Cryptocurrencies 101
Updated: Oct 5
All investors and traders, should be well versed in cryptocurrencies as an asset that is not correlated to any other asset. Government regulations from many countries around the globe made it possible to trade these assets on regulated exchanges, which is great news for anyone involved in the financial markets. While blockchain is a complete subject that has many different applications, cryptocurrency uses blockchain and you don't need to understand it to get into cryptocurrencies. Just think of them as another asset like gold or silver and trade them as such. Volatility has been very high, but most of the crypto's have more data behind them to make it ok to test systems on it and the volatility fluctuation is winding down from the extremes that they look like any other commodities.
Below infographic from BestAccountingSchools provides an introductory guide to cryptocurrencies, and it highlights the history, important terms, and statistics about the crypto space. It also profiles some of the pioneers that made it all happen.
It’s a great start for anyone looking to get up to speed on what’s happening in cryptocurrencies.
Additional infographic resources to compliment your knowledge are below from my favorite data visualization site visualcapitalist.com
Bitcoin’s Journey to $10,000 – This timeline chart catalogs Bitcoin’s wild 2017, in which it catapulted from $1,000 to $10,000 in just 11 months.
Comparing Crypto – This giant infographic compares the differences in design and protocol of six key cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Ethereum Classic, Dash, and Ripple.
The ICO Explosion – The popularity of cryptocurrency has also led to a boom in initial coin offerings (ICOs). This nifty data visualization helps to show this.
Top 25 Cryptocurrencies – This infographic showcases the top 25 cryptocurrencies, organized by different factors: market cap, trading volume, purpose, and inception date.
Intro to Smart Contracts – Cryptocurrencies aren’t just about payments – they are also being used to automate transactions to avoid middlemen. This infographic on the power of smart contracts helps to introduce these concepts.
Historical Context – All the way back in 2013 and 2014, we put together infographics documenting the first 5 years of Bitcoin’s history, as well as why we predicted that Bitcoin would eventually disrupt banking in 2014.
Blockchain & The Stock Market - This infographic envisions what a decentralized securities platform could look like. In such a paradigm, the settlement of trades would not occur through centralized transfer agents, but instead through a blockchain with this feature “built in”.