Cryptocurrencies have seen a crash in the last few weeks. S&P 500 and NIFTY 50 have also gone down a little in the last week. The FED has announced that they are not going to change the interest rates which is positive news for the moment. NFTs have been gaining volume recently and many new collections have been launching at premium prices to the mint price.
The global cryptocurrency market cap stands at $1.82 trillion. We are at the end of the month and here are the top 10 cryptocurrencies in January 2022.
1. Bitcoin(BTC)
- Market cap: Over $704 billion
Bitcoin was created by Satoshi Nakamoto, an anonymous person or a group of persons, in 2009. Bitcoin is the first-ever cryptocurrency. Bitcoin was created as a peer-to-peer digital currency and runs on blockchain technology. Blockchain is used to store bitcoin transactions. Bitcoin network is practically impossible to hack as Bitcoin miners solve complex cryptographic puzzles to secure the network.
Bitcoin has been adopted as a legal tender in El Salvador. Arizona has proposed a bill to make Bitcoin a legal tender. Tesla has bought $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin in 2021. An analytics firm, Microstrategy holds 124,391 bitcoins as of December 2021.
Bitcoin has gained a lot of popularity when it went from $5000 to $63,000 from March 2020 to April 2021. The current price of Bitcoin is $37,185. Bitcoin is down 44% from its all-time-high price of $69,000 on November 10th.
2. Ethereum(ETH)
- Market cap: Over $300 billion
Ethereum is a programmable blockchain on which cryptocurrency tokens and decentralized applications(dapps) can be built. Smart contracts, the self-executing programs are used in dapps. Ether is the native currency of the Ethereum blockchain and it is used to pay transaction fees on Ethereum.
Due to the recent boom of decentralized exchanges and NFTs, Ethereum has gained in price and number of users. In March 2020, the price of ETH was about $120. It is now more than $2500, which is a 2,000% gain.
3. Tether(USDT)
- Market cap: Over $78 billion
Tether is a stable coin. Tether is backed by the US dollar and pegged 1:1 with the USD. The value of Tether is always equal to one dollar. The value does not change whatever the condition the crypto market is in. Stable coins are used to generate yields, which are more than the bank interest rates.
4. Binance Coin(BNB)
- Market cap: Over $62 billion
Binance Coin is used to pay trade fees and get discounts on Binance exchange. Binance is the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world. BNB is also used to participate in the Binance Launchpad program.
Binance coin is also used to pay transaction fees on Binance Smart Chain(BSC), which is the Ethereum competitor. Fees on BSC are low compared to that on Ethereum.
Binance coin was launched at a price of $0.1 in 2017. It is currently trading around $371, which is a gain of about 371,000%.
5. USD Coin(USDC)
- Market cap: Over $49 billion
USDC is another stable coin pegged to the US dollar. USDC is issued by a company called Circle. USDC is fully backed by cash and equivalents so that they are always redeemable 1:1 for USD.
USDC is available on all major blockchains like Ethereum, Solana, Tron, and Avalanche.
6. Cardano(ADA)
- Market cap: Over $32 billion
Cardano is another smart contracts platform. Cardano is trying to build a cheap and scalable blockchain for decentralized applications. Cardano uses Proof-of-Stake consensus which is more energy-efficient than Proof-of-Work of Ethereum.
ADA is the native token of the Cardano blockchain. ADA is used to facilitate transactions on the Cardano blockchain. ADA has returned about 5900% returns in between Mar 2020 and Sep 2021. The current price of ADA is $1.02.
7. Solana(SOL)
- Market cap: Over $28 billion
Solana is a blockchain project similar to Ethereum. Solana processes many transactions per second and is cheaper than Ethereum. Solana also has smart contract capabilities to build decentralized finance applications and NFTs on its blockchain.
SOL is the native token of the Solana blockchain. SOL was trading below $2 in Mar 2020. It reached an all-time high price of $260 in Nov 2021. Currently, SOL is trading a little over $90.
8. Ripple(XRP)
- Market cap: Over $28 billion
Ripple is a blockchain-based global payment network. XRP is the cryptocurrency used on the Ripple blockchain. Ripple transactions are very fast and fees are very low. Transactions are settled within seconds and cost only a few cents.
From June 2020 to April 2021, the price of XRP gained from $0.2 to $1.84, which is a return of over 800%. The current price of XRP is $0.58.
9. Polkadot(DOT)
- Market cap: Over $18 billion
Polkadot is an open-source blockchain platform for distributed computing. Polkadot aims to improve blockchain scalability and adoption. Polkadot aims to connect different specialized blockchains into a single network that runs on parallel chains known as Parachains.
DOT is the native token of the Polkadot ecosystem. DOT has returned over 2000% in the last year. DOT is currently trading over $17.
10. Dogecoin(DOGE)
- Market cap: Over $18 billion
Dogecoin is the most popular cryptocurrency in 2021. Elon Musk has been often engaged in tweets on Dogecoin. Dogecoin was a fork of Litecoin. Dogecoin was created based on a popular Doge meme in 2013.
DOGE has gained an astronomical 23,200% between Aug 2020 and May 2021. DOGE hit an all-time high price of $0.7 in May 2021. The current price of DOGE is $0.138.
*Market caps and prices as of Jan 31, 2022.
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