Having heard this term multiple times, now I have finally decided to quench my curiosity about this most talked about, note worthier Blue-chip crypto currency and further we will also look for some of its top level types.
What is a Bluechip Cryptocurrency?
In the realm of financial market, these are those crypto currencies that investors usually meet 1st time when they enter crypto markets. As the name is sufficient to justify that they are those digital assets which have great reputation, promising great returns. They are widely recognized stocks that are backed and supported by strong and stable investors. They have stood the test of time and performed well and have weathered bear markets and down-turns. They are financially stable and productive overtime. This Blue-chip crypto can be defined by the feature of Market-cap or Market capitalization.
Here, the term Market cap indicates the size of a crypto currency. It denotes the total value of all the coins that have been mined. It is calculated by multiplying the number of coins in circulation with the current market price of a single coin.
Therefore a value denoting large Market cap signifies that a particular crypto currency is less volatile as compared to small market caps as it has a larger amount in circulation in the market. A high market cap value increases creditability of a crypto, hence backed by large investors in a hope to earn larger gains.
But it must be kept mind that Market cap is not the only determining factor that makes a crypto a blue-chip type. Apart from that it also must include in it a high adoption Rate, high trading value, good reputation, and provable utility and institutional interest.
Top 5 Bluechip Cryptocurrencies:
So, let’s look at some unbeatable Cryptos that have proved their quality and are time tested.
- BITCOIN ( BTC or XBT):
It is the first and the oldest Digital currency to exist. Invented in 2008, by Satoshi Nakamoto, with its beginning in usage in 2009. It has subunits called Millibitcoin, Microbitcoin, and the smallest denomination is named as Satoshi. Has legality in 7 economies by GDP in 2022 like U.S, Russia, Ukraine, Salvador etc.
Initially sold for mere dollars during its first initial years, later reaching to height of up to $69,000/coin in the recent bull market.
For working, It utilizes a block chain P2P technology for operation with no authority (like banks, Central Government) to administer its transactions, issuing etc which is entirely carried out by the network. Bitcoin is powered by open source code called Blockchain, where transaction history are clubbed together as blocks and chained together to prevent tampering, thus creating permanent record of transactions .
The Bitcoin wallet is marked by special feature of public and a private key, that works together to allow owner to initiate and digitally sign transactions, thus securely transferring ownership from one user to another . Also the verification of transactions on the Bitcoin network is accomplished through the process of Mining, designed to confirm that new transactions thus made are in consistency with the old transaction.
It has an open design for public, no one owns it rather every one can take part. Here, the transactions thus made are authenticated through Bitcoin’s
Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism that rewards crypto miners for validating transactions. It can be stored in digital wallet or crypto exchange.
Bitcoin is used intensively all over the world, whether or not it is a good investment depends on individual circumstances, because for some it is a store of value asset due to its safe properties.
PROS –
- It is a cost-efficient transaction, reduces time of transaction, can be accessed and used anytime and anywhere.
- All transactions are highly private and contain no user information.
- No KYC necessity can be used as a decentralized currency.
- Has potential inbuilt in it to grow, gather trust, involve into widespread usage thus forwarding to grow in its valuation.
CONS –
- Although the value of Bitcoin rises, but the investors are not always fortunate enough to earn profit. For ex: In 2017 when Bitcoin price was raising high towards $20,000 the investors had to wait until Dec 2020 to recover losses.
- They are prone to hacking. For ex: In May 2019, more than $40 million in Bitcoin was stolen from high-net-worth accounts on the crypto currency exchange.
- It is not protected and secured by Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) , because they do not cover crypto currency.
- One fact about Bitcoin is that, its imparting bad environmental impact, because as they are made of electricity which in turn is generated by gas-coal fired power plants, when burned produces greenhouse gases and finally heats the earth and changes the climate. A report in 2022 suggests BTC is responsible for 0.1% of greenhouse gases.
2) ETHEREUM (ETH)
It is a decentralized, open-source Blockchain with smart contract functionality and 2nd to Bitcoin in market. Developed By Vitalik Buterin and Gavin wood on 30th July 2015. Vitalik Buterin and others introduced ETH initially in 2013. Currently it is the largest Altcoin. It is a decentralized Blockchain platform that establishes P2P connection that securely authenticates and verifies application code called Smart Contracts.
The Smart contract is a feature that allows participants to transact without the intervention by any trusted body like Govt. or banks etc. Blockchain technology that Ethereum uses, facilitates it to maintain, secures digital ledgers that can be publicly created and maintained. . It utilizes Proof – Of _ stake feature instead of Proof of work feature where the network of participants called validators create new blocks, work together and verify information.
