Cryptocurrency Categories: Part 1

There are thousands of cryptocurrencies out there, which means it can be hard to see the wood for the trees. But one easy way of initially assessing a crypto project is to look at what category it falls into. This is a vital first step towards understanding what its use case is (if indeed it has one).

 

Over this and the next episode, we’ll look at some of the principal categories cryptocurrencies fall into. The first distinction to make is that between cryptocurrency coins - those which live on their own dedicated blockchains) and cryptocurrency tokens (those built on other blockchains). In this episode, we’ll be looking at the coins, with tokens to follow next week.

 

Many of the biggest crypto projects, including Bitcoin and Ethereum, are coins, but what do they all do? We’ll dive into stores of value, smart contract cryptos, payments coins and much more, all of which will help to put the cryptos we talk about into some sort of context. 

 

With new cryptocurrencies emerging all the time, the number of categories is expanding too, so in this episode, we focus on a few of the most significant sectors of the industry. What we discuss today should go a long way towards helping any newcomers out there make sense of all those strange names you see when you open up CoinMarketCap or Coin Gecko to check the market.

 

We hope you enjoy the show.

 

Producer for iHeart Media: Noel Brown

Editor: Sam Moult

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