Over the past year, cryptocurrency has progressed from obscurity to prominence throughout the financial world.
Bitcoin has soared in value in the last 12 months, rising from $8,166 on March 8, 2020 to all-time highs of over $58,000 in February 2021, and is now valued at $54,011 as of 9:31 a.m. GMT on March 9.
Their meteoric rise has sparked institutional attention, including from major financial institutions such as HSBC, Goldman Sachs, BNY Mellon, and JPMorgan.
According to the crypto website CoinDesk, there are hundreds of cryptocurrencies worldwide, but the main community of 20 coins accounts for around 99 percent of the business through amount.
According to James Butterfill, an investment analyst at CoinShares, inflows into digital asset investment products were $108 million in the first week of March, the quietest week since early January. Bitcoin accounted for 90% of the inflows, with $4 million spent in ethereum. However, bitcoin trading volumes remained high in 2021, with a daily average of $11.8 billion compared to $2.2 billion in 2021
Financial News has published a list of the ten biggest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization as cryptocurrencies continue their rollercoaster rally into 2021, hitting record highs in February and March.
READ Billionaires, including BlackRock, are embracing bitcoin — If the bitcoin market soars, here’s who’s getting in on the action.
1. Bitcoin
According to CoinDesk, bitcoin was valued at $54,113 at 9:32 a.m. GMT on March 9th. With a market capitalization of $1.01 trillion, BTC, as it is called by its market ticker, is the biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
It was developed as a way of facilitating decentralized transactions as well as a store of value.
Over the past three months, the blockchain has yo-yoed, reaching highs of over $58,000 in February, surpassing a market capitalization of $1 trillion for the first time.This has been fueled in part by a surge in investor investment in bitcoin following Elon Musk’s announcement on February 8 that his electric car firm Tesla has invested $1.5 billion in the cryptocurrency.
READ Goldman Sachs resurrects the blockchain desk in an attempt to cash in on the bitcoin craze Goldman Sachs has relaunched its cryptocurrency trading desk, with plans to reopen it in mid-Marc
2. Ethereum
According to CoinDesk’s website, Ethereum was traded at $1,837 at 9:33 a.m. GMT on March 9th. With a cumulative market capitalization of $211.2 billion, ethereum is the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. It was first proposed in 2013 by developer Vitalik Buterin, went live in July 2015, and is based on blockchain technology. On February 19, 2021, the coin reached a new high of $1,958.
3. USD Coin
The stablecoin was released in September 2018 and is run by the CENTRE consortium, which was established by Circle, a peer-to-peer firm, and Coinbase, a crypto exchange. According to their website, their goal is to “add peace to crypto.” As of 9:38 a.m. GMT on March 9, it was trading at $1, with a market capitalization of $9.12 billion.
4. Bitcoin Cash
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The biggest Bitcoin fork by market size is Bitcoin Cash, which was introduced in 2017 by former Facebook developer Amaury Séchet. A Bitcoin fork is a break of the transaction chain based on customer preferences about transaction history that results in new iterations of the currency. According to CoinDesk, the digital currency’s early backers include Roger Ver, the CEO of bitcoin.com. As of 9:38 a.m. GMT on March 9, it was trading at $544.4 with a market capitalization of $10.2 billion.
5. Litecoin
Litecoin is a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency that was introduced in 2011 by Charlie Lee, a former Google and Coinbase engineer. It is often referred to as the “digital silver” to Bitcoin’s “digital gold.” At 9:37 a.m. GMT on March 9, it was trading at $199.7, with a market capitalization of $13.4 billion.
6. ChainLink
ChainLink is an ethereum-based token created by Sergey Nazarov in 2017 that has allowed the use of contracts that bind to payment systems. It was trading at $31.4 and had a market cap of $31.4 billion at 9:36 a.m. GMT on March 9th.
7. Cardano
Cardano is a public blockchain and cryptocurrency initiative led by a group of academics and engineers.
As of 9:36 a.m. GMT on March 9, ADA, the non-profit digital currency, was trading at $1.15 and had a market cap of $36.6 billion.
8. Tether
Tether, formerly known as Realcoin, was released in 2014 and is one of the first cryptocurrencies to be indexed to the US dollar. As of 9:35 a.m. GMT on March 9, it was trading at $1. According to CoinDesk, the digital currency has the highest market capitalization of any stablecoin, which is more stable when linked to a fiat currency.
The New York Attorney General’s office is now investigating Tether. The US office claims that the cryptocurrency’s eponymous company has had no dollar deposits to back the coins in use for stretches of time since mid-2017.
9. Stellar
In 2014, Jed McCaleb, a co-founder of Ripple Labs, developed the open-source blockchain payment system Stellar. Lumens is the system’s native cryptocurrency. Stellar is currently trading at $0.42 and has a market capitalization of $44.7 billion dollars as of 9:34 a.m. GMT on March 9th.v
10. XRP
XRP, a cryptocurrency common with banks and other institutions, was trading at $0.48 at 9:34 a.m. GMT on March 9th, with a market capitalization of $48 billion.
Ripple Labs, a blockchain corporation, developed the digital currency in 2012, and it operates on its own blockchain algorithm called Ripple.
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