The Ethereum Merge Is Complete: From PoW to PoS

The Ethereum Merge Is Complete: From PoW to PoS

by | Sep 16, 2022 | Ethereum, News

The upgrade from a proof-of-work (PoW) to a proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain is now completed. What does this mean for the first programmable blockchain? 

On September 15, 2022, after years of development, Ethereum’s developers completed the Merge – the upgrade from a proof-of-work (PoW) to a proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain. The PoS network is expected to power a more energy-efficient blockchain while reducing transaction fees and improving scalability. 

Potentially, the payoff could be huge. Ethereum should now use 99.9% less energy. According to one estimate, Ethereum’s energy consumption dropped from 77.77 TWh on September 14 to 0.01 TWh on September 16, 2022. 

The Ethereum Merge Is Complete: From PoW to PoS

The developers of Ethereum claim that the upgrade will bring the network, which houses many cryptocurrency tokens, to a more scalable and secure state. Ethereum’s TVL (Total Value Locked) is at about $30 billion, considering all its DeFi apps – DEXs, lending protocols, NFT marketplaces, and other apps.

The Ethereum Merge was completed at 7 a.m. UTC. However, the price of Ether (ETH) started to slowly decrease, dropping by 12% on the first day after the Merge. Ether’s price started a downtrend, and many investors are bearish.  

PoS Ethereum = no more ETH miners

In 2008, when Bitcoin was created, it introduced the concept of a decentralized ledger –  a single immutable record that computers all over the globe could access and trust without intermediaries.

In 2015, Ethereum was introduced. It expanded on the core concepts of Bitcoin’s blockchain by adding smart contracts. These smart contracts are bits of code that use the blockchain to record data onto its network and trigger automated transactions when certain pre-defined conditions are met. This innovation was key to decentralized financing (DeFi) and NFTs, which were the major catalysts for the recent crypto boom.

On Ethereum’s proof-of-work (PoW) network, crypto miners were responsible for verifying transactions and adding new blocks to the blockchain in exchange for rewards paid in ETH. These blockchain operations required miners to invest in expensive hardware equipment that was capable of solving the required cryptographic puzzles – hence the intensive energy consumption of the network. 

Ethereum miners were often organized in farms, which were actually huge buildings filled with mining equipment, similar to data centers, which were a huge strain on any energy network.  

PoS Ethereum

The new proof-of-stake system for Ethereum, which is a blockchain-based cryptocurrency, completely eliminates mining.

Miners are now replaced by validators. To become an Ethereum Validator, you must stake 32 ETH on the network. This means that maintaining Ethereum’s network security will not rely anymore on an energy-intensive computer network but the value of ETH stakes. It will require a similar level of electricity as any other computer software. 

Proof-of-stake is a system where the staked amount of ETH – and not the energy expended – determines who has control of the network. This makes attacks more costly and self-destructive, according to proof-of-stake boosters. Attackers can have their staked Ethereum slashed or reduced as punishment for trying to harm the network.

However, some are skeptical about the proof-of-stake security. There are no indications that Bitcoin, for example, will ever abandon the proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism, as it is still seen as the more secure system. 

Now, Ethereum’s security relies on stakers

The upgrade to a PoS blockchain ends the network’s dependence on energy-intensive cryptocurrency mining.

The idea that Ethereum would eventually switch to proof of stake was clear from the beginning. However, the transition was complicated and risky. Many people doubted that it would ever happen.

The complexity of the update was exacerbated by the fact it was one of the most complex open-source software projects in history. It required coordination among dozens of teams as well as volunteers, researchers, and developers.

Tim Beiko, an Ethereum foundation developer, played a crucial role in the coordination of the update. He believed that more investors would become interested in crypto after this monumental milestone in the crypto universe. 

Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s creator, suggested that there’s still a long way ahead for the network: “This is the first step in Ethereum’s big journey towards being a very mature system, but there are still steps left to go.” 

What Will Happen to Miners After the Ethereum Merge Is Complete

What Will Happen to Miners After the Ethereum Merge Is Complete

by | Aug 4, 2022 | Ethereum, News

Ethereum miners will need to switch course as soon as September, when the network will no longer require miners to validate transactions and create new blocks. They might consider mining other cryptocurrencies or even give up completely. 

After The Merge, the Ethereum miners will no longer be part of the network participants, and they will have to shift their use of the network. The roles of Ethereum miners will now be obsolete, and they are forced to find alternative income streams. 

The sudden change took, in fact, years of research and development, but after The Merge, Ethereum will finally be described as a safer, energy-efficient, and scalable blockchain network. 

After the Ethereum network moved to a Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism (PoS), it is now that Ethereum miners face a sudden change. Their role effectively ends, and they are forced to look for alternative income streams.

This historical moment for the Ethereum community, known as the “The Merge,” is expected to take place on September 15th, 2022, but might take place even sooner. 

What’s the Ethereum Merge?

The Ethereum Merge is the switch from a Proof-of-Work (PoW) to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. In plain English, a PoS blockchain doesn’t require miners (aka energy-intensive computers) to validate transactions and create new blocks but replies on stakers and validators.  

This will have many benefits, including the elimination of energy-intensive mining. To secure the network, the network will instead use staking.

Over the years, as more applications have been deployed on Ethereum, users have been hit with high transaction fees, low scalability, and even network congestion. But all of these are expected to change in the near future. 

When complete, the Merge will eliminate Ethereum’s high gas fees, improve scalability and security, and provide greater sustainability.

What will happen to Ethereum miners?

Since its creation, Ethereum has relied on GPU (graphics processing unit) rigs to perform the process of Ethereum mining. They are more flexible than the ones used for bitcoin mining, and can be reconfigured to mine other coins more easily. GPUs are used by gamers but can also be used to mine other cryptos such as Ergo, Ravencoin, and Ethereum Classic.

But as Ethereum is being upgraded, all these miners will have to either start mining other coins or give up crypto mining entirely. It’s worth noting that a profitable mining rig costs more than $1,000, and the operation’s success relies on the cost of electricity, which has also gone up dramatically since the beginning of 2022. 

In the past, Ethereum mining was very popular due to its profitability. However, miners will have to switch course and employ their GPUs on other blockchains. While a shift to mining other cryptocurrencies could result in a decrease in profits in the short term, it still represents income for owners of these expensive mining rigs. 

One of the biggest beneficiaries of the switch could be Ethereum Classic (ETC), as some expect many of the Ethereum miners to turn to Ethereum Classic. It’s worth noting that the ETC hashrate has started to rise since July. Some investors might even view Ethereum Classic as a hedge against potential disruptions in Ethereum’s blockchain during the transition from PoW-to-PoS. 

Can Ethereum miners switch to Bitcoin mining? Not really, because the two networks use different mining algorithms. Bitcoin requires ASIC-compatible hardware, which has a higher performance, but it’s also more energy intensive. ETH, on the other hand,  uses a mining algorithm called “Ethash,” which was designed to be ASIC-resistant.

After Ethereum moves to PoS, the most likely outcome is that miners will distribute their rigs among different networks that support GPU mining.

Vitalik Buterin at EthCC Paris 2022: The Upcoming ‘Merge’ and ‘Surge’ 

Vitalik Buterin at EthCC Paris 2022: The Upcoming ‘Merge’ and ‘Surge’ 

by | Jul 22, 2022 | Ethereum, News

Ethereum’s co-founder presented the future of Ethereum at the EthCC Paris 2022 conference. 

In July 2022, took place the 5th Paris Community Conference, during which Vitalk Buterin presented the long-term road map for Ethereum. 

At the developer-focused conference, Buterin spoke about the “Merge,” in which Ethereum will undergo a complete transition from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS). 

What’s next to come for Ethereum?

Buterin spoke about the Merge’s short-term and long-term outcomes. He stated that the network’s roadmap also includes the “Surge”, which will increase the scalability of rollups through sharding.

According to Buterin’s statements, Ethereum would be much more scalable after the completion of the road map. When everything is complete, Ethereum will be capable of processing 100,000 transactions per minute.

Ethereum’s overall network development will be at 55% completion once the Merge is completed. That means that there is still much work ahead for developers.

Buterin stated that the network’s deep changes would include an update to its monetary policies and token issuance, as well as its security model, transaction inclusion, and its security model.

It is hard to pursue these decentralized goals due to the network’s complexity and rapid changes. He said that everyone had been anticipating these network upgrades for a while.

When Vitalik asked the crowd, “Who wants to cancel proof-of-stake?” – he did not raise a hand.

He joked, “Even though you want to, it’s not going to be canceled.”

Ether has been trading at around $1,500 and up 34% in the last month.

