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World of Crypto Currencies and should I take a punt?

By df
You might have heard of "BitCoin". But did you know BitCoin is just ONE out of many decentralised crypto-currencies out there in the market? This article is just to summarise some of these crypto-currencies and makes you to judge whether to invest or try-out on them. Just a word of caution: These are highly volatile and risky. DO AT YOUR OWN RISK

What is crypto-currency?

A cryptocurrency is a digital asset designed to work as a medium of exchange. Many of us express it in terms of USD or GBP or EUR, but always consider them as old plain "Barter" system to exchange goods and services.

BlockChain and why is it powerful?

A blockchain is a decentralised digital ledger that records transactions. Think of it as a huge sheet of paper which records every transactions in the world which are unique and is permanently written and cannot be reverted. This makes validating transactions transparent to anyone in the world, thus making it extremely secure to trade goods and services.
       BitCoin is just ONE implementation on top of BlockChain. Consider BlockChain as yourself and BitCoin is like a Suit you wear, but the real value is you (BlockChain).  Some of the clever Software Engineers made it highly decentralised thus extending the power beyond dreams and might become Internet2.0 for Trade and Finance.

Should you try out your luck with crpto-currencies?

Can you imagine how many crypto-currencies fellow geeks have created in last year alone. Yes more than 1000 !! at time of writing and market cap exceeds $25 Billion already for all of the crypto-currencies combined whereby BitCoin takes the 2/3rd Market Share. Below Data is compiled from coinmarketcap top100 which manages a substantial list of Crypto currencies with market movements.
Top 100 Crypto-currency Market Share (2017 March)

Top 5 crypto-currencies by Market Cap

Which one to try out?

It depends on your risk appetite. The least risky one is BitCoin with larger market cap. Rest are all highly risk, but worth the punt. But below is a table which I compiled based on risk vs value from various data sources.
CryptoCurrency
Risk_Percentage
Potential Swing
BitCoin
60%
+/-100%
Ethereum
70%
+/- 300%
Ripple
85%
+/-2500%
The reason for the huge potential Swing for Ripple is because of its very low cost per unit with backing from multiple ventures. But the risk is very high as always. Also at time of writing lot of exchanges are encouraging Ethereum as complimentary for BitCoin, so that's a space to watch for as well.

Some of the good way to Start into crypto-currencies are
  1. bitStamp
  2. CoinBase (now offers derivatives if you want to risk more !!)
  3. Or Your laptop  or Android/iOS apps if you don't want Exchanges

Good vs Bad Scenario

Let's assume a good scenario of buying Ripple at 0.007 per $(USD) which amounts to approximately 14200 units of XRP for $100. Assume XRP assumes $1 , you are easily gaining $14000 . On flip side, you will loose $100. So up-to you if you want to take a punt.

How it is going to Impact Daily Life

Currency in today's world is controlled by an Individual country and is flexible only within that country (except US Dollars). BlockChain takes this concept completely decentralised which means NO ONE can control it. No one can block the exchanges and nothing can obstruct free movement of exchange of services. When US government rejected BitCoin ETF, the crypto-currencies went down for short period of time. But that news got escalated and another 10 million people came to know about bitcoin and more people purchased it !!

How would be the world with BlockChain, Artificial Intelligence & Unlimited Energy before 2030 !
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