[Coinlive] Top 5 cryptocurrency market capitalization rankings in the first half of 2022

Does seeing the market flooded with all kinds of cryptocurrencies leave you breathless, or even confused? Especially for novice friends who are new to cryptocurrency. So far, there are more than 18,000 cryptocurrencies in the market, but not all cryptocurrencies are valuable. Let the author introduce the market value ranking of the top 5 cryptocurrencies in the first half of 2022.

1. 1) Bitcoin (BTC)

First of all, Bitcoin, as the "ancestor of cryptocurrency", is the most original cryptocurrency. Launched in 2009, it was the first cryptocurrency to record financial transactions on a blockchain. To put it simply, Bitcoin generates data blocks called "blocks" through cryptography to realize a peer-to-peer electronic transaction system to a third party, which is what we often hear "decentralization".

When Bitcoin first got market pricing, its price was just $0.0009 per coin, and its all-time high (ATH) was as high as $68,789.63. At the time of writing, Bitcoin has a circulating supply of 19,081,062 coins and a total market capitalization of around $366.5 billion.

As of press time, the price of Bitcoin is at $19,337.73

2) Ethereum (ETH)

All cryptocurrencies are inevitably compared to Bitcoin, and Ethereum is no exception. Ethereum is both a cryptocurrency and a blockchain platform. It is a decentralized open-source blockchain with smart contract capabilities meant to facilitate interoperability between other blockchains. One of the differences between Ethereum and Bitcoin is that it can be used as a software network, allowing developers to build new applications, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which are quite popular right now.

However, Ethereum has fatal shortcomings, including high transaction fees (gas fees) and slow processing speed. The highly anticipated Ethereum 2.0 has been delayed numerous times, and developers expect the new version to bring perfect scalability to the platform, increase transaction speed, and reduce costs.

Ethereum’s all-time high price is $4,891.70, and at the time of writing, it has a circulating supply of 121,351,867 coins and a total market cap of just over $127.3 billion.

At the time of writing, the price of Ethereum was $1,049.15

3) Tether (USDT)

Launched in 2014, Tether is a “stablecoin” backed by fiat currencies such as the U.S. dollar, backed by a one-to-one reserve guarantee. Originally called Realcoin, Tether was later renamed USTether and eventually changed to its current name.

The emergence of Tether can be said to promote the digital use of traditional currencies. As a stable currency, Tether is pegged to the price of the US dollar, which can ensure the stability of cryptocurrency prices, unlike other cryptocurrencies that have violent price fluctuations.

At the time of writing, Tether has a circulating supply of 66,415,102,879 coins and a market cap of over $66.3 billion.

As of press time, the price of Tether is $0.99866000

4) USD Coin (USDC)

Launched in 2018 without a Chinese name, USDC is a relatively new fiat-collateralized stablecoin. The coin was co-founded by the financial technology company Circle and Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, and is managed by the consortium Centre. USDC has a one-to-one peg ratio to the U.S. dollar. Since this is an open source project, USDC reserve assets are stored in separate accounts of US-regulated financial institutions.

USDC is actually an Ethereum ERC-20 token, and one of its advantages is that it can be integrated with Ethereum-based applications. In addition, USDC is also compatible with other blockchain networks such as Solana (SOL), Tron (TRX), Algorand (ALGO) and others.

At the time of writing, USDC has a circulating supply of 55,802,605,113 coins and a total market cap of nearly $55.8 billion.

As of the time of writing, the price of USDC is $0.9983

5) Binance Coin (BNB)

Launched in 2017, Binance Coin (BNB) can be used to pay transaction fees, pledge, etc. on the cryptocurrency exchange - "Binance". Binance Coin is the native asset of Binance Chain, a unique decentralized ecosystem based on the blockchain network. After the introduction of the real-time burning mechanism, the circulation of Binance Coin has become more deflationary to maintain its value and the interests of holders. In addition, as the underlying Binance Chain, project parties can develop projects such as decentralized finance (DeFi), NFT, Metaverse, and Web3.

Binance Coin’s all-time high is $690.93. At the time of writing, it has a circulating supply of 163,276,975 coins and a market cap of over $34.1 billion. The initial circulation of Binance Coin is 200 million, and the burning system will automatically destroy some of the coins every three months. When the supply is reduced to 100 million, the destruction protocol will stop.

Binance Coin was trading at $209.05 at the time of writing

The content of this article does not constitute any financial and investment advice. Readers are requested to do their own research (DYOR) before investing. Any investment has risks.

Author: [Coinlive] Catherine