Buterin spoke at last year’s EthCC and stated that Ethereum needed to go beyond decentralized finance (DeFi).

The conference was busiest on Thursday (July 21st), according to many conference attendees. Many said that Buterin’s talk would make Thursday the most memorable day.

What is the “Merge” for Ethereum?

It’s a known fact that the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains use the proof-of-work (PoW) consensus algorithm to secure their networks. This allows miners to compete to secure it by solving complicated computational puzzles. However, it has been criticized for its high energy consumption.

But there’s an alternative to that, and it’s called proof-of-stake (PoS). This is a version of the protocol that has been adopted by chains such as Solana or Tezos, and it replaces miners with validators. In the case of Ethereum, the PoS Eth will have validators stake 32 ETH on the Ethereum network, and each one can be randomly selected to add blocks to the chain.

In both of these mechanisms, PoW and PoS, adding blocks to a chain usually grant rewards to the block issuer.

The Ethereum roadmap has been hinting on this upgrade from PoW since 2015, but engineering complexities have caused this shift (Ethereum 2.0) to drag out for several years.

Although the Merge will not reduce Ethereum’s high fees or improve the transaction speeds, it will have an immediate impact on Ethereum’s energy consumption.

As of July 2022, Ethereum’s Sepolia testnet switched to PoS. Goerli will be the third and final public testnet to go through the Merge process. It will take place on Aug. 11. The next Ethereum Foundation All-Core Developers conference will determine the parameters that will trigger the test. These testnet mergers were used as a kind of dress rehearsal for the real thing, and each moved developers one step closer to Ethereum’s mainnet PoS update.

When is the Ethereum merge going to happen?

Tim Beiko, from the Ethereum Foundation, predicted that the Merge could take place around September 19th 2022.

The Merge will see Ethereum move from an energy-intensive proof of work (POW), a consensus mechanism that was brought forward by Bitcoin, to a more efficient proof-of-stake system (PoS). Some PoS proponents believe that switching to other mechanisms will bring security and scaling benefits, in addition to cutting down the network’s energy consumption by 99.95%.

Beiko, an Ethereum protocol engineer, gave his September estimate during a PoS implementers call. Beiko provided a timeline and a date for the Merge, as well as a possible date.

Although he did not offer a hard date for the Merge, but Beiko repeatedly pointed out – on Discord and Twitter – that it is very likely that things will change.

Is the ETH Stolen From Crypto.com Accounts Laundered via Tornado Cash?

Is the ETH Stolen From Crypto.com Accounts Laundered via Tornado Cash?

by | Jan 18, 2022 | Ethereum, News

Crypto.com has stopped withdrawals on the platform for a few hours to investigate suspicious withdrawals. Supposably, the stolen funds have then been laundered through the Ethereum coin mixer, Tornado Cash. 

Crypto.com suspends withdrawals 

On January 17, a new threat has been detected on one of the most popular cryptocurrency exchanges. According to the official Crypto.com Twitter account, the platform disabled withdrawals for all users, to investigate a suspicious activity reported by a group of users. 

While the exchange didn’t give many details about the “unauthorized activity” that has been reported, it did mention that all funds are safe and that this is a mere safety precaution. 

The exchange sent out an update several hours later advising users to sign back in and reset their two-factor authentication (2FA). A few hours later, at 4 pm UTC time, CEO Kris Marszalek tweets that final checks and that withdrawals will be resumed within the next 30-60 minutes.

At around 5:40 pm UTC, Crypto.com announced that users can now withdraw their funds and that all funds are safe, but some delays can be expected. 

While safety is a big concern to custodial cryptocurrency exchanges, including Crypto.com, many investors are suspicious when it comes to such news. During periods of high volatility, crypto exchanges are known to suspend withdrawals or other services when there is a spike in demand. One such instance was in November 2021 when Binance stopped all crypto withdrawals because of a large backlog.

Were funds stolen from Crypto.com?

Dogecoin founder, Billy Markus, was the first to notice on-chain suspicious activity. In fact, there was a pattern in transactions with one wallet receiving multiple transactions. He also asked if the funds were secure and if it was an internal job.

While Crypto.com claims that all funds are secure, many users dispute this claim.

Ben Baller, a crypto enthusiast and famous jeweller, claimed his account was hacked and 4.28 ETH (~$15,000) were stolen. The theft occurred despite the fact that he had a 2-factor authentication. Others have had the same experience and many pointed out that they lost part of their assets from their Crypto.com accounts.

