2009 Active Bitcoin BTC,[4][5] XBT, ₿ Satoshi Nakamoto[nt 1] SHA-256d[6][7] PoW[7][8] The first decentralized ledger currency. Cryptocurrency with the most famous, popular, notable and highest market capitalization.
2011 Active Litecoin LTC Charlie Lee Scrypt PoW The first cryptocurrency to use Scrypt as a hashing algorithm.
2011 Active Namecoin NMC Vincent Durham[9][10] SHA-256d PoW Also acts as an alternative, decentralized DNS.
2011 Active SwiftCoin STC Daniel Bruno SHA-256 PoW First digital coin with theoretical value based on the work required to produce electricity. First block chain to support currency creation by interest paid on debt. Solidus Bond proto smart-contract. One of the first digital coins patented in the US. First block chain to support encrypted mail with attachments.
2012 Active Bytecoin BCN CryptoNote PoW First cryptocurrency based on the CryptoNote algorithm. Focused on user privacy through impassive and anonymous transactions
2012 Active Peercoin PPC Sunny King
(pseudonym)[11] SHA-256d[12] PoW & PoS The first cryptocurrency to use POW and POS functions.
2013 Active Dogecoin DOGE, XDG Jackson Palmer
& Billy Markus[13] Scrypt[14] PoW Based on an internet meme.
2013 Active Emercoin EMC EvgenijM86 & Yitshak Dorfman SHA-256 PoW & PoS Trusted storage for any small data: acts as an alternative, decentralized DNS, PKI store, SSL infrastructure and other.
2013[15] Active Feathercoin FTC, ₣ Peter Bushnell, Brasenose College of Oxford University NeoScrypt N/A Approx. 60 seconds block time
2013[16][17] Active Gridcoin GRC Rob Hälford [18] Scrypt Decentralized PoS The first cryptocurrency linked to citizen science through the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing[19][20]
2013 Active Omni MSC J. R. Willett [21] SHA-256d[22] N/A Omni is both digital currency and communications protocol built on top of the existing bitcoin block chain.
2013 Active Primecoin XPM Sunny King
(pseudonym)[11] 1CC/2CC/TWN[23] POW[23] Uses the finding of prime chains composed of Cunningham chains and bi-twin chains for proof-of-work, which can lead to useful byproducts.
2013 Active Ripple[24][25][26] XRP[26] Chris Larsen &
Jed McCaleb[27] ECDSA[28] "Consensus" Designed for peer to peer debt transfer. Not based on bitcoin.
2013 Active Nxt NXT BCNext
(pseudonym) SHA-256d[29] PoS Specifically designed as a flexible platform to build applications and financial services around its protocol.
2014 Active Auroracoin AUR Baldur Odinsson
(pseudonym)[30] Scrypt PoW Created as an alternative to fiat currency in Iceland.
2014 Active BlackCoin BC Rat4 (pseudonym) Scrypt PoS Secures its network through a process called minting.
2014 Active Burstcoin BURST Burstcoin Community SHA-256d Proof of Capacity First Proof of Capacity coin, First Smart Contract, First Atomic Cross Chain Transfer.
2014 Inactive Coinye KOI, COYE Scrypt PoW Used American hip hop artist Kanye West as its mascot, abandoned after trademark lawsuit.
2014 Active Dash DASH Evan Duffield &
Kyle Hagan[31] X11 PoW & Proof of Service[nt 2] A bitcoin-based currency featuring instant transactions, decentralized governance and budgeting, and private transactions.
2014 Active NEO NEO Da Hongfei & Erik Zhang SHA-256 & RIPEMD160 dBFT Chinese based cryptocurrency (formerly ANT Shares which produce ANT Coins) name change August 2017 to NEO and GAs, these enable the development of digital assets and smart contracts.
2014 Active MazaCoin MZC BTC Oyate Initiative SHA-256d PoW The underlying software is derived from that of another cryptocurrency, ZetaCoin.
2014 Active Monero XMR Monero Core Team CryptoNight[32] PoW Privacy-centric coin using the CryptoNote protocol with improvements for scalability and decentralization.
