Currencies

This page is designed to help the newcomer to cryptocurrencies better understand the options and currencies currently trading. For the initiated, we understand there are broad oversimplified explanations here, but we all need to start someplace and at Crypto Pros we believe the broader the adoption of cryptocurrencies the better! If you are looking for a more in-depth analysis of the current active currencies, check back soon for Cryptocurrencies 201.

Cryptocurrencies 101

Cryptocurrencies (also called cryptocoins and altcoins) are a digital or virtual form of currency, or if you like, digital money. Commonly called coins, such as in Bitcoin or Litecoin, these are not in actuality physical coins at all, although one can print out QRC codes of the private keys that represent ownership of a coin or a series of coins...more on that when we define wallets later in this article.

The first true cryptocurrency began trading in 2009, this was Bitcoin (symbol: BTC) and is arguably the gold standard of cryptocurrencies. So much so that most of today's media and uninitiated call the entire realm of cryptocurrencies Bitcoin. Spend some time following the exchanges (see our exchange page) and it will become clear to you that for all intensive purposes, the value of the other cryptocurrencies tend to fluctuate in direct accordance to the market value of BTC, the higher volume ones such as Litecoin (symbol: LTC) act as if they are pegged to BTC.

There are in fact somewhere over 150+ active cryptocurrencies, though the majority of these have little to no traction in the marketplace, and some of which have names that are hard to take seriously such as SexCoin and BBQcoin. If you enjoy trading penny stocks you might enjoy exploring some of these, we at Crypto Pros tend to stick to the major currencies listed below though we are always evaluating the newcomers.

The creation of these currencies, and the transactions involving them such as payments for good and services, and market trades against other currencies, both digital and fiat, are transacted through the open peer-to-peer distributed, decentralized structure of the internet. What this means is that there is no governing body such as the U.S. Federal Reserve setting policy or controlling the flow of cryptocurrencies, they are, for the most part, protected from the failed monetary policies and regulations that have crippled economies all over the globe. Cryptocurrencies are transboarder, belonging to no government, owned by no entity, controlled by no authority beyond the founding organization initial, and openly published layout of the scheme used to launch and distribute the currency. To protect against inflation, most cryptocurrencies are designed to release units of the currency over a specific time period with a cap as to how much will ultimately be released.

The strength of the cryptology technology used, and the logic and strategy of the overall rollout of the currency is paramount in establishing the value and potential success of the individual currencies.

Of course that is an oversimplification, but it serves our purposes in this article.

Now lets take a look at the leading cryptocurrencies we at Crypto Pros suggest you become familiar with, not so incidentally, they have the highest volume and liquidity.

Bitcoin (symbol: BTC)

As stated above, Bitcoin is the leading currency that most other currencies are valued against. Bitcoin has the highest volume and as of mid December 2013 the highest value per coin. Bitcoin uses peer-to-peer technology to operate with no central authority or banks; managing transactions and the issuing of bitcoins is carried out collectively by the network. Bitcoin is open-source; its design is public, nobody owns or controls Bitcoin and everyone can take part. Through many of its unique properties, Bitcoin allows exciting uses that could not be covered by any previous payment system.

http://bitcoin.org/
coin supply 21 million coins will be available
hashing algorithm SHA256d
Launch Date: January 3rd, 2009

Litecoin (symbol: LTC)

Litecoin is a peer-to-peer Internet currency that enables instant payments to anyone in the world. It is based on the Bitcoin protocol but differs from Bitcoin in that it can be efficiently mined with consumer-grade hardware. Litecoin provides faster transaction confirmations (2.5 minutes on average) and uses a memory-hard, scrypt-based mining proof-of-work algorithm to target the regular computers and GPUs most people already have. The Litecoin network is scheduled to produce 84 million currency units.

One of the aims of Litecoin was to provide a mining algorithm that could run at the same time, on the same hardware used to mine bitcoins. With the rise of specialized ASICs for Bitcoin, Litecoin continues to satisfy these goals. It is unlikely for ASIC mining to be developed for Litecoin until the currency is widely used.

http://litecoin.org/
coin supply 84 million coins will be available
hashing algorithm scrypt
Launch Date: October 2011

Peercoin or PPCoin (symbol: PPC)

A peer-to-peer crypto-currency design derived from Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin.

Proof-of-stake replaces proof-of-work to provide most of the network security.
Under this hybrid design proof-of-work mainly provides initial minting and is
largely non-essential in the long run. Security level of the network is not
dependent on energy consumption in the long term thus providing an energyefficient
and more cost-competitive peer-to-peer crypto-currency. Proof-of-stake
is based on coin age and generated by each node via a hashing scheme bearing
similarity to Bitcoin’s but over limited search space. Block chain history and
transaction settlement are further protected by a centrally broadcasted checkpoint
mechanism.

http://www.peercoin.net
Coin supply non-deterministic coins will be available
hashing algorithm SHA-256
Launch Date: approx August 19th, 2012

Namecoin (symbol: NMC)

Namecoin is a decentralized generic name/value datastore system based on Bitcoin technology (a decentralized cryptocurrency). The Namecoin network is created by the open source Namecoin software ("client"). It allows you to:

Securely register and transfer arbitrary names (censorship resistant)
Attach values to the names (currently up to 1023 bytes)
Transact Namecoins, the digital currency NMC

http://namecoin.info/
coin supply 21 million coins will be available
hashing algorithm SHA256d
Launch Date: April 18, 2011

Primecoin (symbol: XPM)

Primecoin is an innovative cryptocurrency, a form of digital currency secured by cryptography and issued through a decentralized mining market. Derived from Satoshi Nakamoto's Bitcoin, Primecoin introduces an unique form of proof-of-work based on prime numbers, and is the first cryptocurrency in the world designed with scientific computing as its work.

http://primecoin.org
coin supply 21 million coins will be available
Proof-of-work: Cunningham Chain
Launch Date: July 7th, 2013

Other coins to keep an eye on: