Bitcoin is the most valuable, well-known cryptocurrency with the highest volumes in circulation – but it is far from the only crypto worth keeping an eye on.
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As crypto becomes more mainstream, new digital currencies continue to pop up and have started to be accepted in conventional financial transactions such as credit card spending.
Part of crypto’s appeal is that it is decentralised, so it can’t be manipulated or controlled by governmental regulation. However, the issue of regulation rumbles on, and governments will likely introduce some forms of compliance rules.
Altcoins are modelled on Bitcoin, and some offer advanced features yet typically fail to match the security level available through the Bitcoin networks – but that doesn’t mean to say they don’t have enormous potential.
Here are the ten cryptocurrencies tipped to be ‘the next big digital token’ out of the 10,000 different cryptos in circulation.
1. Dogecoin – DOGE
Dogecoin values soared in 2021, and major corporations now accept it as payment, including SpaceX, Elon Musk’s aerospace enterprise.
The cryptocurrency was built as a joke to highlight the volatility and speculation inherent in the crypto markets, created by software engineers Jackson Palmer and Billy Markus in 2013.
From there, the meme coin benefited from a huge profile boost when Musk tweeted about it and peaked at a valuation of approximately £0.55 when the entrepreneur appeared on the US show Saturday Night Live.
At the time of writing, Dogecoin is worth around £0.12 per coin, as the 11th largest cryptocurrency globally, with a market capitalisation value of £16 billion.
2. Monero – XMR
Monero is an untraceable currency offering high levels of privacy and security, launched in April 2014 and currently worth £131 per token.
The open-source crypto is community-driven and based solely on donations, focusing on scalability and complete decentralisation.
Ring signatures are a technique used to provide anonymity. Unfortunately, this security function means Monero is linked to crime. Still, individuals living in oppressive environments may also use it to ensure safety and secrecy to circumvent personal spending controls.
3. Tether – USDT
As the fourth largest crypto, Tether is worth exactly $1 (£0.74) a token and holds a market cap of £57.58 billion.
The price is linked to the US Dollar, and Tether was one of the first stable coins pegged to an external source to prevent turbulence.
Investors looking to get involved in crypto but with a risk-averse approach tend to opt for stable coins because they can make transfers to and from regular currencies much faster and significantly reduce risk exposure.
4. Binance Coin – BNB
This utility cryptocurrency is used as a payment method for users to trade on the Binance Exchange (banned in the UK).
The third-largest cryptocurrency offers discounts for people trading with the token as a payment and operates on the Binance decentralised exchange.
Binance Coin is worth £321 per BNB and holds a market cap of £54.19 billion.
5. Stellar – XLM
Stellar is designed as an enterprise solution, facilitating large financial transactions between investment brokers, firms and banks through an open blockchain network.
Transactions can be made instantly and carry zero costs for the participating parties.
The cryptocurrency remains an open blockchain anyone can use and allows transfers between borders in any currency, based on the Lumens XLM native currency.
Stellar Lumens are worth around £0.18 and have a market capitalisation value of £4.42 billion.
6. Bitcoin Cash – BCH
Bitcoin Cash was one of the first hard forks from the original Bitcoin cryptocurrency when developers or miners had different objectives or ideas for the crypto.
Launched in August 2017, Bitcoin Cash was developed due to disagreements around scalability, owing to the block limits of one megabyte on the Bitcoin network.
BCH generates larger blocks of eight megabytes, holding more transactions and increasing exchange speeds.
Bitcoin Cash has a market cap of around £4.79 billion and is worth £251 per token.
7. Polkadot – DOT
The Polkadot protocol allows blockchains to work together.
A relay chain supports networking communications and allows parallel blockchains to transact using native tokens.
Developers can use Polkadot to develop new blockchains. However, they need to build separate security protections, which means that smaller or more recent projects are often vulnerable without the robust security of a larger blockchain.
Created by Gavin Wood, a founder of Ethereum, Polkadot trades for £16.66 with a market cap of £18.06 billion.
