Bitcoin has long been not the only cryptocurrency that has the idea, community, and a constant growth.
Today, we would like to discuss five promising cryptocurrencies which are worth paying attention to.
Ethereum
It is to this day that the creation of Vitalik Buterin — Ethereum cryptocurrency holds the first place worldwide by its number of ICOs held and the released tokens, as well as the leading place in a smart contract and decentralized applications development. The only mark where Ethereum is not the first yet is the cryptocurrency capitalization. In this regard, it securely holds a second place after Bitcoin.
Some experts are confident that sooner or later, Ethereum will overtake Bitcoin by capitalization, but we will make no such loud statements. It’s best to focus on the direct competitors of Ethereum, such as EOS, Cardano, or TRON. These and other projects offer faster blockchains and more convenient terms for smart contract development, for which they are often called the Ethereum killers. However, the Ethereum side holds the biggest community of decentralized apps developers and users. Moreover, the planned updates regarding moving to POS-mining, blockchain and Plasma payment network sharding — all these advantages will zero out the technological benefits of the competitors.
Bitcoin Cash
Bitcoin Cash is the first and only Bitcoin hard fork that managed to gain a foothold in the top 5 cryptocurrency rating by capitalization. The developers and the followers of the altcoin believe that in order to solve the blockchain scalability issue, it would require an increase of the transaction block size, which is obtained by miners. During the hard fork, the maximum block size has been changed from 1MB to 8MB, and eventually they increased it to 32MB. This approach hasn’t given any meaningful results, but it promises effectiveness in the long run, provided there will be a significant boost of cryptocurrency users.
Bitcoin Cash is associated with Roger Ver but it’s only a peak of the iceberg. Besides him, there are other influential developers, miners, and investors. In turn, Roger serves as a cheerleader of Bitcoin Cash while it’s worth admitting that his chosen methods of doing so are very controversial. That is why calling him a Bitcoin Judas is a fair assessment of Roger’s actions. But to look at the full picture, Bitcoin Cash attracts new users with its value and high capitalization. The project team has a clear plan and resources for further development.
Monero
Monero is one of the few cryptocurrencies that offers real transaction anonymity unlike its pseudo variation of Bitcoin. Blockchain confidentiality is provided by the use of ring signature. Each transaction is signed by a group of users, while it is impossible to determine which of the users has actually sent the transaction and to whom it was addressed.
The Demand for Monero is growing as the technology of blockchain tracking progresses, which deprives the crypto users of privacy. After all, no one wants their information about the state of his account to be publicly available. Of course, this approach is not pleasant to the governments. But the more regulators try to put pressure on the crypto community, the more users move over to anonymous cryptocurrencies, and in this case, Monero is one of the most reliable and convenient options.
Dash
Dash cryptocurrency positions itself as a revolutionary digital payment system, and it's not just a beautiful slogan. The Dash functionality supports instant transactions and the ability to anonymize transactions. It is also worth noting that decisions on the development of the project are not made by individual programmers, but rather by all members of Dash through the mechanism of decentralized management.
From a technological standpoint, Dash has everything it takes to become a payment currency in online stores and retail outlets. It is in this direction of development that the project team is focused. Marketing is one of the main expenses of Dash, due to which more and more stores around the world are beginning to accept this cryptocurrency.
Zcash
And to finish our top 5 promising cryptocurrencies rating, we’ve decided to include another anonymous altcoin — Zcash. Now, this network uses a privacy protocol, which is called a Zero-Disclosure Proof. The point of this protocol is that miners and nodes can process and confirm the transaction, but neither they nor anyone else can see the sender, the recipient or the amount of the transaction. The only thing that remains in the blockchain is a record of the a transaction completion.
The development and support of the Zcash network is carried out by a group of professional programmers and cryptologists, which tells us a lot about their best technological potentials in the industry. On June 26, the network was updated with Overwinter, which is the preparatory part of the subsequent Sapling upgrade. The transition to the new protocol will allow to vastly increase the performance of the blockchain and expand the functionality of Zcash.