From Bitcoin and Ethereum to Dogecoin and Tether, there are thousands of different cryptocurrencies, making it overwhelming when you’re first getting started in the world of crypto. To help you get your bearings, these are the top 10 cryptocurrencies based on market capitalization as of June 2022.

What is a cryptocurrency?

A cryptocurrency is a digital currency that can be used for online transactions on exchanges such as PayPal, Binance and others. Each has a unique number or a blockchain (the system that records all transactions) so there can never be more than one. It’s important to know whether they have tokens, which are the coins we use inside the network. Without them, there would be no users in the space, and without users, these assets wouldn’t exist.

The largest ones currently include Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Cardano. In addition to being the largest cryptocurrencies, some also hold major positions, as shown in this ranking.

Bitcoin

1.20% Market Cap $9.9 trillion (USD) 2% 786 million (USD) 1% 11 million (USD) 0.25% 36.7 million (USD) Ethereum (ETH) — Decentralized Internet 3.4% 16 billion (USD) — — — 8% 5 billion (USD) — 100 million (USD) 75% 4 billion Litecoin (LTC) 15% 28 million (USD) 9% 24 million (USD) 636 thousand (USD) 51% 13 billion Cardano (ADA) 42% 60 million (USD) 21% 50 billion (USD) 4.4% 27 billion Binance Coin (BNB) 12% 30 million (USD) — — — 18% 23.7 billion (USD) 49 billion Polkadot (DOT) — Interchain Protocol Network (IPN) 4.6% 12 billion (USD) 32 billion (USD) 15 billion Stellar Lumens (XLM) — Digital Asset Exchange Standard (DAX) — Financial Institution & Bank 7.4% 29 billion (USD) 3 billion 300 million (USD) 2 billion Solana (SOL) — Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) — Consensus Mechanism 5.6% 25 billion (USD) 22 billion (USD) 17 billion Avalanche (AVAX) 24.2% 53.8 billion (USD) 43 billion (USD) 14 billion Cardano Testnet (CTX) 31% 47 billion (USD) 26 billion (USD) 39 billion (USD) 12 billion Solana Testnet (SOLT) 33% 52 billion (USD) 40 billion (USD) 19 billion Tezos (XTZ) 34.5% 66 billion (USD) 38 billion (USD) 48 billion (USD) 14 billion Filecoin (FIL) — Blockchain-as-a-Service/Blockchain-as-a-Platform 2.3% 46 billion (USD) 26 billion (USD) 41 billion Terra (LUNA) 37.6% 95 billion (USD) 28 billion (USD) 45 billion Metaverse (Meta) 64.6% 99 trillion (USD) 56 billion (USD) 67 billion EOS Classic (EOS) 35% 62 billion (USD) 29 billion (USD) 44 billion (USD) 4 billion Dash (DASH) 1.4% 7 billion (USD) — 98% 0.05% 55 Billion IOTA (MIOTA) — Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash Transfer Service 1.4% 500 million (USD) — — — 0.5% 8 billion Polygon (MATIC) 54.6% 200 billion (USD) 20 billion (USD) 12 billion Chainlink (LINK) — Scalable Hyperledger Fabric (H3) 28.6% 3.1 billion (USD) 63 billion (USD) 80 billion Uniswap (UNI) 1 billion 800 million (USD) — 1 trillion 0.5% 400 million Monero (XMR) 1.7% 16 billion (USD) 2 billion 250 million (USD) 1 billion Tron (TRX) 0.5% 175 million (USD) 23 million (USD) 85 million Aave/Litecoin (LTC) 1 million 120 million (USD) 6.0 million (USD) 90 million XRP (XRP) 150 million NFT (NFT) 100 million (USD) 5 billion Bitrue (BITRUE) 1 billion 70 million (USD) — 130 million Ethereum Killer App 1.4% 300 million (USD) 3 billion 600 hundred million (USD) 1.2 billion Shiba Inu (SHIB) 10 billion 2 billion 500 million (USD) 0.1 billion Flow (FLOW) — Public Layer Security Protocol 1 billion 900 million (USD) 1 trillion (USD) 1 billion Pancake Swap 1000 million 100 million (USD) — 3 trillion Maker (MKR) 15 billion 1.1 billion 800 million (USD) 3 billion Zcash (ZECO) 1 billion 1 billion 100 million Binance Coin (BNB) 1 billion 50 billion (USD) 0.7 billion Ripple (XRP) 650 million 350 million 1.2 billion WazirX (WZR) 700 million 400 million 0.8 billion DAI (DAI) 1 billion 300 million (USD) 5 billion Algorand (ALGO) 680 million 670 million 0.2 billion The Sandbox (SAND) 1 billion 280 million (USD) 10 billion Harmony ($SHOP) 1 billion 500 million (USD) 0.2 billion Umaro (UMA) 1 billion 180 million (USD) 0.5 billion Cosmos ($ATOM) 1 billion 340 million (USD) 60 million (USD) 10 billion Helium (HOLE) 950 million 850 million 1 billion TRON Foundation 1 billion 1 billion 300 million (USD) 0.5 billion OKCoin (OKB) 1 billion 450 million (USD) 0.2 billion Fetch Rewards (FCHY) 1 billion 350 million (USD) 4 billion Crypto (CRYPTO) 1 billion 300 million (USD) -500 million 1 billion Compound (COMP) 1 billion 550 million (USD) 1 billion Coinshares (CSHA) 1 billion 260 million (USD) 2 billion 1 billion OnePool (ON) 1 billion 1 billion 325 million (USD) 1 billion Celsius Network (CRV) 1 billion 800 million (USD) 4 billion

