Top 5 Traded Cryptocurrency Coins

In 2009, Satoshi Nakomoto created the first-ever cryptocurrency as a way to introduce a decentralized system of payment that can be used internationally by everyone. Twelve years after the creation of Sakamoto's Bitcoin, cryptocurrency has experienced an upsurge, ranking it as fifth on the list of most traded currencies. It now has a total market value of $1.95 trillion.

Crypto's popularity as an investment choice over the past years can be attributed to its key features; independence from government regulations, high liquidity, and high returns.

In countries like Nigeria where the inflation rate is at about 17.33 percent, crypto has provided a great way to preserve the value of money, making Nigeria the third-largest crypto trading country(by volume), with over $400 million worth of transactions according to a report by Quartz.

Below is a list of the most traded cryptocurrency coins: 

Bitcoin

Expectedly, Bitcoin tops the list. As the first cryptocurrency to be created, it also is the face of crypto and the most popular coin in circulation. There are currently almost 18 million BTC in circulation with a daily turnover of $22.3 billion. From its initial worth of $0 at creation, BTC has scaled to over $58,000. Last year, it traded between $9,000 to $11,000. Of the $1.95 trillion market cap of crypto, Bitcoin alone is responsible for more than $600 billion. All you need to know about bitcoin is here. 

Ethereum

Ethereum, also known as ETH, went live in July 2015 with 72 million coins. Unlike BTC which is used only to trade coins, Ethereum is much more complex and provides a network where users can code, secure and trade anything, including NFTs.

Its market cap is currently at $242.7 billion, two times more than it was about August last year, with over 115,344 coins in circulation. Demand for ethereum is high due to its popularity. This makes it the second most traded crypto coin with a price standing at $2,100 and a daily turnover of about $12 billion.

Ripple(XRP)

Released in 2012 and known for being not just a payment system, but a money transfer and currency exchange system for all payment networks including banks, Ripple is the third most traded cryptocurrency coin and has a market capitalization of $69.26 billion. Unlike other coins like BTC that have high prices and limited coins in circulation, XRP trades at just about $0.69 with over 39 billion tokens in circulation. It has a daily turnover of $4.5 billion. The major aim of Ripple is to make cross-border payments more efficient by removing middlemen and reducing costs and time spent to authenticate transactions, especially in the financial industry.

EOS

Launched in 2018, EOS was designed to provide support to large-scale applications. It is capable of processing and confirming transactions faster than other blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Transactions on EOS are confirmed in less than 0.5 seconds, staying true to its goal of being the fastest blockchain in the world.

Apart from its remarkable speed, one of the features of EOS is that it has no charges. There are no fees involved in the transaction of EOS.

A token of EOS trades at $6.26 and has a market capitalization of over $5.88 billion. It's ICO(one-year initial coin offering) raised over $2.5 billion worth of funding to make it one of the largest ICO's to happen. There are currently 952.3 million EOS in circulation.

Litecoin

Just like other cryptocurrencies, Litecoin enables instant payment all around the world. This crypto was created in 2009, by former Google and Coinbase employee, Charlie Lee by copying the BTC codebase, and changing the total supply and speed in which new blocks are added. This makes it the most similar to Bitcoin.

With each token of the coin trading at $208.68, it has a market capitalization of $14.06 billion. There are currently 66.75 million Litecoins in circulation.