Today the world of crypto assets is much broader. There is a wide variety of coins and tokens with use cases that go well beyond a medium of exchange, meaning they aren’t necessarily Bitcoin competitors.
Here’s a look at the top 10 altcoins by market capitalization,
1. Ethereum (ETH)
• Market cap: $222.4 billion
Of the $1.25 trillion that represents the total market capitalization of the more than 26,000 crypto assets available today, more than $200 billion is held in Ethereum, the biggest altcoin on the market.
2. Binance Coin (BNB)
• Market cap: $37.4 billion
Binance Coin is a utility token that can be used to pay trading fees and get discounted trades on the Binance exchange. You can even use BNB outside the Binance crypto exchange for payment processing, such as booking travel arrangements.
3. XRP (XRP)
• Market cap: $33.2 billion
XRP can be used to facilitate exchanges of different currency types with digital technology and payment processing company Ripple Labs. Although this altcoin has extremely low transaction fees, critics note it faces legal challenges.
4. Dogecoin (DOGE)
• Market cap: $10.7 billion
Dogecoin is the original meme coin, famously started as a joke in 2013. Nevertheless, thanks to a dedicated community and creative memes, it has rapidly evolved into a prominent cryptocurrency.
5. Cardano (ADA)
• Market cap: $10.2 billion
Cardano was an early adopter of the proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, which speeds up transaction time by removing the competitive and energy-intensive problem-solving dimension of platforms like Bitcoin.
6. Solana (SOL)
• Market cap: $10.2 billion
Developed to help power decentralized finance and apps as well as smart contracts, Solana runs on a unique hybrid proof-of-stake and proof-of-history mechanisms to process transactions quickly and securely.
7. Tron (TRX)
• Market cap: $6.9 billion
Tron was founded in Singapore in 2017. By December 2021, what had started as a decentralized blockchain had grown into a fully decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). Today, Tron has more than 167 million accounts.
8. Litecoin (LTC)
• Market cap: $6.3 billion
Litecoin is one of the original altcoins, designed to improve several of Bitcoin’s perceived shortcomings, such as slow transaction processing speeds and mining monopolies. LTC is built to be used in everyday transactions, whereas Bitcoin has evolved into more of a “store of value.”
9. Polygon (MATIC)
• Market cap: $6.3 billion
Polygon is an Ethereum-based scaling platform that allows developers to build dApps with low transaction fees.
10. Polkadot (DOT)
• Market cap: $6.1 billion
This altcoin powers the Polkadot ecosystem, where developers can build specific-purpose blockchains as spokes connecting to the main Polkadot blockchain hub, says Max Thake, co-founder of peaq, a blockchain network built on Polkadot. DOT is the native token for Polkadot.