Cryptocurrencies are popular these days. However, not all cryptos are equally popular. Some are creating more hype than others.
With that in mind, let us take you through some of the most popular cryptocurrencies of 2022 so far.
#1 Bitcoin
Bitcoin is the top dog of cryptocurrencies. It was launched in 2009 by a mysterious entity known as Satoshi Nakamoto, who has since remained anonymous. As the first cryptocurrency, Bitcoin has a strong position. It is used as the standard for measuring all other coins and tokens. Additionally, it still has about 50% of the cryptocurrency market share.
Bitcoin is decentralized, meaning that its users have control over their own money rather than putting faith in a third party like a bank or government to maintain trustworthy transactions and withdrawals. That makes crypto very secure. Hacking an individual’s wallet requires breaking into their computer, while hacking a bank exposes thousands or millions of people’s assets at once.
Also, since no third party is involved in validating transactions on the blockchain ledger that supports Bitcoin, every transaction incurs no processing fees! In addition to being secure and inexpensive to use, Bitcoin offers fast transfers.
#2 Solana
What is SOL?
Solana (SOL) is a cryptocurrency network to increase blockchain scalability. Using a proof-of-stake blockchain, Solana aims to be able to process 50,000 transactions per second while offering 10-second block times. Solana uses an algorithm called Proof-of-History to validate timestamps on the network. The name comes from the term solar year (which takes about 365 days) and refers to Solana’s time commitment—it is intended for use as a long-term platform.
How do I buy Solana and learn more about SOL? Solana can be purchased on top cryptocurrency exchanges and trading platforms like OKX. Here, you will see how you can buy SOL and learn about its value and market cap.
#3 Polkadot
Polkadot is a heterogeneous multi-chain technology. That means that Polkadot connects multiple chains, allowing them to operate together so that their strengths are enhanced by their ability to work together as a single network. Polkadot can also connect blockchains with non-blockchain networks, including oracle services and other technologies in the future.
In concrete terms, while many different blockchains all have their separate security guarantees, within the Polkadot network, they can rely on each other’s chains to provide additional guarantees against attacks. It also allows developers to handle vital tasks more efficiently, such as data and computation sharing between chains.
#4 Cardano
Cardano is a decentralized public blockchain platform. It is the first open-source project started in 2015 by Charles Hoskinson and Jeremy Wood. Cardano was designed to host financial applications and smart contracts, aiming to make things more transparent, secure, and scalable. Its native cryptocurrency is ADA which had a massive bull run in late 2017 into early 2018 when it went from $0.03 up to $1.10.
Cardano’s market cap currently stands at over $30 billion (2022), making it the 3rd biggest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin and Ethereum.
How to buy Cardano
There are hundreds of places where you can buy cryptocurrencies like Cardano these days, but we recommend starting with Coinbase if you’re new to crypto trading or here for a list of exchanges with great ratings.
#5 Litecoin
Litecoin (LTC) is a leading cryptocurrency that was created in 2011 as a fork of the Bitcoin Core client. It is based on an open-source global payment network, which is not controlled by any central authority. Litecoin was designed to handle larger transactions and allows for faster confirmation of transactions than Bitcoin does.
The founder, Charlie Lee, has remained very active in the process of improving Litecoin since its inception. Litecoin’s block time (the average time it takes to mine a block) is 2 1/2 minutes compared with Bitcoin’s 10 minutes.
There are closely held beliefs that Litecoin has several benefits over Bitcoin. Because Litecoin uses proof-of-work mining to generate new blocks on the blockchain, miners can choose between mining BItcoin or Litecoin; this inevitably leads to more competition among miners and lower fees for users when they make their transactions.
Since there are now four times as many LTC coins mined per block as BTC coins (84 million versus 21 million), this means at some point, there will be four times as many LTC coins in circulation as BTC coins. That could mean that people will have less incentive to hoard their coins and instead spend them and use them more freely than they would with BTC.
#6 Bitcoin Cash
Bitcoin Cash is also known as BCH and is a peer-to-peer electronic cash system that can be used to send exchanges of value all around the world almost instantly and cheaply. As it uses blockchain technology, there are no intermediaries needed to process transactions between two parties.
#7 Tether
You’ve probably heard about Tether if you’ve been learning about cryptocurrencies for a while. It was one of the very first stablecoins to launch and is currently the largest by market cap; it’s backed by USD reserves and is issued by Tether Limited. At the time of writing, one tether (USDT) is equivalent to $1.
That means, unlike other cryptocurrencies, which tend to fluctuate wildly in price over time, you don’t have to worry about your tether spending power changing overnight; instead, its value stays steady and predictable as long as it is pegged with the US dollar.
By the end of 2022, this list may not look the same. That is because of crypto’s volatile nature and how this market works. You will have to accept such facts if you want to invest or get into crypto trading.
