Top 5 Alternatives & Competitors to Ethereum

Ethereum is a very popular cryptocurrency that is based on its own technology. Since this digital asset is open for developers, a lot of forks have been created. Ethereum is an innovative cryptocurrency because it isn’t only a cryptocurrency.

This is a platform for blockchain-based applications that are known as dAPPs. For this reason, there are a lot of companies that want to become better than Ethereum. Now, there aren’t any real competitors in this segment. However, there are a lot of other popular cryptocurrencies that have the same popularity. Let’s describe them.

Highly popular Ethereum competitors

If we talk about popular Ethereum competitors, we need to talk about Bitcoin, Ripple, and Litecoin. These cryptocurrencies are different, but every one of them takes a part of the market of other cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin

Bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency that was created in 2008. Some years later, Bitcoin became so popular that any other cryptocurrency hasn’t been able to become more expensive than Bitcoin. The creator of Bitcoin is Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoin is popular both as a payment method and digital token that is traded on exchanges. It is attractive for investors, developers, and businesses around the world.

This is a cryptocurrency because all transactions are saved in the decentralized “diary” known as Blockchain. A way to get new Bitcoins is mining. This is a process of looking for a hash that is suitable for certain rules. A computer searches for this hash and all necessary information and if it was successful, the miner gets a reward.

This principle is universal for a lot of different cryptocurrencies. However, Bitcoin created the base for any other cryptocurrency operation. Due to this, Bitcoin will be the top cryptocurrency for a long time, and it will be the main competitor of Ethereum.

Litecoin

This is the second cryptocurrency by popularity. It was created when GPU mining became a normal aspect of earning Bitcoin. At that time, there were a lot of people who wanted to use the CPU for earning cryptocurrency. Sometime later, Litecoin became the cryptocurrency that requires the GPU. Yet, Bitcoin could only be mined via special farms. This advantage makes Litecoin the second cryptocurrency after Bitcoin. According to the international ratings, Ethereum is only a third cryptocurrency by popularity. However, in real life, the popularity of these cryptocurrencies is more or less similar.

Litecoin has a similar structure to Bitcoin. The only difference in the mining of these cryptocurrencies is in the hashing algorithm and the consensus methods. The time of generating a new block is about 2.5 minutes. It is significantly faster than Bitcoin. Therefore, this cryptocurrency can be more attractive than Bitcoin. This is an open-source project like all other cryptocurrencies.

Ripple

Ripple is also a popular cryptocurrency. It has one disadvantage that is one of the most important reasons why this cryptocurrency isn’t able to stay alive for a long period of time. This is not a full cryptocurrency, and this fact is associated with risks. Owners can take their money and stop this process. For this reason, a lot of Ripple forks have been created and any of them can become as popular as Ripple.

Why is Ripple so popular? Because of the extremely high speed of transactions via this platform. Its blockchain is similar to Bitcoin and that makes the principle of work of this cryptocurrency at least understandable.

Also, Ripple has a monopoly for its cryptocurrency. Thus, they can manage the cryptocurrency price manually. It is a bad aspect. At the same time, there are a lot of real advantages that this cryptocurrency has:

1. High speed. You need only a few seconds to make a payment. Other cryptocurrencies need more time (up to 4 days).
2. All members of the blockchain know each other. That’s why in this case all operations are clear and if some hackers try to transfer money to themselves, the system rejects this dishonest action automatically.
3. Low commissions. The cost of transactions in this network is the lowest, but it depends on how much this cryptocurrency costs at a particular moment.
4. The only payment is for conversation from one digital asset to Ripple.
5. Reliable protection from spam because of the minimal price of every order that was set by the creators of Ripple cryptocurrency.

The unique characteristic of Ripple is a lack of inflation risks. It is possible because all cryptocurrencies were previously mined. Actually, a lot of modern cryptocurrencies are also premined. The main thing is how coins are divided between users. If the biggest part of them is in the creator’s hands, the creator can do anything with the money. This fact takes away the main advantage of any cryptocurrency – decentralization.

Promising Ethereum competitors

If we talk about Ethereum, this cryptocurrency is also a platform. It means that a lot of cryptocurrencies are based on Ethereum and can’t be called a competitor.

BNB

This cryptocurrency was developed by Binance exchange. It is growing now significantly. This project is based on its own blockchain. Due to this, the Binance coin is the real competitor of Ethereum because it isn’t a fork. It also can work with smart contracts. They allow us to create decentralized applications. This sphere is growing in 2020. Also, this cryptocurrency supports staking. All money saved in the Binance exchange wallet is increased by a certain percentage. That’s why this cryptocurrency can be a real competitor of Ethereum.

Zilinga

This project offers not only a platform with smart contracts. It also solves a problem with the scaling of the network. To implement it, Zilinga creators implemented sharding technology. Since the moment of creation of this cryptocurrency, this asset has been growing. The market capitalization of this cryptocurrency takes 25th place on the cryptocurrency rating.

Conclusions

You need to consider every one of these options because some of them are profitable now, some will be profitable very soon. Create your investment portfolio according to your needs and start trading. Also, you can mine some cryptocurrencies, but this method of getting money is becoming less profitable than previously.

Be attentive because cryptocurrency is a very risky financial asset. Every cryptocurrency is volatile.