The users have claimed to be missing digital assets from their accounts, including Shiba Inu, Dogecoin, Ether and Bitcoin. Users also noted that even though withdrawals were halted, assets were still disappearing and transactions were being processed.

Customer support has been contacted by a user who claimed that he lost his Bitcoin during the event. However, the exchange has yet to confirm that some users were affected by the incident.

But none of the official channels mentioned anything about this and Crypto.com underlined that all funds remain safe but has introduced new procedures to increase security for all accounts. Users will now need to sign back into the Crypto.com App or Exchange accounts and reset their 2FA.

Crypto stolen from Crypto.com is laundered via Tornado Cash

According to on-chain data, the $15 million worth of ether (4600 ETH), stolen from Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com, is currently being laundered by Tornado Cash, an Ethereum Mixer.

Tornado Cash, an Ethereum mixer protocol, was launched in 2020 and is a service that promises to increase transaction privacy by obscuring any on-chain link between source and receiver of ether. Mixer protocols or cryptocurrency tumblers are sometimes used to conceal identities. However, they are also used to launder funds related to organized crime.

Peck Shield first noticed on-chain data suggesting that the 4,600 ether is being sent through a mixer in batches of 100.

Roman Storm, Tornado Cash’s co-founder, previously stated that the protocol works with regulators. Tornado Cash V2 includes a cryptographic notice in the transaction history for ether sent through its pipes. This note can be used to establish fund provenance. Storm stated that it was very important for us to comply with the regulations and that they’re different from other crypto mixers – “We do what feels right.”

It has been speculated that the total value of lost funds is around $15 million, but some speculated that it’s probably much more. However, some of the funds seem to have found their way back to their owners. 

crypto com stolen funds 2

We’ll probably have to wait and see if all was a big coincidence or if Crypto.com account really did get scammed.

What is a smart contract in the Ethereum blockchain?

What is a smart contract in the Ethereum blockchain?

by | Nov 29, 2018 | Blockchain, Crypto wiki, Ethereum

A smart contract is a computer protocol intended to digitally facilitate, verify, or enforce the negotiation or performance of a contract. Smart contracts allow the performance of credible transactions without third parties. These transactions are trackable and irreversible.

Proponents of smart contracts claim that many kinds of contractual clauses may be made partially or fully self-executing, self-enforcing, or both. The aim of smart contracts is to provide security that is superior to traditional contract law and to reduce other transaction costs associated with contracting. Various cryptocurrencies have implemented types of smart contracts.

Smart contracts were first proposed by Nick Szabo, who coined the term.

With the present implementations, based on blockchains, “smart contract” is mostly used more specifically in the sense of general purpose computation that takes place on a blockchain or distributed ledger.

In this interpretation, used for example by the Ethereum Foundation or IBM, a smart contract is not necessarily related to the classical concept of a contract, but can be any kind of computer program.

In 2018, a US Senate report said: “While smart contracts might sound new, the concept is rooted in basic contract law. Usually, the judicial system adjudicates contractual disputes and enforces terms, but it is also common to have another arbitration method, especially for international transactions. With smart contracts, a program enforces the contract built into the code.”

Implementations

Byzantine fault tolerant algorithms allowed digital security through decentralization to form smart contracts. Additionally, the programming languages with various degrees of  Turing-completeness as a built-in feature of some blockchains make the creation of custom sophisticated logic possible.

Notable examples of implementation of smart contracts are:

  • Bitcoin also provides a Turing-incomplete Script language that allows the creation of custom smart contracts on top of Bitcoin like multisignature accounts, payment channels, escrows, time locks, atomic cross-chain trading, oracles, or multi-party lottery with no operator.
  • Ethereum implements a nearly Turing-complete language on its blockchain, a prominent smart contract framework.
  • RootStock (RSK) is a smart contract platform that is connected to the Bitcoin blockchain through sidechain technology. RSK is compatible with smart contracts created for Ethereum.
  • Ripple (Codius), smart contract development halted in 2015

Replicated titles and contract execution

Szabo proposes that smart contract infrastructure can be implemented by replicated asset registries and contract execution using cryptographic hash chains and Byzantine fault tolerant replication.  Askemos implemented this approach in 2002 using Scheme (later adding SQLite) as contract script language.

One proposal for using bitcoin for replicated asset registration and contract execution is called “colored coins”. Replicated titles for potentially arbitrary forms of property, along with replicated contract execution, are implemented in different projects.

As of 2015, UBS was experimenting with “smart bonds” that use the bitcoin blockchain in which payment streams could hypothetically be fully automated, creating a self-paying instrument.

smart contract

Security issues

A smart contract is “a computerized transaction protocol that executes the terms of a contract”. A blockchain-based smart contract is visible to all users of said blockchain. However, this leads to a situation where bugs, including security holes, are visible to all yet may not be quickly fixed.

Such an attack, difficult to fix quickly, was successfully executed on The DAO in June 2016, draining US$50 million in Ether while developers attempted to come to a solution that would gain consensus. The DAO program had a time delay in place before the hacker could remove the funds; a hard fork of the Ethereum software was done to claw back the funds from the attacker before the time limit expired.

Issues in Ethereum smart contracts, in particular, include ambiguities and easy-but-insecure constructs in its contract language Solidity, compiler bugs, Ethereum Virtual Machine bugs, attacks on the blockchain network, the immutability of bugs and that there is no central source documenting known vulnerabilities, attacks and problematic constructs.

Top 20 Cryptocurrencies (2019)

Top 20 Cryptocurrencies (2019)

by | Oct 15, 2018 | Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, Ethereum, Litecoin

The cryptocurrency market has become crowded, with new cryptocurrencies coming out daily, while old ones disappear faster than ever. Let’s check out the top 20 cryptocurrencies, as they appear on coinmarketcap.com

1. Bitcoin (BTC)

Bitcoin is the king of the crypto world. To most, it’s interchangeable with”cryptocurrency.” Its objective is to extend a peer-to-peer digital model of money to permit payments to be routed online with no necessity for a third party (like Mastercard).

The rapid increase in Bitcoin’s cost has caused an explosion of fresh Bitcoin investors. With the massive growth in interest has come an increase in retailers accepting Bitcoin as a valid type of payment. Bitcoin is quickly moving towards its objective of being a currency accepted globally.

Read more on What is Bitcoin?

2. Ethereum (ETH)

Ethereum is the revolutionary platform that brought the concept of “smart contracts” into the blockchain. First released in July 2015 by then 21-year-old Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum has quickly risen from obscurity into cryptocurrency celebrity status.

Buterin has a complete team of developers working supporting him to further develop the Ethereum platform.

Ethereum has the power to process transactions quickly and cheaply over the blockchain very similar to Bitcoin but also has the ability to run wise contracts. Think about automated processes which can perform just about anything.

Read more on What is Ethereum?

3. Ripple (XRP)

Ripple aims to improve the speed of monetary transactions, specifically international banking transactions.

Anybody who has ever sent cash globally knows that today it now takes anywhere from 3-5 business days to get a transaction to clear. It is quicker to draw money, get on a plane, and fly to a destination than it would be to ship it! Transaction fees are generally around 6%, but it can vary based upon the financial institution.

Ripple’s objective is to earn these trades fast (it only takes around 4 minutes for a trade to clear) and economical.

The Ripple team now comprises over 150 people, making it among the largest from the cryptocurrency world. They’re headed by CEO Brad Garlinghouse, with an impressive resume which includes high rankings in different organizations such as Yahoo and Hightail.

Read more on What is Ripple?

4. Bitcoin Cash (BCH)

Bitcoin Cash was created on August 1, 2017, after a “hard fork” of the Bitcoin blockchain. For a long time, a debate has been raging in the Bitcoin community on whether to increase the block size in the hope of relieving some of the community bottleneck which has plagued Bitcoin due to its increased popularity.

Because no agreement could be reached, the original Bitcoin blockchain was forked, leaving the Bitcoin series untouched and in effect creating a brand new blockchain which would allow developers to modify a number of Bitcoin’s first programmed features.

Generally, the debate for Bitcoin Cash is that by allowing the block size to increase, more transactions can be processed in precisely the same amount of time. Those opposed to Bitcoin Cash assert that increasing the block size will increase the bandwidth and storage requirement, and in effect will cost out normal users. This could cause increased centralization, the exact matter Bitcoin set out to avoid.

Bitcoin Cash doesn’t have a single development group like Bitcoin. There are currently multiple separate teams of developers.

Read more on What is Bitcoin Cash?

5. EOS (EOS)

Billed as a possible “Ethereum Killer,” EOS suggests improvements which can challenge Ethereum because of the prominent smart contract platform. 1 main issue EOS appears to enhance is the scalability issues that has plagued the Ethereum platform during times of high trade volume, specifically during popular ICOs.

A possibly more profound gap EOS has, compared to Ethereum, is the way in which you use the EOS network. With Ethereum, every single time you make modifications or interact with the network, you have to pay a fee. Together with EOS, the creator of the DAPP (decentralized program ) can foot the bill, while the consumer pays nothing. And if you consider it, this is reasonable. Would you need to pay each time you post something on social media? No, certainly not!

Along with this, EOS includes a few other technical advantages over Ethereum such as delegated proof-of-stake and other routine changes. Just know that EOS has some serious power under the hood to back up the claim of “Ethereum Killer.”

EOS was created by Dan Larrimer who’s no stranger to blockchain or even start-ups. He has been the driving force behind numerous successful projects in the past, for example, BitShares, Graphene and Steem.

Read more on What is EOS?

6. Stellar Lumens (XLM)

In brief, Stellar Lumens attempts to use blockchain to create very fast international payments with little fees. The network can handle tens of thousands of transactions a second with only a 3-5 second confirmation time.

As you may know, Bitcoin can sometimes take 10-15 minutes to get a trade to affirm, can only deal with a few transactions a second and, in turn, has very high transaction fees.

This sounds much like Ripple! Stellar Lumens was founded on the Ripple protocol and is attempting to do similar things. Some of Stellar Lumens’ main uses will be to making small daily payments (micropayments), sending money internationally, and mobile payments.

Stellar Lumens is focusing on the developing world also, more specifically, the dollar industry of researchers who send money back to their own family in impoverished nations.

The Stellar Lumens group is led by Jed McCaleb, who’s worked in a number of successful startups in the past such as eDonkey, Overnet, Ripple, along with the notorious Mt. Gox.

Read more on What is Stellar?

7. Litecoin (LTC)

Very similar to Bitcoin, Litecoin is a peer-to-peer transaction platform designed to be utilized as an electronic currency. Because of some noteworthy technical advancements, Litecoin is able to handle more transactions at lower prices. Litecoin was made to process the tiny transactions we create daily.

Litecoin is referred to “digital silver” while Bitcoin is known as “digital gold” This is because traditionally silver has been used for little daily trades while gold was used as a store of wealth and was not used in regular life.

The Litecoin blockchain is a fork from the Bitcoin series. It was originally established in 2011 when its founder, Charlie Lee, was still working for Google. Well-known as a cryptocurrency expert, Charlie Lee is backed by a solid development team who seem to be achieving what they set out to perform. They have recently attained a very notable accomplishment using the first successful nuclear swap.

Read more on What is Litecoin?

8. Tether (UDST)

Tether is a cryptocurrency token issued on the Bitcoin blockchain. Each Tether coin is allegedly backed by one US Dollar. The target is to facilitate transactions with a rate fixed to the USD.

Amongst other things, Tether looks to resolve a number of the legal issues which could arise when trading cryptocurrencies also it aims to protect people from market volatility.

Tether has faced controversy concerning their business model, and some believe it a scam.

Read more on What is Tether?

9. Cardano (ADA)

Cardano is a smart contract-focused blockchain. It was originally released under the title Input Output Hong Kong by Charles Hoskinson and Jeremy Wood, Some of the first team members of Ethereum, and afterwards rebranded into Cardano.

Cardano is hoping to correct some of the largest issues the cryptocurrency world which have been causing continuing problems for many years like scalability issues and democratized voting.

They have the potential to challenge Ethereum’s dominance in the smart contract world. Cardano is growing their own programing language similar to Ethereum; however, they’re focusing heavily on being interoperable involving other cryptocurrencies.

While some cryptocurrencies are all bite but no bark, Cardano is quite the opposite. They are quietly focusing on strong software which will be wholly open-source.

Cardano’s team contains some of the greatest minds in the market, and they seek to create a solid foundation which others may build upon for many years to come.

Read more on What is Cardano?

10. IOTA (MIOTA)

IOTA has seen lots of the problems Bitcoin and Ethereum have with the PoW (Proof-of-Work) and PoI (Proof-of-Importance) versions and seems to improve them with their revolutionary transaction validation network only called “Tangle.”

