Cryptocurrencies

The Ethereum merge has been in the works for seven years. It’s been a big deal for ethereum, and big-time investors have put their money… Read More »The Ethereum Merge Explained

The European Union wishes to investigate Libra, Facebook’s cryptocurrency, to determine whether it does not violate the anti-competitive rules in force in Europe. The information… Read More »The EU will launch an antitrust investigation into Libra, Facebook’s cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrencies are virtual currencies which operate independently of government or banks but can still be exchanged just like any other physical currency. With the launch of bitcoin, the first decentralized cryptocurrency can into existence. Although, bitcoin remains on the top, there are many more currencies which could be challenging the leader such as bitcoin cash, bitcoin gold, ether, ripple, stellar and NEO, as they are slowly rising to demand, expanding applications and advancing their technologies. These are very important, especially if you are a cryptocurrency trader. These cryptocurrencies give vital clues on how to supply and demand for each coin, which might change over time. These traders, in turn, influence market prices and learn how to trade cryptocurrencies.

Supply: Circulating supply and upper limit

The supply of crypto coins plays an important role in setting market prices, which means the scarce the coins, the more value they have. Bitcoin has an upper limit of 21 million coins, while ripple has 100 million. These coins will deflate as they are mined and released. But with coins like ether, that has no fixed limit; the potential depends on how much it is burnt or lost.

Cryptocurrency mining and release rates

Mining is a process where blocks of transactions are verified and these supply of coins changes over time with them being mined and released. Bitcoin is generally mined at 12.5 new coins for every verified block with the reward cuts to half every four years. Ripple coins can be pre-mined and are currently released at a rate of one billion per month.

Demand : Reputation

There are many new competitors in the market and the value of bitcoin has increased over the last few years and still remains one of the best biggest cryptocurrency in the market. This suggests that cryptocurrency can remain an important factor in valuations but with the negative press can lead to a negative impact on prices

Decentralized applications

Bitcoin is a standalone, but ripple has wider networks with expanded applications. If popularity increases the mainstream demand for cryptocurrencies will also increase.

Transaction speed and scalability

As the speed of people adopting cryptocurrency increases the transaction speed also increases with a high volume of transactions. The scalability can also influence blockchains size and security; these factors will influence the profitability of mining and the speed of the associated network and willingness to buy the coins as well as use it. Traders can pay attention to software networks and updates to see how scalability evolves.

The bottom line

Although bitcoin is leading the way to other cryptocurrencies, virtual currencies such as ethereum and ripple are rising among users and becoming popular and might also show more advanced features that bitcoin. But still, traders will look for the coins which can bring in a lot of users due to which traders have to keep a keen on different types of cryptocurrency to ensure their success.