Like any other Crypto it also utilizes blockchain technology. A long chain of blocks containing information, verified by a network of automated programs that is further validated by transaction information. It is secure as no changes can be made to the blockchain unless the network reaches a consensus. This Consensus is thus acquired special algorithm called consensus mechanism. It is stored in wallets by users which has an address similar to email-id. Users will get access to private keys when they keep Ether in wallet which they can use while accessing Ether or initiating a transaction. It is currently leading in DeFi and NFT adoption.
Ethereum and Bitcoin is often compared, along with some similarity they are also surrounded by certain dissimilarities. Both of them are powered by distributed ledger and cryptography but there are certain things different in between them. While Bitcoin is designed as a currency and store of value, Ether stands for complex smart contracts and decentralized applications .Even their Blocktime and their consensus algorithms are different where Bitcoin uses SHA-256 and Ethereum uses LMDGhost. Also Bitcoin was established with the sole motive of presenting an alternative to national currency or medium of money exchange while Ethereum was to facilitate immutable, programmatic contracts and applications via global virtual machine.
3) LITECOIN ( LTC)
Is a decentralized P2P crypto currency and open source software project released under the MIT/X11 license .One of the earliest Altcoins, started in Oct 13, 2011 originally created as a fork of Bitcoin with a perspective to solve the issues of speed, feasibility and centralization. They are referred as Silver to Bitcoin’s Gold. In upgraded itself in 2022 through MWEB (Mimble Wimble Extension Block). It was founded by Charlie Lee. Has subunits called Mililitecoin, Microlitecoins, Photons, and the smallest of all Litoshis.
Lee’s Litecoin replaced Bitcoin SHA-256 cryptographic algorithm with Scrypt, which makes mining a bit tough and adds an additional layer of protection by adding randomly generated numbers to cryptographic mining. It becomes most used after medium of exchange because of its availability and liquidity. In 2017 it become top 5 (by market Cap) crypto to adopt Segregated Witness. In 2020 Paypal added the feature to buy a derivative of Litecoin along with Bitcoin and Etherum.. In Feb 2022 iy reached market cap of $8.7 Billion.
It utilizes Proof-of-Work consensus to secure the network. The Litecoins are designed in order to reduce the amount of time taken to validate a new block and uphold the storage efficiency. Has transaction speed of 54 TPS which is way higher than Bitcoins’s which is 5 TPS . The mining time for Litecoin is 2 and ½ minutes which is also faster than Bitcoin’s.
The fee structure of Litecoin is 1/50th the size of Bitcoin’s. Litecoin’s Scrypt hashing is designed to be secure against hardware brute-force attacks. It is also called as a privacy cryptocurrency. It operates on an open-source blockchain that is not under a single authority.
4) SOLANA (SOl)
Is a public blockchain platform with smart contract feature. Founded by Anatoly Yakovenko , Greg Fitzgerald, Stephen Akridge, Raj Gokal, on march 16,2020. Utilizes Proof-of-Stake mechanism and its model known, Proof-of-History mechanism. It works on a decentralized computer network using a ledger called blockchain. The blockchain database manages and tracks the currency, records every transaction that ever occurred in it. It calls itself fastest blockchain in the world.
Using a cryptocurrency wallet, one can use Solana to send or receive the coin or transfer it in exchange for goods and services. Solana can power smart contracts, which are apps that automatically execute the terms of contract when the conditions are fulfilled. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) associated with digital art can be powered with Solana, allowing artist to sell them to consumers. Also supports games, investing, social media and more.
Utilizes Proof-of-stake mechanism to verify transactions, manage its coin supply and create new coins. So, we can see that Solana rose quickly after introduction and its early buyers made money .But it is not backed by any fundamental assets. So if you want to trade with Solana, you must understand the risk and your whole investment can be lost. To understand the relevance of Solana, think of Visa. People worldwide swipe Visa cards at high volume that, so that thousands transactions are happening per second .It has a market cap of $6.3billion and ranks 12th on Coin market cap’s leader board .Solana is thus identified as decentralized platform that performs high speed transaction with lower fees.
5) Binance Coin ( BNB)
Binance is a cryptocurrency issued by Binance exchange, as per 2022 Binance Exchange is the largest crypto exchange in the world. Based on Etherum network initially but now it has its own blockchain called the binance chain. Initially it was used as utility token for discounted trading fees in 2017 , but later spreaded its arms to numerous applications, including payment of transaction fees, travel bookings, entertainment services, online services , financial services.
Launched as initial coin offering in July 2017has 200 million tokens. As May 28 2022, BNB was 5th largest crypto by market capitalization. It is placed just after Bitcoin, Etherum, and USD tether. It is used to pay transaction fees on Binance.com, BinanceDEX, and BinanceChain.
As of June 24, 2021, The Binance smart chain was conducting 3.7 million daily transactions. It is supported by Mobile App, Visa Debit card of Monaco etc. It also plays an important role in Biances’s own DeFi ecosystem called Binance smart chain.