When issuing a transaction in IOTA, you affirm two previous trades. This means that you no longer outsource validation to miners which necessitates wasteful amounts of computing power and also normally a large bet of coins. These necessary resources are, in effect, centralizing the monies which many believe were created to be decentralized in the first place.

With IOTA, the more energetic that a ledger is, the more validation there’s. In other words, the more individuals using it, the quicker it gets. You do not have to subsidize miners, so there are no charges on transactions. That’s right: zero.

The IOTA team was actively growing blockchain technology since 2011, and established the IOTA foundation and company in 2016. Since its emergence, the group has been continuously growing, bringing exceptional talent from around the world.

Read more on What is IOTA?

11. TRON (TRX)

As stated in TRON’s whitepaper, “TRON is an attempt to cure the internet.” The TRON founders think that the world wide web has deviated from its initial intention of enabling people to freely create articles and article as they please; alternatively, the world wide web was taken over by huge corporations like Amazon, Google, Alibaba and many others.

TRON is attempting to take the internet back from these types of companies by building a free content entertainment program. This will make it possible for users to openly store, publish and own information, giving them the capability to determine where and how to talk.

The project is directed by creator Justin Sun, that has been listed on the Forbes 30 under 30 list double (in 2015 and 2017). Additionally, Sun is a protégé of Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba Group, China’s former Ripple representative along with the creator of Peiwo APP.

Sun has built a powerful team with heavy hitters including Binshen Tang (creator of Clash of King), Wei Dai (founder of ofo, the biggest shared bicycles provider in China), also Chaoyong Wang (founder of ChinaEquity Group). Sun has also secured the aid of a few notable angel investors such as Xue Manzi.

Read more on What is TRON?

12. Monero (XMR)

Monero is a digital currency made to be used as a totally anonymous payment system.

A common misconception with Bitcoin is the fact that it is completely anonymous. In reality, all payments processed around the Bitcoin network are recorded on a public ledger (blockchain), so Bitcoin is actually only partially anonymous or “pseudonymous.”

This usually means that you can, in theory, trace back every transaction a coin has been involved with out of its creation. Though users are not able to inherently connect the people key on the blockchain together with the private keys used to store the coins themselves, there’ll always exist a correlation between the two.

Monero has solved this issue by implementing cryptonic hashing of receiving addresses, therefore dividing the coin out of the address it is going to. This can be hugely valuable for anybody wanting to hide their buys.

The Monero development group consists of 7 core developers, only two of which are publicly known. There have been over 200 additional contributors to the project and software updates are implemented every six months or so.

Read more about What is Monero?

13. Dash (DASH)

Dash (that comes from “digital cash”) intends to be the most user-friendly and scalable cryptocurrency on the planet. It has the capacity to send money instantly confirmed by “double-send-proof” safety with the extra functionality of erasable trade history and the capacity to send transactions anonymously.

Much like Bitcoin, Dash is supposed to be utilized as electronic money but has some added values such as much faster transaction times and reduced fees. For a slightly higher fee, Dash has the additional role of “minute send” which permits transactions to be verified almost immediately. This is only one of the principal selling points of Dash because most believe this attribute would allow it to be utilised in physical establishments.

The Dash development team is made up of over 50 members and is directed by former financial services specialist Evan Duffield.

Read more on What is Dash?

14. Ethereum Classic (ETC)

Ethereum Classic came after a hard fork of Ethereum in 2016. The fork has been a consequence of the infamous DOA hack where around 50 million bucks worth of Ethereum was stolen due to what was considered an oversight in the code.

The blockchain was forked so as to recover the losses from this attack, but a small portion of the community did not want to go back and alter the initial blockchain. Vitalik Buterin, founder of Ethereum, and subsequently the development team opted to go with the hard fork and operate on what’s now “Ethereum” today.

Read more about What is Ethereum Classic?

15. NEO (NEO)

A top platform for smart contracts and occasionally referred to as “China’s Ethereum.” NEO (officially Antshares) expects to digitize various forms of resources that were formerly kept in more conventional means, and so make it feasible to utilize them in smart contracts.

To envision a potential use case of NEO, consider digitizing the name to a house to a wise advantage, then setting up that asset to automatically transfer to a different person after payment for the home was received. This would be, in effect, a simple smart contract.

NEO founder Da Hongfei is a leading body in the cryptocurrency world, and it has worked on several blockchain jobs previously. The development team is made up of 6 in-house investors and a large community of third-party programmers.

