The cryptocurrency market is explosive which currently serves more than a thousand currencies. Most of them are obvious scams—including many which purport to have a large market cap. This article aims to list only the most relevant cryptocurrencies in terms of novel technological advancements or strong engineering teams, or due to widespread awareness thereof. Direct, low-level scams should not be listed here.
| Cryptocurrency
|
Exchange symbol
|
Launched
|
One-sentence summary
|
Website
|
 Bitcoin
|
BTC
|
2009-01-03
|
First blockchain.
|
bitcoin.org
|
 Dash
|
DASH
|
2014-01-18
|
Introduced the X11 algorithm, which is just a composite function of multiple hashing algorithms. Heavily premined. Uses coinjoin + master nodes for anonymity.
|
|
 Ethereum
|
ETH
|
2015-08-07
|
?
|
ethereum.org
|
 Ethereum Classic
|
ETC
|
2016-07-24
|
Result of Ethereum community schism due to the TheDAO hard fork
|
ethereumclassic.org
|
 Litecoin
|
LTC
|
2011-10-07
|
Like bitcoin but with shorter block times and a different PoW algorithm
|
litecoin.org
|
 Monero
|
XMR
|
2014-04-18
|
Uses Ring Confidential Transactions to attempt to create an anonymous cryptocurrency.
|
getmonero.org
|
 Zcash
|
ZEC
|
2016-10-28
|
First cryptocurrency that implemented the zerocash protocol.
|
z.cash
|
 Namecoin
|
NMC
|
2011-04-18
|
The first altcoin, implements Satoshi's BitDNS idea
|
[1]
|
 Zcoin
|
XZC
|
2016-09-28
|
First cryptocurrency that implemented the zerocoin protocol which also makes it the first useful Zero-knowledge proof based anonymous cryptocurrency.
|
zcoin.io
|
| Cryptocurrency
|
Max supply
|
Algorithm
|
Proof Type
|
| Bitcoin
|
~21,000,000
|
SHA256
|
PoW
|
| Dash
|
?
|
?
|
?
|
| Ethereum
|
Infinite
|
Ethash
|
PoW
|
| Ethereum Classic
|
Infinite
|
Ethash
|
PoW
|
| Litecoin
|
~84,000,000
|
Scrypt
|
PoW
|
| Monero
|
Not Applicable
|
CryptoNight
|
PoW
|
| Zcash
|
~21,000,000
|
Equihash
|
PoW
|
| Namecoin
|
~21,000,000
|
SHA2 Merged-Mined
|
PoW
|
| Zcoin
|
~21,000,000
|
Lyra2RE
|
PoW
|