What Are The Most Popular Cryptocurrencies?
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If you want to trade cryptocurrencies, it can be a clever idea to start with the most popular available. But with so many types of crypto out there, making a choice on which can be tough.
In this guide, we explore the most popular crypto coins and exchanges by market capitalisation - the currency's circulating supply on the market, multiplied by its current price. Whether you're looking to see whether Bitcoin is still leader, or how Ethereum is doing in the market cap stakes, here are the top cryptocurrencies every trader should know about.
Why trade the most popular crypto?
Whether you're a seasoned crypto trader or are new to the asset class and want to start with the biggest coins available, there are lots of reasons why trading the most popular crypto makes a lot of sense.
- Insights - The most-traded coins offer the best in terms of news, discussion, and education resources, simply due to the fact they are most popular, and more people are invested in their fortunes.
All this information means they can be a smart choice for beginners that are starting off on their crypto trading journey.
- Volume - Typically, the higher the market capitalisation, the higher the trading volume (the number of times the coin is traded over a certain period, typically 24 hours). Higher volumes mean that there are more traders available at any one time to buy and sell the coin.
This is crucial as high volume essentially equates to faster order fulfilment times, reducing the risk of you receiving a different execution price from the one you had when you ordered the trade at (known as slippage).
- Volatility - The most popular crypto coins can often see the greatest volatility, which can aid traders who wish to trade over the short term - such as when day trading - or even over the longer term.
- Market hours - All the most common crypto can be traded 24/5. That means you don't need to structure your trading patterns around institutions and centralised governance bodies. With crypto, you can take advantage of price swings whenever you please.
The most popular crypto coins
So, now we understand why popular crypto can be a desirable choice for traders, which are the top crypto coins? We've taken the following from CoinMarketCap's listings - rankings are correct at the time of review (April 2023).
1. Bitcoin (BTC)
Market cap: $585 billion, 24-hour trading volume: $18.7 billion.
The original cryptocurrency, Bitcoin kicked off the crypto gold rush and ushered in a new age of decentralised digital finance.
Designed to be used as virtual currency, but away from the control of any single person, group, or entity, it has since been the subject of speculation, eroding its currency credentials due to its fluctuating ability to store value.
Despite this though, Bitcoin is the most-traded cryptocurrency, most widely accepted, and has technology upon which many other coins have been based.
2. Ethereum (ETH)
Market cap: $241 billion, 24-hour trading volume: $13.9 billion.
Ethereum was designed as a means for developers to create and roll out decentralised applications known as dApps. Application code within these apps is completed and verified via a peer-to-peer network which provides unchangeable, verifiable, and transparent transactions without the need for any centralised control. These transactions and the method of executing and verifying them are together known as smart contracts.
The second-most popular crypto coin, ETH is the currency used to pay for transactions on Ethereum-based apps, of which there are almost 4,000. It's notable in being much more environmentally friendly than Bitcoin. The latter uses energy-intensive proof-of-work to verify transactions, while Ethereum uses proof-of-stake, where users put up ETH as collateral for the transaction.
3. Tether (USDT)
Market cap: $80.6 billion, 24-hour trading volume: $33.3 billion.
Tether was released in 2014 as a so-called stablecoin pegged to the value of the US dollar. Its main goal is to give traders a place to invest their crypto funds that is free from volatility, but outside of traditional centrally controlled financial systems. Due to its association with the dollar, it can also be a good means of hedging against inflation.
The third most common crypto coin, tether is based on the same blockchain technology as Bitcoin. It maintains parity with the dollar by having assets equal to the number of dollars in circulation, though only around 80% of these are held in cash, with the rest in bonds, loans, and tokens.
4. BNB (BNB)
Market cap: $51.2 billion, 24-hour trading volume: $683 million.
BNB is a cryptocurrency used to pay for trading, listing, and exchanges fees on the Binance exchange, to buy goods and services, and to purchase tokens through Binance Launchpad token sales.
The coin is based on Ethereum and has a limit of 200 million tokens. If the number in circulation exceeds this amount, Binance performs a coin burn, removing coins from the blockchain.
5. USD Coin (USDC)
Market cap: $31.9 billion, 24-hour trading volume: $4.8 billion.
Another stablecoin pegged to the US dollar, USD Coin has been in operation since 2018. It differs from Tether in that it aims to be fully backed by US-regulated reserve assets, though in practice the exact make-up of these reserves is not completely transparent.
The fifth most popular crypto, USDC can be used in a comparable way to Tether: as a hedge against inflation and volatility, and to price digital assets in fiat without central governance.
6. XRP (XRP)
Market cap: $26.4 billion, 24-hour trading volume: $1.02 billion.
XRP is a cryptocurrency used within the Ripple payment protocol. It's designed to allow users (coin owners and financial institutions) to send money quickly and efficiently across borders; a role typically performed using the relatively inefficient SWIFT network, developed in the 1970s.
XRP has a total supply of 100 billion tokens, and compared to Bitcoin is less energy-intensive, offers faster transactions, and is more cost-effective. However, XRP has attracted negative attention from the likes of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, which is currently suing Ripple for not licensing XRP as a financial security.
7. Cardano (ADA)
Market cap: $14.4 billion, 24-hour trading volume: $436 million.
Cardano is like Ethereum in that it is used as a platform to create dApps, using verifiable smart contracts backed by proof-of-stake. The currency used to make transactions on the platform is ADA.
ADA is much less popular than ETH, though can technically manage much higher transaction volumes without slowing down. It also charges less in fees.
8. Dogecoin (DOGE)
Market cap: $12 billion, 24-hour trading volume: $831 million.
The eighth most-traded crypto coin is Dogecoin. Originally a joke currency based on the popular Shiba Inu doge meme, DOGE was developed as a means of light-heartedly explaining cryptocurrency to a wider audience.
After finding an unofficial chairman and cheerleader in eccentric billionaire Elon Musk back in 2019, Dogecoin's value skyrocketed through speculative trading activity. Interestingly, DOGE is more efficient and less energy-intensive than Bitcoin, though its infinite number of tokens mean it will almost certainly be hit by significant inflationary effects over time.
9. Polygon (MATIC)
Market cap: $10.4 billion, 24-hour trading volume: $293 million.
Powered by the cryptocurrency MATIC, Polygon is a blockchain that runs alongside the Ethereum platform.
Its main aim is to provide faster, cheaper transactions for users of Ethereum apps. Users purchase MATIC and can use it to buy goods and services on dApps built using Ethereum.
10. Solana (SOL)
Market cap: $9.75 billion, 24-hour trading volume: $1.03 billion.
A blockchain network designed to provide faster, less resource-intensive transaction processing, Solana (powered by the SOL coin) was released in 2017.
The tenth-most popular crypto differs from other blockchains in that it uses proof-of-history as its consensus mechanism. This is based on proof-of-stake (used by Ethereum and Cardano) but involves using cryptography to timestamp transactions without needing to do lots of the computational work involved with Bitcoin-like blockchains.
The most popular crypto exchanges
Crypto exchanges are used to exchange crypto or fiat currencies for crypto coins and tokens. They are a key lynchpin of the crypto space - these are the most popular according to CoinMarketCap statistics accessed in April 2023:
- Binance - Trading volume of $11.7 billion, 14.4 million weekly visits.
- Coinbase Exchange - Trading volume of $1.43 billion, 38,000 weekly visits.
- Kraken - Trading volume of $631 million, 1.11 million weekly visits.
- KuCoin - Trading volume of $757 million, 2.07 million weekly visits.
- Bitfinex - Trading volume of $174 million, 572,000 weekly visits.
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The information in this article is for educational purposes only.