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Since the creation of bitcoin in 2009, the number of new cryptocurrencies has expanded rapidly.[1]

The UK's Financial Conduct Authority estimated there were over 20,000 different cryptocurrencies by the start of 2023, although many of these were no longer traded and would never grow to a significant size.[2]



Active currencies by date of introduction

Year of introduction Currency Symbol Founder(s) Hash algorithm Programming language of implementation Consensus mechanism Notes
2009 Bitcoin BTC,[3] XBT, ₿ Satoshi Nakamoto SHA-256d[4][5] C++[6] PoW[5][7] The first and most widely used decentralized ledger currency,[8] with the highest market capitalization as of 2018.[9]
2011 Litecoin LTC, Ł Charlie Lee Scrypt C++[10] PoW One of the first cryptocurrencies to use scrypt as a hashing algorithm.
2011 Namecoin NMC Vincent Durham[11][12] SHA-256d C++[13] PoW Also acts as an alternative, decentralized DNS.
2012 Peercoin PPC Sunny King
(pseudonym)[citation needed] 		SHA-256d[citation needed] C++[14] PoW & PoS The first cryptocurrency to use both PoW and PoS functions.
2013 Dogecoin DOGE, XDG, Ð Jackson Palmer
& Billy Markus[15] 		Scrypt[16] C++[14] PoW Based on the Doge internet meme.
2013 Gridcoin GRC Rob Hälford[17] Scrypt C++[18] Decentralized PoS Linked to citizen science through the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing[19]
2013 Primecoin XPM Sunny King
(pseudonym)[citation needed] 		1CC/2CC/TWN[20] TypeScript, C++[21] PoW[20] Uses the finding of prime chains composed of Cunningham chains and bi-twin chains for proof-of-work.
2013 Ripple[22][23] XRP Chris Larsen &
Jed McCaleb[24] 		ECDSA[25] C++[26] "Consensus" Designed for peer-to-peer debt transfer. Not based on bitcoin.
2013 Nxt NXT BCNext
(pseudonym) 		SHA-256d[27] Java[28] PoS Specifically designed as a flexible platform to build applications and financial services around its protocol.
2014 Auroracoin AUR Baldur Odinsson
(pseudonym)[29] 		Scrypt C++[30] PoW Created as an alternative currency for Iceland, intended to replace the Icelandic króna.
2014 Dash DASH Evan Duffield &
Kyle Hagan[citation needed] 		X11 C++[31] PoW & Proof of Service[nt 1] A bitcoin-based currency featuring instant transactions, decentralized governance and budgeting, and private transactions.
2014 NEO NEO Da Hongfei & Erik Zhang SHA-256 & RIPEMD160 C#[32] dBFT China based cryptocurrency, formerly ANT Shares and ANT Coins. The names were changed in 2017 to NEO and GAS.
2014 MazaCoin MZC BTC Oyate Initiative SHA-256d C++[33] PoW The underlying software is derived from that of another cryptocurrency, ZetaCoin.
2014 Monero XMR Monero Core Team RandomX C++[34] PoW Privacy-centric coin based on the CryptoNote protocol with improvements for scalability and decentralization.
2014 Titcoin TIT Edward Mansfield & Richard Allen[35] SHA-256d TypeScript, C++[36] PoW The first cryptocurrency to be nominated for a major adult industry award.[37]
2014 Verge XVG Sunerok Scrypt, x17, groestl, blake2s, and lyra2rev2 C, C++[38] PoW Features anonymous transactions using Tor.
2014 Stellar XLM Jed McCaleb Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP) [39] C, C++[40] Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP) [39] Open-source, decentralized global financial network.
2014 Vertcoin VTC David Muller[41] Verthash[42] C++[43] PoW Aims to be ASIC resistant.
2015 Ethereum ETH, Ξ Vitalik Buterin[44] Ethash[45] C++, Go[46] PoW, PoS Supports Turing-complete smart contracts.