2014 Active NEM XEM UtopianFuture (pseudonym) SHA3-512 POI The first hybrid public/private blockchain solution built from scratch, and first to use the Proof of Importance algorithm using EigenTrust++ reputation system.
2015 Active Tether USDT Jan Ludovicus van der Velde[33] Omnicore [34] PoW Tether is backed by the USD so that one tether is exactly equal to $1USD. It is commonly used to convert other cryptocurrencies to USD. [35]
2014 Active PotCoin POT Potcoin core dev team Scrypt PoS Developed to service the legalized cannabis industry
2014 Active Synereo AMP AMP Dor Konforty & Greg Meredith[36] PoS PoS Trying to create a world computer, Synereo’s 2.0 tech stack incorporates all faculties needed to support decentralized computation without central servers.[37]
2014 Active Titcoin TIT Edward Mansfield & Richard Allen[38] SHA-256d PoW The first cryptocurrency to be nominated for a major adult industry award.[39]
2014 Active Verge XVG Sunerok Scrypt, x17, groestl, blake2s, and lyra2rev2 PoW
2014 Active Stellar XLM Jed McCaleb Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP) [40] Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP) [41] Open-source, decentralized global financial network. The usage is for remittances, micropayments, services for the underbanked, mobile money/branches and professional setups.
2014 Active Vertcoin VTC Bushido Lyra2RE[42] PoW Next-gen ASIC resistance and first to implement stealth addresses.
2015 Active Ether or "Ethereum" ETH Vitalik Buterin[43] Ethash[44] PoW Supports Turing-complete smart contracts.
2015 Active Ethereum Classic ETC Ethash[44] PoW An alternative version of Ethereum[45] whose blockchain does not include the DAO Hard-fork.[46][47] Supports Turing-complete smart contracts.
2015 Active IOTA IOT, MIOTA[48] David Sønstebø, Sergey Ivancheglo, Dominik Schiener and Dr. Serguei Popov SHA-3 Directed acyclic graph The first cryptocurrency using the Tangle, a next generation blockchain, as distributed ledger technology.
2015 Active Sia SC David Vorick, Luke Champine BLAKE (hash function) PoW Currency for the Sia Distributed Storage Network
2015 Active SixEleven SIL fflo (pseudonym)[49] SHA-256d PoW Also acts as an alternative, decentralized DNS.
2016 Active Decred DCR Blake-256 PoW/PoS Hybrid Built in governance and hybrid PoW/PoS.
2016 Active Waves Platform WAVES Sasha Ivanov PoS PoS Open blockchain platform, featuring token creation, distributed exchange and fast high volume transactions designed for ease of use[50] and mass adoption.
2016 Active Lisk LSK Max Kordek DPoS DPoS Lisk is a dapp creation platform in Javascript. Lisk uses a Delegated-Proof-of-Stake (DPoS) consensus mechanism.
2016 Active Zcash ZEC Zooko Wilcox Equihash PoW The first open, permissionless financial system employing zero-knowledge security.
2016 Active Zclassic ZCL Rhett Creighton Equihash PoW A fork of Zcash with no premine/founder's reward.
2017 Active Bitcoin Cash BCH[51], BCC SHA-256d PoW Hard fork from Bitcoin, Increased Block size from 1mb to 8mb
2017 Active Ubiq UBQ Julian Yap[52] Ethash[44] PoW Supports Turing-complete smart contracts; air-gapped fork of Ethereum
2017 Active EOS (coin) EOS Dan Larimer
2017 Active Electroneum ETN Richard Ells CryptoNight[53] PoW
2017 Active TRON TRX Justin Sun SHA-256
2018 Active Cardano ADA Charles Hoskinson & Jeremy Wood
2018 Inactive KodakCoin Kodak and WENN Digital Ethash[54] Initial coin offering on January 31, 2018. KodakCoin is a "photographer-centric" blockchain cryptocurrency used for payments for licensing photographs.
2018 Active Petro Venezuela Government onixCoin[55] First cryptocurrency backed by Venezuela's reserves of oil.
Notes
