Comparison of cryptocurrencies

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Revision as of 16:19, 18 September 2017 by Davidhedlund (talk | contribs) (Fixed namecoin.info link)
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The cryptocurrency market is explosive which currently serves 735 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 Anonymity Notes Website
Bitcoin BTC 2009-01-03 Low First blockchain. bitcoin.org
Dash DASH 2014-01-18 Low Introduced the X11 algorithm, which is just a composite function of multiple hashing algorithms. Had a significant failure mode in the beginning which equated to a majority premine by a small number of Amazon EC2 customers. This technically compromises their Master Node algorithm, especially over time. dash.org
Ethereum ETH 2015-08-07 Low Massive ethereum.org
Ethereum Classic ETC 2016-07-24 Low ethereumclassic.org
Litecoin LTC 2011-10-07 Low litecoin.org
Monero XMR 2014-04-18 Medium Introduced Ring Confidential Transactions. getmonero.org
Zcash ZEC 2016-10-28 Medium First cryptocurrency that implemented the zerocash protocol. z.cash
Namecoin NMC 2011-04-18 Low First cryptocurrency that implemented Satoshi's BitDNS idea namecoin.info
Zcoin XZC 2016-09-28 Medium 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). 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
Namecoin ~21,000,000 SHA2 Merged-Mined PoW
Zcash ~21,000,000 Equihash PoW
Zcoin ~21,000,000 Lyra2RE PoW