Read more about What is NEO?

16. Binance Coin (BNB)

Binance Coin is the coin used to facilitate operations around the Binance system, a cryptocurrency market that’s capable of processing 1.4 million orders per second. The name “Binance” is derived from the combination of the terms “binary” and “finance,” referring to the integration of digital technology and fund.

The BNB coin is used to cover exchange fees, withdrawal fees, listing fees, and the rest of the possible trade expenses on the Binance platform. To be able to incentivize new customers to perform their cryptocurrency trading on Binance, the group is offering discounts when BNB is used to cover fees. The reduction will be 50% in the first year, 25% in the second, 12.5% at the third, and 6.25% in the fourth year prior to the discount ends.

Binance was mostly marketed to Chinese cryptocurrency investors initially, but they also have English, Korean, Japanese, French, Spanish, and Russian versions of this platform.

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17. NEM (XEM)

NEM (New Economy Movement) is the world’s first Proof-of-Importance (PoI) enterprise built on the blockchain technology. With a concentration on business use cases, the program was built from the ground up with adaptability in mind. NEM’s aim is for companies to utilize their “smart asset system” to execute customizable blockchains. A wise asset could be almost anything: a cryptocurrency token, a company’s stock or a business’s invoicing and documents.

Some possible use cases for NEM’s technology include voting, crowdfunding, inventory ownership, keeping protected records, loyalty rewards point applications, mobile payments and escrow services.

The Growth of NEM is monitored by the Singapore-based NEM Foundation.

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18. VeChain (VET)

As described in VeChain’s growth plan, the organization’s purpose is to construct “a trust-free and distributed business ecosystem based on the Blockchain technology self-circulated and expanding.”

They plan to do that by producing an efficient trustless small business ecosystem to greatly reduce the ineffective information transport systems of now.

Some of the places and industries the VeChain platform is focusing on include eliminating counterfeiting in the fashion and luxury industry, food safety tracking systems, digitizing maintenance in the vehicle industry and several other worldwide supply chain processes.

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19. Tezos (XTZ)

Tezos is a smart contracts platform hot off their exceptionally successful and contentious ICO. Tezos is currently working to create a cryptocurrency “commonwealth” in which the holders of XTZ tokens have the ability to vote in new protocols, which will effectively give users complete control over the future of the blockchain.

In addition, this permits for Tezos methods to change and improve overtime, instead of requiring the radical changes every now and then that tend to lead to challenging forks.

With Tezos, users can vote for rewards to be allocated to programmers who are making excellent contributions to jobs, and therefore incentivizing the growth of the platform.

Tezos has a few technological differences compared to Ethereum like using dPoS, the exceptional ability to upgrade without needing a fork, and proper confirmation which allows for code to be mathematically proven to be correct. This is very beneficial in the case of sensitive calculations needed in fields like aircraft design and atomic development.

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20. Zcash (ZEC)

Zcash is a worth transfer protocol forked off the Bitcoin blockchain. Zcash can be utilized like Bitcoin, with a few additional improvements. With “zero cash technologies,” Zcash protects the amount transferred and the senders, making trades truly anonymous.

Zcash is one of those newest kids on the block from the world of “private trades”

An interesting note is that Ethereum is in the process of implementing some of Zcash’s technologies to allow trades on the Ethereum network to be anonymous too.

Zcash has been developed by the Zerocoin Electric Coin Company. They have had some fantastic successes, most notably JP Morgan’s announcement that they’d apply Zcash’s privacy technology to Quarum, a tech JP constructed on Ethereum.

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Bonus coin: DOGECOIN (DOGE)

Dogecoin is a peer-to-peer digital payment system based on the popular 2013 meme of the Shiba Inu dog. It was a branch of Luckycoin, which was a fork of Litecoin. The coin uses a PoW script mining algorithm very similar to Bitcoin; nonetheless, while Bitcoin includes a restricted number of coins, there’s absolutely no limit to the amount of Dogecoins which can be created. The current rate of Dogecoin creation is over 5,000,000,000 coins per year.

Dogecoin is among the oldest altcoins in life, and for that reason, they possess a relatively large community. The Reddit webpage has about 90,000 shibes (the group name to get their community members).

Dogecoin is a great coin to utilize for microtransactions and is commonly used for tipping on articles. The coin is a kind of self-proclaimed “joke coin” that has gained a lot of popularity.