8. Cardano – ADA
A collective of mathematicians, cryptographers and engineers created Cardano as a Proof-of-Stake crypto. While still a relatively young cryptocurrency, Cardano is thought to have more outstanding capabilities than Ethereum.
With the sixth-largest market cap, sitting at £28.39 billion, and a trade value of £0.88 per ADA, Cardano aims to become the first DeFi based global financial operating system.
Cardano applications include solutions to support contact tracing, voter fraud and chain interoperability.
9. Litecoin – LTC
Litecoin was launched in 2011 and was one of the first cryptos to follow the Bitcoin model, created by Charlie Lee, formerly an engineer at Google.
The open-source global payment system has no central controls and can be decoded with standard CPUs, offering a faster generation of new blocks and quicker transactions.
A growing number of organisations and merchants have started accepting Litecoin, valued at £99.54 per token, with a market cap of £6.86 billion.
10. Ethereum – ETH
Our final cryptocurrency to consider alongside Bitcoin is Ethereum – a decentralised platform supporting dApps and smart contracts, with inbuilt protections against fraud, third-party control or downtime.
The concept is that Ethereum’s decentralised financial products are available to anyone globally, without any reliance on infrastructure or national identification procedures.
Theoretically, anyone can open a bank account, buy insurance, take out a loan or secure another financial product, regardless of their nationality.
Ethereum apps run on ether, the cryptographic token specific to the platform, and is used primarily by developers creating apps within Ethereum or investors purchasing digital currencies with ether.
Ethereum is the second-largest digital currency behind Bitcoin. However, there is quite a margin between the two, with ETH trading at £2,323 as of February 2022, holding a market cap at just over half that of Bitcoin.
10 Cryptocurrencies To Rival Bitcoin FAQ
What are altcoins and tokens?
Any cryptocurrency other than Bitcoin is referred to as an altcoin; that simply means an alternative coin. Crypto used to make payments is classed as a value token.
Ethereum, as discussed above, is the most commonly used altcoin, with ether the actual currency and Ethereum the wider blockchain network.
Blockchain-based tokens are also available, acting slightly differently than a digital form of money.
Why are cryptocurrencies such big news?
The key differential between crypto and an established investment is that there isn’t a centralised exchange or regulator that controls transactions.
As a disruptor, crypto is an alternative investment and has grown significantly in the last ten years, reaching a market capitalisation of more than £1.29 trillion.
One of the concepts behind crypto is that it is a democratised form of finance, without any bank, law, monetary authority or third party intervening or charging transaction fees.
How have so many competing cryptocurrencies emerged?
Bitcoin may be the best-known cryptocurrency, but countless others have been derived from it, using similar architecture structures and open-source code. Anyone can create a new coin by editing the code.
Each crypto is based on underlying blockchain technology, but developers look to build different types of crypto for various purposes.
For example, utility cryptos work together as infrastructure, with other cryptocurrencies built on their networks. Other forms of crypto are a currency in the usual sense, storing value and paying for transactions.
Which are the biggest cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin?
There are several cryptocurrencies considered important or with the potential to become so. Dogecoin is a good example and became instantly more popular when tweeted about by Elon Musk.
In addition to the above list, others include Bitcoin forks such as Bitcoin SV and coins including USD Coin, Tezos, Solana and Ripple.
Why is Bitcoin so popular?
Bitcoin is the original cryptocurrency and is dominant because it has the highest volumes in circulation and the highest value per coin. In February 2022, every Bitcoin is worth about £32,400, making up £612 billion of the total cryptocurrency market capitalisation.
There is a limited supply of 21 million Bitcoin, which drives demand. However, it will become more difficult to mine as scarcity grows and could skyrocket in value or fall dramatically as traders look for less volatile alternatives.
Almost 19 million of the Bitcoin cap have already been mined, although it is expected to take 18 years before the remaining 2 million coins are mined.
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