StockTwits is a great social media platform for investors to connect and share ideas about stocks and investment opportunities. The site has also created a section for cryptocurrency fans to track their favorite coins. The benefit of this is seeing which cryptocurrencies are most popular among investors excited about crypto. Take a look at the four most popular cryptocurrencies on StockTwits, along with a little history of each.
Bitcoin
Bitcoin (BTC) was the first cryptocurrency created by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009. It wasn’t until 2013 when the idea of a decentralized currency took off that the world at large became interested in Bitcoin. Right now, it’s the most popular cryptocurrency across the globe, and it has the highest market capitalization of any of them. It makes sense that most investor interest in cryptocurrency would be here. Because BTC was the first cryptocurrency, some of the coins in the list that follows were based on it to some degree. The popularity of BTC can influence other currencies to the point that their value rises and falls based on Bitcoin’s price. Because it is a current market leader in the cryptocurrency world, it is where beginner crypto investors should start.
Ethereum
Ethereum (ETH) is the second-most talked about cryptocurrency on StockTwits and for a good reason. It features the same decentralized ledger as Bitcoin, but it’s built to handle programmable smart contracts. This difference means applications can be built using the blockchain for transactions, making it useful for software developers who want to control how they get paid completely. The whole idea behind cryptocurrency is to cut out the middleman with banks and connect the customer directly with the person getting paid for their goods or services. Ethereum takes us one step closer to that future.
Litecoin
Litecoin (LTC) is a fork of Bitcoin that is designed to be more abundant. An easy way to think of this cryptocurrency is silver to Bitcoin’s gold. Litecoin features a few technical improvements that speed up transaction times, in addition to more Litecoins than Bitcoins in circulation. The Litecoin algorithm is more straightforward to mine, making it more approachable for beginner crypto miners. Litecoin’s improvements on Bitcoin’s formula has made it the most popular “altcoin” among cryptocurrency traders.
Ripple
Ripple (XRP) is a new blockchain technology based on the Ripple protocol. It isn’t derived from Bitcoin, and it is designed to enable secure financial transactions in a matter of seconds to anywhere across the world. Currently, international payments can take days to process because the bank must do multiple behind the scenes transactions to convert the currency. Ripple is designed to knock out that middleman by trading the value of Ripple, rather than an intermediary currency (currently the US Dollar). It’s not possible for chargebacks to happen with XRP, thanks to the use of the blockchain. Acting as a bridge between banks and currencies, Ripple could change the way we bank drastically if it catches on. The company is working on getting the support of mainstream banks in the United States on board with using XRP as their exchange fund. PNC Bank is the only mainstream US bank to agree to the partnership so far.
