2017 will go down in history as the year when cryptocurrency hit the mainstream. By the end of December, it was the largest trending topic across social media with everybody wanting in on it, thanks in part due to the fact that key currencies such as Bitcoin (BTC) saw a hike in value of over 3000%!
With the explosion in cryptocurrency’s popularity has come a whole host of new cryptocurrency, with everybody wanting to take their Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) to market in-order to profit off the back of this truly revolutionary way to pay for products and services.
2017 closed with Ripple slightly overtaking Ethereum for the number two spot, however, over the course of the last six months, we have seen a high amount of volatility among lots of the other cryptocurrencies available on the market.
Now over six months into 2018, we feel like it is a great time to look back on 2017 at what were the most profitable cryptocurrencies of the year and what can be learned from them.
2017’s Most Profitable Cryptocurrencies
Due to its success, BTC has become the de facto standard when it comes to cryptocurrency; it’s more than just a mere trendsetter and virtually all other cryptocurrencies in existence today have been inspired by its ingenuity and success.
Known as “altcoins”, these other cryptocurrencies market themselves as “modified” or “improved” versions of the crypto monolith BTC. When it comes to looking at other cryptocurrencies, it can be hard to sort the wheat from the chaff as there are so many of them, however, here are the six most profitable cryptocurrencies out of nearly 1,000 in 2017.
- Litecoin (LTC)
Launching in 2011, LTC was one of the very first cryptocurrencies to hit the market alongside BTC. Often referred to as “the silver to BTC’s old”, it was created by an MIT graduate and former Google engineer Charlie Lee.
LTC is a lot like BTC in many ways – being deregulated and based on an open source global payment network – and can be generated faster. It currently has a market cap of over $4.8 billion and is fluctuating between $70 – 100 per coin at the time of writing.
- Ethereum (ETH)
Coming to the market in 2015, ETH’s applications are ran on its cryptographic token, ether. ETH is based on a decentralised platform which allows the production of Smart Contracts and Distributed Applications.
ETH has the second-highest market capitalisation, currently sitting at around $47 billion and a coin value of $437 – $480 at the time of writing this in July 2018.
- Ripple (XRP)
As a real-time global settlement network, it offers instantaneous and low-cost payments internationally. It was launched back in 2012 and differs from other cryptocurrencies in that it doesn’t need to be mined. Ripple is a solution which enables banks to complete cross-border payments with transparency and lower costs.
It currently has a market capitalisation of around $18 billion and the coins value is around the $0.45 – $0.50 mark at the time of writing.
- Dash (DASH)
Launched in January 2014 as Darkcoin, Dash offers more anonymity than Bitcoin as it operates on a decentralised mastercode network making all transactions virtually untraceable. Its rebranding from Darkcoin to Dash didn’t alter any of its features or anonymity.
At the time of writing this article, DASH has a market cap of around $1.99 billion with a coin value of $220 – $240.
- Zcash (ZEC)
An open-source decentralised cryptocurrency, ZEC launched during the second half of 2016 with the offer of private transactions and selective privacy. Like BTC, all transactions are recorded and published on a blockchain, but details such as the sender are kept private.
At the time of writing, its market cap sits around $720.25 million and has a per-coin value of $155 – $175.
- Monero (XMR)
A secure and private cryptocurrency which cannot be traced, XMR was launched in April 2014 as an open-source solution. Its development is based off donations from its community and focuses on scalability alongside decentralisation.
Its market capitalisation at the time of writing sits around the $1.8 billion mark and its coin value fluctuates between $120 – $140.
