Cryptocurrencies: the differences between bitcoin, ethereum, binance coin and dogecoin

Will the bitcoin and cryptocurrency phenomenon explode?

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(CNN Spanish) -

 One day Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, mocks dogecoin causing its fall and the other, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, shares that he named one of his two goats Bitcoin.

The conversation about cryptocurrencies is increasingly frequent, either due to events that remind us of their volatility, because of their close relationship with the culture of the meme - a clear example is dogecoin - or because of the suggestion that "they are the future of finance" , as put by investor Ian Lee.

How did they become popular and what distinguishes them?

• Why does Elon Musk shake the cryptocurrencies every time he speaks?

The new way of finance

The idea that cryptocurrencies are the future of finance is materialized with proposals such as those of Mastercard and Visa, who recently announced that in the near future they will allow their customers to pay with some cryptocurrencies.

Likewise, Venmo - PayPal's payment platform - also announced that its more than 70 million customers can buy cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, ethereum, and litecoin within its platform.

Brian Brookes, CEO of Binance.US told CNN that in the future “the idea of ​​moving your fiat money to your crypto wallet will really have no meaning, at that time we will be completely networked, just like we are connected to the Internet for everything. the rest".

Brookes also spoke of the benefits of the decentralization of the cryptocurrency market, compared to the current financial model that has an intermediary, since cryptocurrencies are not controlled by any authority, be it bank or government.

“In a free society, the goal of decentralization is to say: let's get rid of that and let's all be free.

Let us all have access to our money and all the transactions we want to do as free people, that is a very fundamental ideology that empowers a large number of cryptocurrencies, and that is what decentralization is all about.

These are the most relevant cryptocurrencies 1:07

In just eleven years, the value of the cryptocurrency market went from zero to $ 2 trillion.

Currently more than 106 million people around the world use cryptocurrencies, according to a report by Crypto.com and there could be more than 4,000 in circulation, according to Statista.

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The widespread adoption of cryptocurrencies has grown and in part accelerated thanks to the covid-19 pandemic, as they are seen as an investment to protect against inflation in times of economic uncertainty.

However, if you are a newcomer and you are thinking of entering this market, experts indicate that it is necessary that you do it with caution and education.

"Many digital currencies have different use cases, and you must understand the value proposition of a potential investment before committing capital," Grayscale Investments CEO Michael Sonnenshein told CNN.

• Beginner's Guide to the Language of Cryptocurrencies

Among the most important cryptocurrencies are Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETC), Binance Coin (BNB), Cardano (ADA) and Dogecoin (DOGE), and below we explain some of their most important differences.

Bitcoin (BTC)

Bitcoin is the strongest cryptocurrency, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

This cryptocurrency was created in 2009 by an unknown person (or persons) under the alias of Satoshi Nakamoro, and it works thanks to blockchain technology, or chain of blocks in Spanish, which is a kind of ledger where the transactions carried out are recorded. through cryptocurrencies.

Unlike other cryptocurrencies, the value of bitcoin is determined by the finite number of coins that can be created, which is 21 million.

Not all bitcoin coins are in circulation and new bitcoins are generated by a complex, decentralized process known as 'mining'.

Computers are used to mine bitcoins to solve complex mathematical problems, a process that has generated concern about its environmental impact.

When it comes to determining its value, it falls on supply and demand.

This is the reason why a currency volatile and difficult to predict.

For example, in January its value increased to $ 42,000, then fell to $ 31,000 and then rose to $ 40,000, all in the course of a week.

Cryptocurrency analyst Willy Woo posted on his Twitter account that “in terms of adoption, Bitcoin has almost the same number of users as the internet had in 1997. But Bitcoin is growing faster.

If it stays at this rate for the next 4 years, Bitcoin will reach 1 billion people, that is equivalent to the Internet in 2005 ″. 

Musk's tweets send bitcoin on a wild ride 1:03

Ethereum (ETC)

Ethereum, also known as ether, is the second largest digital currency, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

Ethereum was created in 2013 by Vitalik Buterin, a 27-year-old Russian-Canadian programmer and so far this year its value has soared 465%.

In part, this is because Ether is more than a cryptocurrency, as it is used to transact non-fungible tokens (NFTs), a technology that allows buying and selling digital art, such as the first tweet. from Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter who was sold for $ 2.9 billion.

In fact, the Merriam-Webster dictionary just released the definition of the word NFT as an NFT.

• What are NFTs?

  See here everything you need to know

Everything you need to know about NFTs 1:03

Ether was the most traded cryptocurrency for February 2021 with more than 1.3 billion times a day, according to Statista;

by comparison, Bitcoin reported 283,000.

Binance Coin (BNB)

Binance Coin is the third largest cryptocurrency according to data from CoinMarketCap.

Changpeng Zhao founded Binance in 2017 in China and later moved its headquarters to Malta, following the increasing regulation of cryptocurrencies in the Asian country.

Unlike other cryptocurrencies, binance coin - created by the world's largest trading volume cryptocurrency platform by Binance Exchange - can be used to be exchanged for other cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and to pay fees within the Binance Exchange platform.

Customers who pay with binance coin within the platform receive a discount as an incentive.

Binance is capped at 200 million tokens, although each quarter Binance uses 20% of its profits to "burn" binance coins, destroying them completely, reducing the total supply and stabilizing their value.

Cardano (ADA)

Cardano is in fourth place among cryptocurrencies, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

Cardano's cryptocurrency is named after Ada Lovelace in honor of a 19th-century mathematician recognized as the first computer programmer.

This cryptocurrency can be used as a native token within Cardano, an open blockchain platform that is overseen by the Cardano Foundation that was created in 2015 by Ethereum co-creator Charles Hoskinson.

Unlike bitcoin and ethereum, which use a proof-of-work (PoW) system for mining coins, cardano uses a proof-of-stake (PoS) system which uses considerably less energy.

"Cardano, for example, is 1.6 billion times more energy efficient right now than bitcoin," Hoskinson told Forbes.

Every year bitcoin consumes more electricity than Argentina and leaves a carbon footprint comparable to Switzerland's, so the environmental footprint behind cryptocurrency mining has raised concerns.

You can no longer buy a Tesla with bitcoin 1:03

Dogecoin (DOGE)

Dogecoin is "the fun and friendly internet currency," according to its website.

Unlike bitcoin, which has set the number of coins available in the market at 21 million, dogecoin has 129 billion coins in circulation and each year it will make available new blocks of coins to mine each year.

This is one of the reasons that dogecoin is valued at roughly 40 cents on the dollar, while a bitcoin is worth roughly $ 42,000.

Dogecoin was created as a joke in 2013 by software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer, the latter who bought the domain dogecoin.com in reference to the “doge” meme, the most famous Shiba Inu on the Internet.

On dogecoin.com, your mascot has a title: "Dogecoin is an open source peer-to-peer digital currency that is favored by Shiba Inus around the world."

In this year, the value of dogecoin soared more than 7,800%, according to data from CoinDesk.

This coin is also popular within the Reddit community, who have taken on an investor role by skyrocketing in value.

However, dogecoin is subject to extreme volatility, so its value could fall without warning.

Elon Musk says he will send dogecoin to the moon 0:39

With information from

Anneken Tappe, Paul R. La Monica, David Goldman and Clare Duffy.

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