2015 Ethereum Classic ETC EtcHash/Thanos[47] PoW An alternative version of Ethereum[48] whose blockchain does not include the DAO hard fork.[49] Supports Turing-complete smart contracts.
2015 Nano XNO, Ӿ Colin LeMahieu Blake2 C++[citation needed] Open Representative Voting[50] Decentralized, feeless, open-source, peer-to-peer cryptocurrency. First to use a Block Lattice structure.
2015 Tether USDT Jan Ludovicus van der Velde[51] Omnicore[52] PoW Tether claims to be backed by USD at a 1 to 1 ratio. The company has been unable to produce promised audits.[53]
2016 Firo FIRO Poramin Insom[54] Merkle tree Proof[55] C++[56] PoW The first financial system employing Zero-knowledge proof to protect users' privacy.[54] It conducted the world's first large-scale blockchain election for Thailand Democrat Party in 2018.[57]
2016 Zcash ZEC Zooko Wilcox Equihash C++[58] PoW The first open, permissionless financial system employing zero-knowledge security.
2017 Bitcoin Cash BCH[59] SHA-256d PoW Hard fork from bitcoin, increased maximum block size from 1MB to 8MB (as of 2018, 32MB)
2017 EOS.IO EOS Dan Larimer WebAssembly, Rust, C, C++[60] delegated PoS Feeless Smart contract platform for decentralized applications and decentralized autonomous corporations with a block time of 500 ms.[60]
2017 Cardano ADA, ₳ Charles Hoskinson Ouroboros, PoS Algorithm[61] Haskell[62] PoS Proof-of-stake blockchain platform: developed via evidence-based methods and peer-reviewed research.[63][64][65]
2017 Tron TRX Justin Sun Java, Solidity[66]
2018 AmbaCoin official cryptocurrency of the Cameroonian separatist entity of Ambazonia
2018 Nervos Network CKB Kevin Wang, Daniel Lv, Terry Tai Eaglesong Rust, JavaScript, C PoW Multi-layered blockchain smart contract platform[67]
2019 Algorand ALGO Silvio Micali Go[68] PoS Uses a verifiable random function to randomly select groups of users to certify blocks.[69]
2020 Avalanche AVAX Emin Gün Sirer, Kevin Sekniqi, Maofan "Ted" Yin PoS
2020 Shiba Inu SHIB Ryoshi PoS
2020 Polkadot DOT Gavin Wood Rust PoS
2020 Solana SOL Anatoly Yakovenko Rust PoS
2021 DeSo DESO Nader al-Naji (aka diamondhands)[70] Go[71] PoW[72] Also a social media platform, resembling Twitter.[73][74] Known as BitClout until September 2021.[70]
2021 SafeMoon SAFEMOON SafeMoon LLC Solidity[75] PoW

Inactive currencies

Release Currency Symbol Founder(s) Hash algorithm Programming language of implementation Cryptocurrency blockchain
(PoS, PoW, or other) 		Notes
2014 Coinye KOI, COYE Scrypt PoW Used American hip hop artist Kanye West as its mascot, abandoned after he filed a trademark lawsuit.
OneCoin Ruja Ignatova and Stephen Greenwood A Ponzi scheme promoted as a cryptocurrency.
2017 BitConnect BCC BitConnect was described as an open source, all-in-one bitcoin and crypto community platform but was later discovered to be a Ponzi scheme.
2018 KodakCoin Kodak and WENN Digital Ethash[76] KodakCoin is a "photographer-centric" blockchain cryptocurrency used for payments for licensing photographs.
Petro Venezuelan Government onixCoin[77] C++[78] Stated by Nicolás Maduro to be backed by Venezuela's reserves of oil. As of August 2018 it does not appear to function as a currency.[79]
PlusToken A ponzi scheme which mainly had investors in China and South Korea.[80]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Via Masternodes containing 1000 DASH held as collateral for "Proof of Service". Through an automated voting mechanism, one Masternode is selected per block and receives 45% of mining rewards.

References

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