In Part 1, I have classified cryptocurrencies into 7 major types:
I have given a short explanation and some examples of the first three. Today, I would like to talk about the fourth type: Infrastructure Coins. It is important and deserves a dedicated post.
The blockchain technology is creating a new economic model, a model where the middle-man is replaced by the blockchain. However, for this new economy to function well, it would need some basic services to support it. I call the projects that are providing such services: infrastructure services. The following are some sub-categories with examples:
One of the things we would need in the new economy is an identity service. Such a service would provide a decentralized way to issue and check the identity of individuals and organizations. With the power of the blockchain, no one can tamper with such an ID. It is obvious that such a service will be very useful for all the parties interacting in crypto-land.
One of the leading projects in this sub-category is Civic. Their website describes the problem that Civic is trying to solve like this:
User authentication is a growing security threat that organizations face today. With identity theft and data breach numbers reaching new heights every year, businesses pay millions of dollars to ensure that the transactions on their servers are authentic. Hackers steal identities and impersonate valid customers, racking up thousands of dollars of fraudulent charges.
Through our decentralized architecture with the blockchain and biometrics on the mobile device, our platform provides multi-factor authentication without a username, password, third-party authenticator, or physical hardware token.
In the new economy, you become your own bank. You are responsible for the security of your digital assets. This more important than you think. Your wallet does not hold your money only. It holds all of your digital assets (including your identity ;) ). Therefore, it is critical to have a reliable wallet.
In the current time, most famous wallets (like MEW and Exodus) are not monetized (yet!). They don't use their own token and it does not cost you anything to use them. However, as the need for such wallets and the extra features increases, I am sure some cryptocurrency projects that provide such a service will eventually emerge. Some notable first movers include:
Another infrastructure sub-category is exchanged. We all know them and use them. However, the most famous exchanges are centralized. The new economy requires decentralized exchanges (Usually called DEX's). This article by 
Some leading projects in this category are Bitshares, Waves, and 0x. However, the trend is just picking up as Binance and Bitfinex are creating their own DEX's too. Some other DEX projects include:
Those are the infrastructure cryptocurrencies I have found in my research. Did I miss something? Is there a type of cryptocurrencies that can be considered to infrastructure and I did not mention it? Please tell me what you think in the comments below. Any good suggestion will definitely earn you my 2 cents worth of an upvote ;)
I was planning to talk about all of the four remaining major types, but when I started researching and writing this article, I found that this type deserves the attention of a dedicated post. Therefore, I'll have to postpone the explanation of the last three types to Part 3. So, please, stay tuned.
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