The cryptocurrency market has grabbed the world’s attention in recent times with prices of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies breaking barriers and setting new all-time highs in 2020.
It is a long journey from 2010 when the price of bitcoin, the first cryptocurrency to ever be mined was less than $1. Today the price of bitcoin has surged to above $34,000 for the first time and there are more than 8000 cryptocurrencies in the world.
A new report by Statista has listed the top fifty most expensive cryptocurrencies in the world. We are looking at the top ten of these cryptocurrencies and what their use cases are.
Bitcoin
The world’s largest cryptocurrency remains at the summit of the price war. The first time bitcoin had a huge price jump at $20,000 was in 2017, and many correctly predicted it was a bubble as it was largely driven by speculative investors who wanted to make huge profits on very short notice. They got their profits but the price of bitcoin crashed to nearly $3000 leading many institutional investors to think it was a dangerous asset to hold.
But they never reacted positively in 2019, rising to as much as $10,000 when stakeholders poured investments in the education segment of the market. With greater knowledge came new investors. Players in the futures market began to toast the cryptocurrency and the anticipation of another bitcoin halving in 2020 also raised the confidence of investors.
After the halving in May 2020, the bull run kicked off. By early December 2020, bitcoin had wiped off 2017 all-time high and set a new one at $34,000 with a deluge of institutional investors now trailing every step it makes. As of press time the crypto was valued at $31,743.
Wrapped Bitcoin
Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) is second on the list. While it is not as popular, WBTC is an ERC-20 token that represents Bitcoin (BTC) on the Ethereum blockchain. ERC-20 which is seen as one of the most significant Ethereum tokens is used for all smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain for token implementation and provides a list of rules that all Ethereum-based tokens must follow. A major advantage of WBTC is its integration into the world of Ethereum wallets, dapps, and smart contracts.
Because it represents and it is backed 1:1 with bitcoin, the price is never far away from the price of bitcoin and sometimes the price could even be higher than the mother coin. WBTC was trading at $31,880 as of the time of writing this article.
Read also: Crypto Trading Bots: The future of Bitcoin Trading
RenBTC
RenBTC another coin with a close affinity with Bitcoin, is third on the Statista list. Like WBTC, RenBTC is an ERC-20 token running on the Ethereum blockchain. Essentially, the goal of RenBTC is to create a token whose value is anchored to the value of Bitcoin. In other words, 1 RenBTC is equivalent to 1 BTC.
Ethereum
The world’s second-largest cryptocurrency by capitalisation is the fourth most expensive in the market. Created by Vitalik Buterin in 2014, Ethereum essentially allows online computer systems to run without using any third party. It lets software applications run on a network of many private computers – also known as a distributed system or blockchain.
The last time the price of Ether, the digital token of the Ethereum blockchain peaked was in mid-January 2018 when it climbed past $1,400. Ether was trading on Tuesday, January 5 at $1,019.
Bitcoin Cash
Bitcoin Cash is another token that is related to bitcoin because it was created by bitcoin miners and developers who were concerned with the future of the cryptocurrency and its ability to scale effectively.
They were of the view that SegWit2x did not address the fundamental problem of scalability in a meaningful way, nor did it follow the roadmap initially outlined by Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous party that first proposed the blockchain technology behind cryptocurrency. SegWit2x makes the amount of data that needs to be verified in each block smaller by removing signature data from the block of data that needs to be processed in each transaction and having it attached in an extended block.
Ranked as the fifth most expensive cryptocurrency, Bitcoin Cash is currently priced at $415.64.
Bitcoin SV
The sixth most expensive coin, Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (SV) is a cryptocurrency that was created in 2018 by forking the Bitcoin Cash blockchain and adjusting the protocol with larger block sizes to reduce transaction fees. According to the promoters of the Bitcoin SV, cheaper fees align with Satoshi Nakamoto’s vision for Bitcoin.
Although its initial focus was peer-to-peer transactions, Bitcoin SV is also being used for a variety of use cases beyond money. The cases include using the blockchain to record large amounts of weather and climate data. It has also spun off Memo and Twetch which act as blockchain-based social networks.
At the time of writing this article, the price was $167.55.
Litecoin
Litecoin is one of the oldest cryptocurrencies on the market today. Launched in 2011 by Charlie Lee, the coin is often referred to as the ‘silver’ to bitcoin’s gold, because Litecoin uses much of the same code as bitcoin and therefore shares many similarities, but it is currently faster and cheaper. While it shares the same protocol as Bitcoin, it operates on its own separate blockchain.
Ranked as the seventh most expensive cryptocurrency in the world, Litecoin is currently priced $154.
Monero
The eighth most expensive cryptocurrency, Monero (XMR) was launched in 2014 as an open-source, privacy-oriented cryptocurrency that is built on the blockchain. Like Bitcoin, Monero is a decentralised peer-to-peer cryptocurrency, but unlike Bitcoin, Monero is characterised as private digital cash.
The price of Monero on the Coinmarketcap index is $130 on Tuesday.
Aave
Aave is a decentralised non-custodial money market protocol where users can participate as depositors or borrowers. Depositors provide liquidity to the market to earn a passive income, while borrowers are able to borrow cryptocurrencies in exchange for paying a variable interest rate.
Aave is trading at $116 as of Tuesday. Aave is the third-largest lending platform in DeFi – that’s why its native cryptocurrency is extremely popular.
The surge in the price of bitcoin very often affects other cryptocurrencies. For instance, many altcoins gained after bitcoin rose to $20,000 in 2017. The price of Ether even continued rising days after bitcoin started dropping.
