Comparison of cryptocurrencies

At this writing there are 735 cryptocurrencies on the market. This article aims to list only the most relevant cryptocurrencies.

To be listed here, a currency must have one of the following qualities:

• At one point had significant notoriety.
• A market cap of 1 billion US dollars.
• Highly decentralized (anonymous).
• First to introduce an innovative protocol.
• Been an infamous fraud.

Coin	Symbol	Launched	Consensus tool	Distribution	Market cap	Unit cap	Status	Anonymity	Significant notoriety
Bitcoin	BTC	3 Jan 2009	SHA256d	Proof-of-work (fixed, halving)	$36 billion	20,999,999.9769	Active	Low	First blockchain
Bitcoin Testnet 1	TNBTC	21 Oct 2010	SHA256d	Proof-of-work (fixed, halving)	None	20,999,999.9769	Abandoned	Low	First altcoin
Bitcoin Testnet 3	TNBTC	12 Apr 2012	SHA256d	Proof-of-work (fixed, halving)	None	20,999,999.9769	Active	Low	Current Bitcoin testnet
Bytecoin	BCN	4 Jul 2012	CryptoNight	Proof-of-work (random, smooth)	$414 million	184.46 billion	Active	Low	Introduced CryptoNote.
Dash	DASH	18 Jan 2014 under Darkcoin	X11	Proof-of-work (fixed, curve)	$914 million	19 million (estimate)	Active	Medium
Dogecoin	DOGE	6 Dec 2013	scrypt	Proof-of-work (random)	$278 million	Unlimited	Active	Low	Was joke, became huge
Komodo	KMD	5 Feb 2017	Zerocash	?	$54 million	?	Active	High
Litecoin	LTC	7 Oct 2011	scrypt	Proof-of-work (fixed, halving)	$1.2 billion	83,999,949.9076	Active	Low
MaidSafeCoin	MAID	22 Apr 2014	Bitcoin	Central	$166 million	452,552,412	Active	Low
Monero	XMR	18 Apr 2014	CryptoNight	Proof-of-work (random, smooth)	$584 million	~18,400,000 then <1% inflation	Active	Medium
Namecoin	NMC	18 Apr 2011	SHA256d - merged mined with Bitcoin	Proof-of-work (fixed, halving)	$23 million	20,999,999.9769 (like Bitcoin)	Active	Low	First alternative chain, bitDNS
NEM	XEM	31 Mar 2015	Proof-of-importance	Peer-to-peer	$1.7 billion	9 billion	Active	Medium	Introduced the proof-of-importance (POI) algorithm.
Nxt	NXT	29 Sep 2013	Consensus through obscurity	Central	$51.6 million	999,997,096	Active	Low
Peercoin	PPC	19 Aug 2012	Central authoriy	Proof-of-work/stake	$35.6 million	Unlimited	Active	Low
PIVX	PIVX	1 Feb 2016 under Darknet	Quark	proof-of-stake 3.0	$83.9 million	?	Active	Medium
Primecoin	XPM	7 Jul 2013	Cunningham	Proof-of-work	$7.2 million	Unlimited	Active	Low	Implements a unique scientific computing proof-of-work system.
Ripple	XRP	1 Mar 2011	Ripple	Central	$8.2 billion	28,989,252,282	Active	Low
Tonal Bitcoin	TBC	2 Jan 2011	See Bitcoin	See Bitcoin	See Bitcoin	7,750,54.00	Active	Low	First on-chain alternative
Zcash	ZEC	28 Oct 2016	Zerocash	Zero-knowledge proofs, Proof-of-work (Equihash), with a portion of each block subsidy distributed to founders for the first four years.	$338 million	21,000,000 (like Bitcoin)	Active	High	First cryptocurrency that implemented the zerocash protocol.
Zclassic	ZCL	10 Nov 2016	Zerocash	See Zcash	$5 million	See Zcash	Active	High	First Zcash-based currency without the 20% fee for miners made by Zcash.
Zcoin	XZC	28 Sep 2016	Zerocoin (Zero-knowledge proofs), Merkle Tree Proof of Work ( Proof-of-work)		$16.9 million	21,000,000 (like Bitcoin)	Active	High	First cryptocurrency that implemented the zerocoin protocol which also makes it the first useful Zero-knowledge proof based anonymous cryptocurrency. First that implements Merkle Tree Proof of Work (MTP).

See Also

• List of alternative chains