Bitcoin and Its Four Major Rivals

Not all cryptocurrencies are created equal. In most cases, the common element is the use of Blockchain technology. Each one has particular characteristics that make them unique and, ultimately, influence how attractive or popular they are within the crypto market. Investing and profiting from cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin can be achieved on platforms like it.bitcoin-profitapp where even the novice can create wealth.

Since the origins of this technology, which is revolutionizing the way we conceive money and finance globally, Bitcoin has stood out as the most popular, although there are many more. In this opportunity, we present some of the main characteristics of Bitcoin to be able to trace some differences between four of the leading cryptocurrencies: Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ripple’s XRP and Litecoin (LTC).

Bitcoin (BTC) is the first of the cryptocurrencies to have emerged in the world. Since its inception in 2009, Bitcoin represented Blockchain technology’s genesis and has become the most popular and highest-value cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin is an open-source software project, which means that anyone can review and make changes to the code. It operates under a proof of work (PoW) system that prevents double expenses and achieves consensus among all the nodes that make up the Blockchain network. The creation of new Bitcoin units occurs approximately every 10 minutes through the resolution of complex mathematical calculations, a process known as mining. This activity generates rewards for miners, which were initially BTC 50. But every 210,000 mined blocks (approximately every four years), this reward is halved in an event called Halving.

Bitcoin experienced its third Halving this year, leaving miners the block reward at BTC 6.25. Another of its main characteristics is that the issuance of BTC is limited. It has a maximum of 21 million coins, and it is estimated that the last Bitcoin will be mined by the year 2140. For many people, this BTC configuration that ensures the progressive difficulty of extraction and its future shortage is what gives it so much value. In 2017, BTC posted its highest historical price near $ 20,000. In terms of adoption, by 2020, nearly 50 million BTC wallet addresses have been created, and more than 19,000 merchants worldwide accept it as a form of payment.
Differences between Bitcoin and top 4 cryptocurrencies

Launched in 2015, Ethereum or Ether (ETH) is the native cryptocurrency of Ethereum, one of the most critical Blockchain platforms in the crypto ecosystem. Ethereum has unique features. These include the ability to integrate, create, and use smart contacts, and create new tokens and implement decentralized applications (dApps), making it a robust multipurpose Blockchain. The native currency of this network is called Ether (ETH), and it is the second in the world according to its market capitalization. Unlike Bitcoin, it is not a deflationary currency. Its total emission is unlimited, although it is programmed to create only 18 million ethers a year.

Ethereum’s rapid block production allows it to have a higher speed than Bitcoin when confirming transactions. Furthermore, this is a continually evolving Blockchain. One of the essential changes expected this year is the Ethereum 2.0 update that will take a step towards a Proof of Participation (PoS) consensus protocol. Unlike Bitcoin, where the block size is limited to 1 MB, in Ethereum, its size is limited to a specific amount of Gas, which is the cost of carrying out operations on that network.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is another popular cryptocurrency, created in 2017 from Bitcoin’s first hard fork. Originally, BCH arose due to a series of significant changes implemented in the Bitcoin network. Among them is the reduction in commissions for each transaction. And the increase in the size of the blocks from 1 MB to 8 MB stands out. Since then, BCH developers have updated the block size to 32MB, which hosts up to 40,000 transactions. Bitcoin Cash is an asset that is very popular among users, possibly due to its place in the top 10 cryptocurrencies. While it maintains many of Bitcoin’s fundamentals, it has better scalability terms and faster and less expensive transactions than BTC.

Ripple (XRP) is the centralized cryptocurrency created by the company Ripple Labs in 2012. Ripple’s currency is designed as a solution aimed at banks and financial entities.