This article's lead section may be too short to adequately summarize the key points. Please consider expanding the lead to provide an accessible overview of all important aspects of the article. (June 2022)
Market capitalizations of cryptocurrencies

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 A proof-of-stake blockchain platform: developed through 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
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.
2015 or before 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]

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

  1. ^ Cryptocurrencies: A Brief Thematic Review. Economics of Networks Journal. Social Science Research Network (SSRN). Date accessed August 28, 2017.
  2. ^ "Crypto: The basics". FCA. February 9, 2023. Retrieved July 4, 2023.
  3. ^ Dixon, Lance (December 24, 2013). "Building Bitcoin use in South Florida and beyond". Miami Herald. Retrieved January 24, 2014.
  4. ^ Taylor, Michael Bedford (2013). "Bitcoin and the age of bespoke silicon" (PDF). Proceedings of the 2013 International Conference on Compilers, Architectures and Synthesis for Embedded Systems. Piscataway, NJ: IEEE Press. ISBN 978-1-4799-1400-5. Retrieved January 14, 2014.
  5. ^ a b Steadman, Ian (May 7, 2013). "Wary of Bitcoin? A guide to some other crypto currencies". Wired UK. Condé Nast UK.
  6. ^ "Bitcoin". GitHub.
  7. ^ Hobson, Dominic (2013). "What is Bitcoin?". XRDS: Crossroads, the ACM Magazine for Students. Association for Computing Machinery. 20 (1): 40–44. doi:10.1145/2510124. S2CID 31626630.
  8. ^ Reynard, Cherry (May 25, 2018). "What are the top 10 cryptocurrencies?". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on January 11, 2022. Retrieved October 15, 2018.
  9. ^ Kharpal, Arjun (February 6, 2018). "Over $550 billion of value wiped off cryptocurrencies since their record high just under a month ago". CNBC. Retrieved October 15, 2018.
  10. ^ "Litecoin Project". GitHub.
  11. ^ "vinced/namecoin: Vince's tree – see namecoin/namecoin for main integration tree". GitHub. Retrieved July 24, 2017.
  12. ^ Keller, Levin (March 19, 2011). "Namecoin – a distributed name system based on Bitcoin". Prezi.
  13. ^ "Namecoin on GitHub". GitHub. Retrieved February 4, 2018.
  14. ^ a b "Peercoin project". GitHub.
  15. ^ A History of Dogecoin. Dogecoin Analysis Report. Social Science Research Network (SSRN). Accessed December 28, 2017.
  16. ^ "Intro – Dogecoin # Technical specifications". Dogeco.in. Retrieved December 14, 2013.
  17. ^ S. S. Tyagi, Shaveta Bhatia (2021) Blockchain for Business, John Wiley, p352.
  18. ^ "gridcoin - Overview". GitHub.
  19. ^ Halford, Rob. "Gridcoin: Crypto-Currency using Berkeley Open Infrastructure Network Computing Grid as a Proof Of Work" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on March 5, 2016. Retrieved April 11, 2016.
  20. ^ a b "FAQ · primecoin/primecoin Wiki · GitHub". GitHub. Retrieved January 20, 2014.
  21. ^ "Primecoin integration/staging tree". April 6, 2022 – via GitHub.
  22. ^ Chayka, Kyle (July 2, 2013). "What Comes After Bitcoin?". Pacific Standard. Retrieved January 18, 2014.
  23. ^ Vega, Danny (December 4, 2013). "Ripple's Big Move: Mining Crypto currency with a Purpose". Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Hearst Seattle Media, LLC, a division of The Hearst Corporation.
  24. ^ Simonite, Tom (April 11, 2013). "Big-name investors back effort to build a better Bitcoin". MIT Technology Review. Archived from the original on March 8, 2014. Retrieved January 14, 2014.
  25. ^ "How it works – Ripple Wiki". Archived from the original on December 19, 2013. Retrieved January 20, 2014.
  26. ^ "The XRP Ledger". May 13, 2022 – via GitHub.
  27. ^ "NXT Whitepaper". NxtWiki – Whitepaper. Archived from the original on February 3, 2015. Retrieved December 21, 2014.
  28. ^ "Bitbucket". bitbucket.org.
  29. ^ Casey, Michael J. (March 5, 2014). "Auroracoin already third-biggest cryptocoin–and it's not even out yet". The Wall Street Journal.
  30. ^ "Warning! This is the main development branch". April 15, 2022 – via GitHub.
  31. ^ "Dash Core staging tree 0.17". May 11, 2022 – via GitHub.
  32. ^ "The Neo Project". GitHub.
  33. ^ "Maza Core integration/staging tree". April 28, 2022 – via GitHub.
  34. ^ "Monero". May 13, 2022 – via GitHub.
  35. ^ Mercier Voyer, Stephanie. "Titcoin Is a Brand New Cryptocurrency for Porn Purchases". Vice Magazine. Retrieved June 18, 2014.
  36. ^ "Titcoin integration/staging tree". December 31, 2020 – via GitHub.
  37. ^ "Titcoin Receives Two Web & Tech XBIZ Nominations". Payout Magazine. Retrieved November 18, 2014.
  38. ^ "VERGE Source Code [XVG]". May 11, 2022 – via GitHub.
  39. ^ a b "Stellar.org White Papers" (PDF). Stellar.org.
  40. ^ "Stellar Core". May 12, 2022 – via GitHub.
  41. ^ Charlton, Alistair (February 5, 2014). "Vertcoin: The Soaring Cryptocurrency Set to Surpass Bitcoin". International Business Times. Archived from the original on November 16, 2018. Retrieved February 10, 2020.
  42. ^ "Community-owned Vertcoin is back on the scene". Retrieved October 27, 2021.
  43. ^ "Vertcoin Core integration/staging tree". April 16, 2022 – via GitHub.
  44. ^ Finley, Klint. "Out in the Open: Teenage Hacker Transforms Web Into One Giant Bitcoin Network". Wired. Retrieved July 24, 2017.
  45. ^ "Ethash". Github.com. Retrieved July 24, 2017.
  46. ^ "ethereum". GitHub.
  47. ^ "Ethereum Classic Labs Announces Network Upgrade, Thanos Hard Fork". prweb.com. Retrieved November 26, 2020.
  48. ^ "README/README.md at master". Github.com. Retrieved July 24, 2017.
  49. ^ Adinolfi, Joseph. "Exclusive: Grayscale launches digital-currency fund backed by Silver Lake's co-founder Hutchins". MarketWatch. Retrieved April 27, 2017.
  50. ^ Md Sadek Ferdous; Mohammad Jabed Morshed Chowdhury; Hoque, Mohammad A.; Colman, Alan (January 20, 2020), Blockchain Consensuses Algorithms: A Survey, arXiv:2001.07091, Bibcode:2020arXiv200107091S
  51. ^ "Mystery Shrouds Tether". Bloomberg. December 5, 2017. Retrieved December 27, 2017.
  52. ^ "Tether White Paper" (PDF). Tether. Retrieved December 27, 2017.
  53. ^ Leising, Matthew (June 20, 2018). "Tether Hired Former FBI Director's Law Firm to Vet Finances". Bloomberg. Retrieved June 25, 2018.
  54. ^ a b Ezra Kryill, Erker (April 4, 2019). "Cyberwarfare to cryptocurrency". Elite Plus Magazine. Archived from the original on May 5, 2019. Retrieved May 5, 2019.
  55. ^ "Zcoin Moves Against ASIC Monopoly With Merkle Tree Proof". Finance Magnates. December 6, 2018. Archived from the original on December 6, 2018. Retrieved December 29, 2018.
  56. ^ "Firo". Github. Retrieved January 8, 2021.
  57. ^ Jintana, Panyaarvudh; Kas, Chanwanpen. "Reliable voting TECHNOLOGY". The Nation (Thailand). Archived from the original on December 3, 2018. Retrieved December 29, 2018.
  58. ^ "Zcash 5.0.0". May 12, 2022 – via GitHub.
  59. ^ "Bitcoin Cash Markets and Dillema". CryptoCoinCharts. Retrieved September 14, 2017.
  60. ^ a b "Documentation: EOS.IO Documents". February 10, 2018 – via GitHub.
  61. ^ Kiayias, Aggelos; Russell, Alexander; David, Bernardo; Oliynykov, Roman (2019). Ouroboros: A Provably Secure Proof-of-Stake Blockchain Protocol (PDF) (Technical report). Springer. Retrieved October 25, 2020.
  62. ^ "cardano-node Overview". May 13, 2022 – via GitHub.
  63. ^ Kiayias, Aggelos; Quader, Saad; Russell, Alexander (2020). Consistency of Proof-of-Stake Blockchains with Concurrent Honest Slot Leaders (PDF) (Technical report). IACR. Retrieved October 25, 2020.
  64. ^ Kiayias, Aggelos; Russell, Alexander (2018). Ouroboros-BFT:A Simple Byzantine Fault Tolerant Consensus Protocol (PDF) (Technical report). IACR. Retrieved October 25, 2020.
  65. ^ Blum, Erica; Kiayias, Aggelos; Moore, Cristopher; Quader, Saad; Russel, Alexander (2019). The combinatorics of the longest-chain rule: Linear consistency for proof-of-stake blockchains (PDF) (Technical report). IACR. Retrieved October 25, 2020.
  66. ^ java-tron, tronprotocol, November 17, 2021, retrieved November 18, 2021
  67. ^ "Crypto Startup Raises $28 Million To Combine Public And Private Blockchains For Enterprises". Forbes. Retrieved September 29, 2022.
  68. ^ go-algorand, Algorand, November 17, 2021, retrieved November 18, 2021
  69. ^ "Algorand Protocol Overview". www.algorand.com. Retrieved November 18, 2021.
  70. ^ a b LaPorte, Nicole (September 21, 2021). "BitClout founder 'Diamondhands' reveals himself and explains why social media as we know it is dead". Fast Company. Retrieved November 18, 2021.
  71. ^ bitclout/core, bitclout, July 2, 2021, retrieved July 2, 2021
  72. ^ "FAQ - The BitClout Guide". docs.bitclout.com. Retrieved July 2, 2021.
  73. ^ "Crypto social network BitClout arrives with a bevy of high-profile investors — and skeptics". TechCrunch. March 23, 2021. Retrieved July 2, 2021.
  74. ^ Lester, Caroline (June 9, 2021). "The Dark, Democratizing Power of the Social-Media Stock Market". The New Yorker. Retrieved July 2, 2021.
  75. ^ safemoonprotocol (November 17, 2021), Safemoon.sol, retrieved November 18, 2021
  76. ^ Ray, Tiernan (January 9, 2018). "Kodak CEO: Blockchain Significant, Though Not a Doubling in Stock Price". Barrons. Retrieved January 11, 2018.
  77. ^ "Onix's white paper" (PDF). www.onixcoin.com. January 13, 2018. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 14, 2018. Retrieved January 13, 2018.
  78. ^ "Onix Project". GitHub.
  79. ^ Ellsworth, Brian (August 30, 2018). "Special Report: In Venezuela, new cryptocurrency is nowhere to be found". Reuters. Retrieved August 30, 2018. The coin is not sold on any major cryptocurrency exchange. No shops are known to accept it.
Category