Overshadowed by the more illustrious bitcoin, altcoins — alternative cryptocurrencies launched after the success of Bitcoin — traded in a narrow range for a long time. But that changed in 2017 when investors decided that they needed to have a diversified portfolio of digital currencies, sparking a rush for altcoins.
The most noticeable rally has been for ether, which has appreciated over 3000 percent year-to-date (YTD) from levels of USD 8 to USD 268, as per the CoinDesk price index. Trading at all-time highs, ether is creating a new price record every other day.
While it is known that only a finite amount of bitcoins — 21 million – will be mined, people tend to think of it as virtual gold, a safe haven investment, and hence its price movement resonates with the characteristics of a limited commodity. Such an intrinsic characteristic is not available for ether which can explain the price movement. Don’t bother dabbling in gold, rupees or dollars.
What you should be looking at is cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin, Dash, Monero and others. While Bitcoin is the most talked about and watched cryptocurrency, other less-famous cryptocurrencies have been gaining traction in the past few weeks.
Presently though in terms of value, Bitcoin is way, way ahead of others. Interestingly, a Bloomberg report recently said that Bitcoin will no longer be the biggest digital currency. The second most popular digital currency, Ethereum, could rise to the top in terms of market share within a year – because unlike bitcoin, it allows users to do more with it than just send value from one person to another. The rise in bitcoin’s price since 2016 sparked a global interest in cryptocurrencies in general, experts believe that the sudden rally in altcoins like ether can be a result of that as people who missed the bus with bitcoin are rushing to get onboard the altcoin hype-train.
Even though India is still debating regularizing cryptocurrency trade,trading or stocking up on cryptocurrency, you could strike it rich pretty quickly.
The top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalisation value:
