Crypto Corner
This page serves as a quick reference to most of the crypto currencies and some of the altcoins. It is used for research purposes only and not to be used in any way as investment advice. Trading Cryptos is high risk and can be very profitable if combined with a good trading plan and risk sharing approach. Please note again that this is just a quick reference guide and not at all a strategy.
Terminology
Blockchain – An encrypted (safely scrambled) way to keep track of transactions.
Crypto – Short for Cryptographic (encrypted) blockchain technology.
Altcoin – Short for Alternative coin. Thus not a mainstream coin (yet). It is in the early stages of maturing.
Wallet – A mechanism for storing Crypto or Altcoins which is safer. There are several types (hardware – such as the Ledger Nano S; Trezor, software/app, or paper).
Exchange – A place where you can trade (buy and/or sell) Crypto’s or Altcoins. There are many. Some are easier to use than others. Not all of them offer all the coins. You use the exchange to do your trading and then it is a good idea to move your coins to a wallet of choice for safekeeping.
Hashing – A function that can be used to map data of arbitrary (random)Â size to data of fixed size.
Mining – The process of generating new cryptocurrency (of a specific type) by using devices/machines to solve complex mathematical problems. The result of solving the problem is rewarded with the type of currency it is working on.
Rank – Between all the coins (currently over 1,200 of them), this is the rank (1 on top) of this particular coin.
Market Cap – Market Capitalization is one way to rank the relative size of a cryptocurrency. It’s calculated by multiplying the Price by the Circulating Supply. Thus: Market Cap = Price (current)Â x Circulating Supply (how many coins people own)
Volume – This is the amount (in US dollars) of money which has been spent/used/traded in a period. Usually 24 hours as indicated below.
Exchanges
Crypto currencies can be bought and sold on exchanges. The process is as follows:
- Purchase a base crypto currency such as Bitcoin (BTC) using fiat (Euro/Dollars/Rands etc) from places like Luno.com or Coinbase.com.
- Transfer the Bitcoin (BTC) to an exchange such as Binance.com or Kucoin.com.
- Buy or Sell Alternative coins (Altcoins) using the Bitcoin you have.
Some notes about exchanges:
- You have to register on them first and verification can take anything from a few minutes or even up to a few weeks.
- Always enable as many security features as you can (such as 2 factor authentication) on the exchange.
Coins
25.000
400 | 700
Used for: Smart Contracts
Detail: Imagine if two parties want to make an agreement which is clear, simple and guaranteed enforceable. In simple terms, Etherium (ETH) allows you to do just that. Like Bitcoin (BTC), it is also a major crypto-currency which can be used to purchase other alternative coins.
0.30 | 3.00
Used for: Frictionless payments
Detail: This is one of the fastest growing Altcoins. It has a well established team and is used to facilitate payments between banks in as little as 4 seconds.
Exchanges:Â Binance
Used for: Sending/Receiving money between parties
Detail: Litecoin is a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency created by Charlie Lee. It was created based on the Bitcoin protocol but differs in terms of the hashing algorithm used. Litecoin uses the memory intensive Scrypt proof of work mining algorithm. Scrypt allows consumer-grade hardware such as GPU to mine those coins. The transaction confirmation time taken for Litecoin is about 2.5 minutes on average (as compared to Bitcoin’s 10 minutes). ~ Coingecko.com
Exchanges:Â Binance
Used for: Fast and Anonymous payments. Can be used as your own bank.
Detail: Monero is a decentralized (distributed)Â crypto currency that makes sure no one will be able to track your transactions.
Exchanges:Â Binance
Used for: Combing Digital Assets with Identity and Smart Contracts
Detail: When you have a digital asset (such as online training, ebook etc) combined with a digital identity (a verified online identity) combined with a Smart Contract (buyer, seller, terms, guaranteed payment) you can transact faster and safer… A smart economy. Bonus: When you buy and hold NEO, you will automatically earn Neo Gas (GAS). Currently, Binance pays out GAS dividents monthly, while Kucoin pays several times per day.
