Top 10 Altcoins Of 2024 (2024)

The definition of an altcoin has evolved since the early days of cryptocurrency when only a handful of crypto assets existed. Back then, anything but bitcoin (BTC) was considered an altcoin.

Today the world of crypto assets is much broader. There is a wide variety of coins and tokens with use cases that go well beyond a medium of exchange, meaning they aren’t necessarily bitcoin competitors.

Still, for lack of a better designation, the basic definition of an altcoin is any crypto asset other than bitcoin.

Here’s a look at the top 10 altcoins by market capitalization, excluding stablecoins. We’ve excluded stablecoins since they are designed to maintain a stable price and are not typically considered to be a speculative investment.

1. Ethereum (ETH)

• Market cap: $389.2 billion

Of the $2.5 trillion that represents the total market capitalization of the more than 26,000 crypto assets available today, more than $389 billion is held in Ethereum, the biggest altcoin on the market.

Unlike bitcoin, characterized as a “decentralized currency,” think of Ethereum as a distributed computing network where users can use the blockchain to run decentralized applications, or dApps, and host smart contracts.

“BTC is a store of value while ETH is a decentralized playground for builders to determine the future in the technological innovations of blockchain technology,” says Walker Holmes, vice president of metaverse platform MetaTope.

Critics of Ethereum point to high fees for conducting transactions. But with the thousands of apps and other altcoins powered by its blockchain, Ethereum is here to stay.

2. BNB (BNB)

• Market cap: $82.5 billion

BNB is a utility token that can be used to pay trading fees and get discounted trades on the Binance exchange. You can even use BNB outside the Binance crypto exchange for payment processing, such as booking travel arrangements.

Critics say BNB isn’t as decentralized as other altcoins. However, the value of the coin itself has also helped fuel investor interest in the exchange ever since BNB started gaining popularity back in 2021.

3. Solana (SOL)

• Market cap: $79.3 billion

Developed to help power decentralized finance and apps as well as smart contracts,Solana runs on a unique hybrid proof-of-stake and proof-of-history mechanism to process transactions quickly and securely.

Solana is one of the fastest blockchains out there. Still, it has also faced criticism for being too centralized with very few validating nodes compared with Ethereum, says Whitney Setiawan, research analyst with digital assets exchange Bitrue.

Holmes says Solana is a highly scalable blockchain solution with very low fees but has seen outages and downtime.

4. XRP (XRP)

• Market cap: $32.0 billion

XRP can be used to facilitate exchanges of different currency types with digital technology and payment processing company Ripple Labs. Founded in 2012, Ripple Labs is practically a dinosaur in the fast-paced world of cryptocurrency. However, while many other coins have come and gone over the past decade, Ripple Labs and its currency, XRP, have maintained their celebrated status throughout the cryptosphere.

In fact, XRP’s XRP Ledger offered the first ever decentralized exchange, or DEX, with a protocol allowing for custom tokenization. This open-source technology is also known for being greener than other competing cryptocurrencies, which may help contribute to its overall popularity.

4. Dogecoin (DOGE)

• Market cap: $26.3 billion

Dogecoin is the original meme coin, famously started as a joke in 2013. Nevertheless, thanks to a dedicated community and creative memes, it has rapidly evolved into a prominent cryptocurrency.

Richard Gardner, CEO of financial software provider Modulus Global, points out that DOGE has had some big backers but remains riskier than bitcoin.

“Altcoins like DOGE can fluctuate to extreme lows and highs depending on market volatility since they have yet to prove real-world use cases,” says Garry Krugljakow, founder of 0VIX Protocol, a decentralized app that enables crypto lending and borrowing.

5. Cardano (ADA)

• Market cap: $20.7 billion

Cardano was an early adopter of the proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, which speeds up transaction time by removing the competitive and energy-intensive problem-solving dimension of platforms like bitcoin.

“Cardano is a thought leader in the industry that has paved the way for proof of stake consensus mechanisms,” Holmes says. “ADA is a blockchain solution that promises low fees with higher levels of security than many of its counterparts.”

But Daniel Logvin, CEO of blockchain network provider and consultancy LedgerByte, says the altcoin promised too much and has yet to deliver.

6. Avalanche (AVAX)

• Market cap: $17.7 billion

Developed as a layer-one blockchain for dApps and other networks, Avalanche has grown into one of the world’s leading altcoin’s, Ethereum’s, main rivals. In particular, the AVAX network is looking to unseat Ethereum as the blockchain of choice for smart contracts. The way in which the newer blockchain hopes to do this is by a higher transaction output without affecting scalability.

Like Ethereum, Avalanche is attempting to solve Vitalek Buterin’s famous blockchain trilemma of security, scalability and decentralization. The blockchain trilemma states that developers must sacrifice at least one of those three components to allow for maximum productivity with the other two. Avalanche attempts to solve the trilemma by making use of three interoperable blockchains in the scope of its own development.

7. Toncoin (TON)

• Market cap: $17.2 billion

Developed in 2018 by Telegram, the encrypted messaging system, Toncoin is a Layer-1 blockchain whose name originally stood for “Telegram Open Network” but has since been changed to simply “The Open Network.”

TON was originally released so that in-application clients could easily settle transactions within the Telegram app. However, it has grown into a community-driven blockchain whose proof-of-stake network maintains extremely fast processing and validation times.

8. Shiba Inu (SHIB)

• Market cap: $15.5 billion

Shiba Inu, an Ethereum-based meme coin, was developed in 2020. SHIB was created by “Ryoshi,” an anonymous developer who claimed the goal of the coin was to discover if an organization could work without any central leadership. With major crypto heavy hitters such as Elon Musk and Vitalek Buterin quickly throwing their weight behind it, Shiba Inu appears to be proving Ryoshi’s hope is possible.

In October 2021, Shiba Inu briefly supplanted Dogecoin as the world’s most valuable meme coin by market cap. In addition, some niche retailers have started accepting the coin as payment following its success among crypto investors. But don’t start looking to pay for your dinner with SHIB yet. An organized social media effort from the Shiba Inu community to get McDonald’s to accept the coin as a form of payment ultimately failed.

9. Bitcoin Cash (BCH)

• Market cap: $12.4 billion

This peer-to-peer electronic cash system aims to become a decentralized, permissionless global payment system. Bitcoin Cash is an alternative to the original bitcoin payment system, the world’s oldest cryptocurrency.

Created by a hard fork in the bitcoin blockchain, Bitcoin Cash launched in 2017, eight years after the original bitcoin blockchain came online.

10. Polkadot (DOT)

• Market cap: $12.2 billion

This altcoin powers the Polkadot ecosystem, where developers can build specific-purpose blockchains as spokes connecting to the main Polkadot blockchain hub, says Max Thake, co-founder of peaq, a blockchain network built on Polkadot. DOT is the native token for Polkadot.

“(There is) a sustained demand for DOT from projects aiming to build on Polkadot,” he says.

This altcoin has better-shared security and is a leader in developer activity and many projects, says James Wo, CEO of blockchain and cryptocurrency investment firm Digital Finance Group. But project progress has been slow, and it lacks star applications to help boost its ecosystem, he says.

*Market caps and pricing sourced from coinmarketcap.com, current as of April 2, 2024.