Ethereum vs. other altcoins

Ethereum dominates among the other cryptocurrencies with a market cap of $9.9 trillion at the time of writing. That means more than twice as much as its rival and rivals such as Elrond (ELR), Curve (DCR) and Axie Infinity (ACI). While none are designed to function as an ideal store of value and not as secure, some of these are able to work well as payment systems and trading platforms.

Some argue Ethereum will eventually become one of the most valuable cryptocurrencies and will be worth even more in the future. Others see Ethereum as too complicated or risky and don’t see it as any good investment. Some developers see Ethereum as overhyped and think it’s a bubble like the early days of bitcoin. But if Ethereum can compete with Bitcoin, then perhaps people will accept it like Bitcoin, while investors may prefer it to fiat currencies like US dollars or euros. However, the price of ETH is still far from those currencies. For example, Ether cost $1,000 in December 2021, compared to $1,000 today. By comparison, BTC hit a record high of just under $54,000 earlier this month, but is down over 30 percent in less than two months. This makes it difficult to determine how strong the demand for ETH is relative to Bitcoin and other cryptos.

Dogecoin

Dogecoin was created by Billy Markus (aka David Schwartz) as a joke about his dog, Shibe, who was very popular at his church back east as compared to what he had seen as inappropriate content on Twitter. He saw the potential of Dogecoin and incorporated what he learned into what we know now as Dogecoin. People have named their own crypto after characters from animated cartoons and memes, including Captain Planet, Sonic the Hedgehog and Snoopy.

As of March 2022, Dogecoin sat at a slightly higher price of $0.0002 compared to Bitcoin. Even though DOGE has come a long way since its launch in 2011, it still remains as a meme coin. And according to data provided by Blockfyre, the total supply of Dogecoin is only around 15 billion coins. As of April 2022, it is worth around $8.4 billion as opposed to more than $60 billion in bitcoin.

Ethereum Classic

Ethereum Classic is another layer one (lots of processing power) decentralized internet protocol developed by Vitalik Buterin. Like many other smart contracts in the space, Ethereum Classic was built using “gas” or computing power required to run smart contract operations. More specifically, Ethereum uses an innovative Proof of Work consensus mechanism called VISA proof-of-stake. There is a second version of this method known as PoW, but neither works yet. If they do change over time (which could happen quickly), Ethereum Classic could end up becoming something akin to bitcoin. Its market cap is currently somewhere between $7.3 billion and $12.4 billion at the time of writing.

Cardano and Solidity

Both the ADA token and SOL token are part of the Cardano ecosystem.