Used for: Global Payment Facilitation using Bitcoin (BTC) or Etherium (ETH)
Detail: OmiseGo (OMG) aims to build a peer-to-peer value exchange able to facilitate payments across different jurisdictions, organizations, fiat and decentralized currencies powered by ethereum blockchain. ~ Quora
Exchanges: Binance and others
Used for: Incentives (get paid)Â to participate valuably in discussions on Steemit.com
Detail: Made to incentivize users to use the social media platform steemit, it’s the first altcoin that you can get without mining or buying. Steemit rewards it’s users with STEEM for creating content, commenting, and up-voting. But STEEM is not like other altcoins. When you participate on steemit you earn some Steem Dollars and Steem Power units. Steem Dollars can be exchanged for STEEM at the current market price, or kept for 10% percent interest. Steem power units are locked for 2 years, and then unlocked for STEEM. ~ Crypto News
Exchanges:Â Binance
Used for: Hashing entries before adding it to a list
Detail: “Factom is a way to record entries by hashing the entries before adding it to the list. It allows for everyone to view the entries in the list and also to add onto the list but does not allow anybody to make changes to the list. Factom is very good in ensuring the integrity of data records through the creation of an immutable audit trail. Factom conducted a crowdsale in April 2015 where it sold 2,278 BTC (roughly $540,000 during that time) in Factoid tokens to users. ~ Coingecko
Exchanges: Bittrex
Used for: Decentralised Cloud Storage
Detail: “an open source project that aims to offer a completely decentralized, secure, and efficient cloud storage service, that also serves as a peer-to-peer payment system like Bitcoin. ” ~ Storj.io.
Similar to Dropbox and Google Drive, this project will create digital storage but not in the cloud. (Entities) Instead, your files will be shredded, encrypted, distributed in pieces to multiple machines (peers) and then only you will have access to them. The aim is to provide more affordable storage while increasing privacy.
Exchanges:Â Binance
Used for: The right to use the blockchain, and payment of fees on the NEO chain
Detail: There are two built-in system assets: NEO and GAS. NEO represent the ownership of the blockchain, which is used for electoral accounting, to obtain GAS dividends, etc. GAS represents the right to use the blockchain, and are used to pay fees of various systems on the chain. ~Cryptoscreener
Note: At the time of writing, Binance paid out GAS dividents monthly which Kucoin pays out several times a day.
51 | 138 | 470
Used for: Private, Secure communication and payments
Detail: ZenCash is a platform designed for private communications and private economic activity. Cutting-edge cryptography and zero knowledge proofs enable fully anonymous peer to peer communications with ZenCash. ZenCash’s distributed and encrypted networking design is resistant to traffic correlation and metadata analysis. ~ Bitcointalk
0.24
Used for: Connecting people to low-cost financial services
Detail: connect people to low-cost financial services to fight poverty and maximize individual potential. Lumens is an open sourced decentralized protocol to transfer money in any pair of currencies. (It is previously known as Stellar). For instance, John can send a USD transaction to Sally in Euro or Bitcoin seamlessly.
x.xx
Used for: Secure and Private decentralised messaging platform
Detail: In addition to being a secure and private messaging platform, it also turns your Andriod or iOS device (phone/tablet) into a wallet for storing/sending/receiving Etherium. It also uses the dApp (distributed app) to access applications that run on the Etherium network, which can be used to access smart contracts (buyer/seller/terms)
0.68 | 0.72 | 1.08
Used for: Tracking user attention on adds on the Brave Browser
Detail: Created by the author of JavaScript, this token is used on the Brave Browser in order to track the attention users give to content or advertising, and then to reward them. Similarly, the publishers and advertisers will be able to see if advertising is consumed/effective and be able to compensate each other or the consumer for that consumption.
0.0271 | 0.0271 | 0.0319
Used for: A social tipping currency to be used on Reddit, Twitter and Twitch
Detail: ReddCoin refers to itself as the “social currency for the digital age.” As the name implies, it’s designed for use on major social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitch, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, and Reddit.
0.24
Used for: Rewards for video or gaming consumption
Detail: Whether you play or watch, this coin will serve as a reward. It is currently only available on the HitBTC exchange.
0.45 | 2.288 | 9.589
Used for: Mobile Payment Platform
Detail: Used on the Etherium Network. Buy and sell and know more about a seller based on a decentralised (not in one place) system based on trust (who you are is who you say you are) and reputation (have you got a proven track record).