payments experience and enable greater economic opportunity for everyone, everywhere. Ripple connects banks, payment providers, digital asset exchanges and corporates via RippleNet to provide one frictionless experience to send money globally. Built on the most advanced blockchain technology that is scalable, secure and interoperates different networks. Provides optional access to the world’s fastest and most scalable digital asset for payments, XRP.
• Stellar | XLM - since 2014. "Stellar is an open network for storing and moving money." Move Money Across Borders Quickly, Reliably, And For Fractions Of A Penny. Stellar is a distributed, hybrid blockchain that is fully open-source. It is infrastructure that exists to facilitate cross-asset transfers of value, including payments. With just one integration into the Stellar Network, you will join an open, global financial network where all actors - be they people, payment networks, or banks – have equal access & economic participation.
• Tether | USDT - "Launched in 2014, Tether is a blockchain-enabled platform designed to facilitate the use of fiat currencies in a digital manner. Tether works to disrupt the conventional financial system via a more modern approach to money. Tether has made headway by giving customers the ability to transact with traditional currencies across the blockchain, without the inherent volatility and complexity typically associated with a digital currency. As the first blockchain-enabled platform to facilitate the digital use of traditional currencies (a familiar, stable accounting unit), Tether has democratised cross-border transactions across the blockchain."
• Tezos | XTZ - since 2018. "Secure. Upgradable. Built to last." Tezos is an open-source platform for assets and applications backed by a global community of validators, researchers, and builders. Decentralized, open-source blockchain network that can execute peer-to-peer transactions and serve as a platform for deploying smart contracts. The native cryptocurrency for the Tezos blockchain is the tez which has the symbol XTZ. As of January 2021, there are over 400 block validating nodes (bakers) on the Tezos network.
• TRON | TRX - since 2017. "Decentralized Trustworthy Application, Smart Contracts empowered by blockchain, Digital Values issued and obtained by everyone, A Next Era of Web 4.0." Blockchain-based decentralized protocol that aims to construct a worldwide free content entertainment system with the blockchain and distributed storage technology. The protocol allows each user to freely publish, store and own data, and in the decentralized autonomous form, decides the distribution, subscription and push of contents and enables content creators by releasing, circulating and dealing with digital assets, thus forming a decentralized content entertainment ecosystem. Peiwo App with over 10 million users will become the first TRON-compatible entertainment APP.