Whenever the talk is about Cryptocurrency, most think first of Bitcoin – the first publicly traded digital currency worldwide. It is based on a decentralized network managed by all its users. Any transaction is recorded in a blockchain. The success of the pioneer is enormous and undefeated to this day: more than 16.8 million bitcoins are currently in circulation. At a unit price of $ 11,106, that's a total value of more than $ 187 billion. Basically, anyone can generate new bitcoins by mining. If you have a lot of computing power available, you can participate as well. However, at some point there will be an end: A maximum of 21 million Bitcoins can exist.

With a total value of just under $ 98 billion, Ethereum is in second place among the most successful cryptocurrencies. Ethereum is a platform for managing and executing smart contracts in a blockchain. The payment method is the internal crypto-currency ether. Like bitcoins, ethers can also be mined.

Ripple is a currency-neutral network that offers both a trading center and a payment network. Like Ethereum, Ripple has its own cryptocurrency with the acronym XRP. However, the XRP cannot be generated by mining. Currently there are ca. 39 billion XRP in circulation. At the current rate of $ 1.38, this equates to nearly $ 54 billion.

Currently, $ 28 billion stand at 16 million BCH (Bitcoin Cash). This cryptocurrency, which only exists since August 2017, was created by splitting off the Bitcoin network. The goal was to enlarge the block size limit, which allows more transactions per time.

Launched in 2015, Cardano aims to tackle the current problems of previous Blockchain currencies. The tokenholders should be able to vote on the direction of the project development. Nearly 15 billion US dollars in the form of its own cryptocurrency 'ADA' were already invested the idea.

Litecoin resembles Bitcoin in many ways. However, the new elements of the blockchain (blocks) are generated more frequently, thus confirming the transactions more quickly. In addition, the mining is to be distributed to many people. At Bitcoin, on the other hand, mining today mainly takes place via so-called mining pools. There are currently 54 million LTCs in circulation with a total value of just under $ 10 billion.

With the decentralized network Stellar one can settle exchanges worldwide. Initially it was based on the ripple protocol, which is soon to be overhauled and has since been renewed. A mining is not planned. The own crypto wash is called Stellar Lumen (XLM). Almost 18 Billion XLM are currently in circulation – with a value of 9.7 million US dollars. At the beginning of the project, the coins were partly sold for free to spread the currency faster.

NEM is a cryptocurrency which exists since 2015, whose technology is also used today by the commercial blockchain Mijin. NEM convinces with a fast block generation, an extended blockchain functionality and the proof of importance. This means that unlike mining, users don't have to solve difficult computational tasks. Preferred are those who make frequent and high transactions. At the beginning of 2018, NEM achieved a value of approximately $ 8.5 billion with its Coins XEM.

Scalable, flexible and easy to use – these are supposed to be the core features of the blockchain-based platform EOS. It can provide a good infrastructure for decentralized applications. There are currently 624 million EOS with a total value of approximately $ 8 billion in circulation.

Within a short time, the crypto-currency NEO has reached a total value of over 8 billion US dollars. Especially popular are these coins in China. Behind this is a non-profit, community-based blockchain project. The idea of the NEO founders: smart economy, which means digital assets + digital identity + digital contracts.

IOTA is one of the few cryptocurrency projects that doesn’t use blockchain. Instead, it's based on a software protocol called Tangle. This is a network which, in contrast to the blockchain, can process several transactions in parallel. The advantages: no transaction costs, fast processing, infinite scalability and secure transfer of data. The aim of the founders of IOTA is to facilitate payments and data transfers in the Internet of Things, i.e. between different machines. The interest in the project is particularly great in the automobile industry. However, also the Telekom, Fujistu and Samsung work already with IOTA. There are more than $ 7 billion of IOTA Coins (MIOTA) worldwide.

There exist $ 6 billion in form of DASH. This open source peer-to-peer cryptocurrency used to be called XCoin or Darkcoin. The functions are similar to Dash Bitcoin. However, more importance is placed on privacy. For example, the information of a transaction is not public. To push the project forward, ten percent of the coins generated by mining automatically move into the so-called treasury. Among other things, developers are paid to optimize the system.

The cryptocurrency Monero resembles Bitcoin as well. However, the focus here is more on privacy through anonymity and greater decentralization. This concept is convincing: Coins worth nearly 5 billion US dollars are currently in circulation.

Around $ 4.5 billion in form of TRX, the TRON's cryptocurrency, is currently on the market. The Blockchain-based, decentralized protocol aims to build a worldwide, free content entertainment system. The protocol allows any user to freely publish, store and own data. The app Peiwo with its ten million users is said to be the first TRON-compatible entertainment app.

Bitcoin Gold is a branch of Bitcoin (Hardfork), which was completed in October 2017. The goal of the open source project is to improve scalability, decentralized mining and increasing the size of blocks within the blockchain. Today, nearly 17 million BTGs are in circulation with a value of 3.2 billion US dollars.

ICON wants to bring blockchain technology into daily life. The goal is to connect the crypto world with the normal world and thus to enable new businesses. ICON is compatible with other blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. Their cryptocurrency ICX has a total value of over 3 billion US dollars.

A decentralized application for the business world, which is easy to use, mobile and compatible with the most important existing blockchain systems – that is the idea of QTUM. Around $ 3 billion in QTUM are in circulation.

In 2016, a security vulnerability was discovered within the organization 'The DAO2 (an investment fee based on ethereum). Hackers stole Ether coins from user accounts. Thus, the community chose to split. This created a new, safer blockchain: Ethereum (ETH). The old Blockchain was preserved at the request of a small group of users and was renamed Ethereum Classic (ETC). After all, the "old" currency still is at 2.9 billion US dollars today.

Lisk is a JavaScript written framework that can implement its own sidechains – as well as other blockchain applications. Among other things, it enables users to develop platform-independent social networks, messengers, games and financial applications locally on their own blockchain. The concept is convincing: 2.6 billion US dollars are currently in form of 117 million Lisk Coin (LSK) on the market.