Cryptocurrency is part of the future of money, but that doesn’t mean much if you don’t know how to understand a crypto, how to gauge its potential, or know the metrics that you need to watch out for. But for people who are just starting off, here’s a primer to get you started on your research. If you can’t or don’t want to do your own research, then you can focus on these five cryptos.
- A = Avalanche
- B = Bitcoin
- C = Chainlink
- D = Decentraland
- E = Ether
Now let’s take a quick dive into these 5 cryptos. But before that I want you to read the crypto metrics we discussed before. And some things to remember — the figures mentioned are as of 19 November 2021 and have been rounded off. Market cap = Current Price x Circulating Supply. And Volume (24h) is the fiat value of this crypto traded over the last 24 hours.
A = Avalanche (AVAX)
Avalanche is one of the largest Decentralised Finance (DeFi) blockchains. What I like the most about it is that it lets me launch customized private and public blockchains.
Avalanche has an amazing transactional throughput of 4500 tps. The others are very low in comparison – Bitcoin (7 tps), Ethereum (14 tps), Polkadot (1500 tps).
AVAX is Avalanche’s native token and it can be used for staking, paying fees, and providing a unit of account between the multiple subnetworks created on Avalanche.
Some of the core AVAX metrics are:
| Price | $103 |
| All-time high | $ 110.31 |
| All-time low | $ 2.79 |
| Market cap | $22.8 billion |
| Volume | $1.9 billion |
B = Bitcoin (BTC)
Bitcoin (BTC) is the world’s first and largest cryptocurrency. In fact, the word “blockchain” is derived from its whitepaper. In September 2021, El Salvador became the world’s first country to recognize Bitcoin as a legal tender.
Today a lot of top financial institutions and large companies are beginning to hold and trade in Bitcoin. We have seen the emergence of Bitcoin ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds). Many people are also considering Bitcoin to become a store of value and exceed the market capitalisation of gold.
Bitcoin has not been pre-mined, meaning that no coins have been distributed between the founders before Bitcoin became available to the public.
Some of the core BTC metrics are:
| Price | $ 56,920 |
| All-time high | $ 68,789.63 |
| All-time low | $ 65.53 |
| Market cap | $ 1 trillion |
| Volume | $ 43 billion |
C = Chainlink (LINK)
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The problem that Oracles solve is this – “How can a smart contract get data from the outside world?”. Oracles act as middleware between smart contracts and external sources of data. Chainlink is a decentralized network of independent oracle node operators.
LINK is the crypto token that is used for paying Chainlink node operators for providing oracle services.
Some of the core LINK metrics are:
| Price | $ 27 |
| All-time high | $ 52.88 |
| All-time low | $ 0.1263 |
| Market cap | $ 12.8 billion |
| Volume | $ 1.2 billion |
D = Decentraland (MANA)
The metaverse is a parallel “digital universe” where you could create your digital avatar and do all sorts of cool stuff – learn, play, party, and more! Decentraland is building some really cool things in the metaverse and has 2 cryptos – MANA and LAND.
MANA is an ERC20 fungible token that can be spent for buying LAND which is an ERC-721 (non-fungible) Ethereum token. Other than virtual land, you can also buy avatars, wearables, and even names on the Decentraland marketplace.
Some of the core MANA metrics are:
| Price | $3.96 |
| All-time high | $4.69 |
| All-time low | $0.007883 |
| Market cap | $8.7 billion |
| Volume | $7.1 billion |
E = Ether (ETH)
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Ethereum is neither a blockchain nor a cryptocurrency — it’s a protocol (a set of rules or procedures). The original Ethereum-powered public blockchain split into two blockchains – Ethereum and Ethereum Classic — after the 2016 Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) hack.
The Ethereum public blockchain is the world’s largest and most popular Decentralised Finance (DeFi) platform and its native crypto is Ether (ETH). ETH is the fuel for the execution of decentralized smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain.
Some of the core ETH metrics are:
| Price | $4,146 |
| All-time high | $4,869.5 |
| All-time low | $0.4209 |
| Market cap | $492 billion |
| Volume | $23.4 billion |
Rohas Nagpal is the author of the Future Money Playbook and Chief Blockchain Architect at the Wrapped Asset Project. He is also an amateur boxer and a retired hacker. You can follow him on LinkedIn.
Interested in cryptocurrency? We discuss all things crypto with WazirX CEO Nischal Shetty and WeekendInvesting founder Alok Jain on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
Cryptocurrency is an unregulated digital currency, not a legal tender and subject to market risks. The information provided in the article is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice, trading advice or any other advice or recommendation of any sort offered or endorsed by NDTV. NDTV shall not be responsible for any loss arising from any investment based on any perceived recommendation, forecast or any other information contained in the article.