Behind Bitcoin, Litecoin is the second most popular pure cryptocurrency. This success can be largely attributed to its simplicity and clear utility benefits. As of January 2021, Litecoin is one of the most widely accepted cryptocurrencies, and more than 2,000 merchants and stores now accept LTC across the globe. Its main benefit comes from its speed and cost-effectiveness. Litecoin transactions are typically confirmed in just minutes, and transaction fees are nearly negligible. This makes it an attractive alternative to Bitcoin in developing countries, where transaction fees may be the deciding factor on which cryptocurrency to support. In late 2020, Litecoin also saw the release of the [MimbleWimble](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/what-is-mimblewimble) (MW) testnet, which is used to test Mimblewimble-based confidential transactions on Litecoin. Once this feature is available on the mainnet, Litecoin users will also benefit from greatly enhanced privacy and fungibility.

As we previously touched on, Litecoin was founded by Charlie Lee, an early cryptocurrency adopter and a name held in high regard in the cryptocurrency industry. Charlie Lee, also known as “Chocobo,” is an early Bitcoin miner and computer scientist, who was a former software engineer for Google. In addition, Charlie Lee held the role of director of engineering at Coinbase between 2015 and 2017 before moving on to other ventures. Today, Charlie Lee is an outspoken advocate of cryptocurrencies and is the managing director of the Litecoin Foundation—a non-profit organization that works alongside the Litecoin Core Development team to help advance Litecoin. Besides Lee, the Litecoin Foundation also includes three other individuals on the board of directors: Xinxi Wang, Alan Austin and Zing Yang — all of which are accomplished in their own right.

Litecoin (LTC) is a cryptocurrency that was designed to provide fast, secure and low-cost payments by leveraging the unique properties of [blockchain](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/blockchain) technology. To learn more about this project, check out our deep dive of [Litecoin](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/litecoin). The cryptocurrency was created based on the [Bitcoin](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/) (BTC) protocol, but it differs in terms of the hashing algorithm used, hard cap, block transaction times and a few other factors. Litecoin has a block time of just 2.5 minutes and extremely low transaction fees, making it suitable for micro-transactions and point-of-sale payments. Litecoin was released via an open-source client on GitHub on Oct. 7, 2011, and the Litecoin Network went live five days later on Oct. 13, 2011. Since then, it has exploded in both usage and acceptance among merchants and has counted among the top ten cryptocurrencies by market capitalization for most of its existence. The cryptocurrency was created by Charlie Lee, a former Google employee, who intended Litecoin to be a "lite version of Bitcoin," in that it features many of the same properties as Bitcoin—albeit lighter in weight.

The APT token can be purchased and traded on a number of exchanges, including [Binance](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/binance/), [Huobi](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/huobi-global/), [KuCoin](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/kucoin/), [Coinbase](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/coinbase-exchange/) and more.

Aptos uses two consensus protocols – Proof-of-Stake and AptosBFT. AptosBFT is quite similar to DiemBFT, originally developed for Diem. “BFT '' means ‘Byzantine Fault-Tolerant,’ and a network is said to be Byzantine fault-tolerant if it can continue to operate normally even if some of its members go offline or turn malicious. AptosBFT is a custom-made consensus algorithm based on the HotStuff protocol. While there are a lot of background technicalities around how the protocol secures the network, the algorithm analyzes the on-chain state and automatically updates leader rotations to adjust for non-responsive validators without human intervention.

On-chain user application protocol called LayerZero Labs [launched](https://medium.com/layerzero-official/the-aptos-bridge-by-layerzero-5117030afd4f) the Aptos Bridge on October 19, 2022. The blockchain bridge will allow users to transfer ETH, USDC, and USDT from Ethereum, BNB Chain, Polygon, Avalanche, and Optimism to Aptos.

APT is the native currency of the Aptos blockchain. It has an initial total supply of 1 billion and at the time of writing, its circulating supply is 130 million APT. The distribution is as follows: Community (51.02%); Core Contributors (19.00%); Foundation (16.50%); Investors (13.48%). Under the Community allocation, around 80% are held by the Aptos Foundation and the remaining by Aptos Labs. This will be used to support community growth and Aptos Foundation initiatives, and the remainder will be unlocked monthly over the next ten years. Investors and core contributors are subjected to a four-year [vesting](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/what-does-vesting-mean-in-crypto) schedule from mainnet launch. The Aptos team announced a token airdrop of 20 million APT tokens to early testnet users on Oct. 19, 2022. For a summary of Aptos [tokenomics](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/tokenomics), refer [here](https://aptosfoundation.org/currents/aptos-tokenomics-overview).

For a start, the Aptos team claims that its network can process over 150,000 tps. By comparison, Ethereum’s mainnet tps is around 12 to 15. This high transaction throughput is possible through a parallel execution engine (Block-STM) — a [byzantine fault-tolerant](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/byzantine-fault-tolerance-bft) (BFT) PoS [consensus mechanism](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/consensus-mechanism). For context, most blockchains execute transactions sequentially, which means that a single failed transaction or high demand on the network could hold up the entire chain. In the case of Aptos, all transactions are processed simultaneously and validated afterward. Failed transactions are either re-executed or aborted, thanks to the blockchain’s software transactional memory libraries, which spot and manage conflicts. Aptos is built using Move, a new smart contract programming language that claims to offer advantages to [Solidity](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/how-to-learn-solidity-for-beginners), the EVM-based programming language. This includes blockchain commands that can be easily verified, modification of private key and modular design of Aptos. New use cases can be realized through Aptos’ upgradeability and configurability, while horizontal throughput scalability — through the natively-implemented [sharding](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/sharding) feature — provides a better user experience.

Aptos is the brainchild of Mo Shaikh and Avery Ching, both former employees of Meta. Mo, who is the current CEO of the company, is a founder with years of multinational financial services and blockchain/crypto experience. According to his [LinkedIn profile](https://www.linkedin.com/in/moalishaikh/details/experience/), he specializes in scaling products and has experience in the private equity and venture capital markets. Ching, on the other hand, is the CTO of Aptos. He is a software engineer and was one of the principal software engineers at Meta. The duo worked together on the Diem blockchain project at Meta. Shaikh and Ching decided to join forces to create Aptos Labs when the Diem project was discontinued in January 2022. It, therefore, comes as no surprise that Aptos employs some of the technicalities of Diem. Other members of the Aptos team include researchers, designers, and engineers from Diem.

Aptos is a [Layer 1](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/layer-1-blockchain) [Proof-of-Stake](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/proof-of-stake-pos) (PoS) blockchain that employs a novel [smart contract](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/smart-contract) programming language called Move, a Rust-based programming language that was independently developed by Meta (formerly Facebook)’s Diem blockchain engineers. Aptos’s vision is a blockchain that brings mainstream adoption to [web3](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/what-is-web-3-0) and empowers an ecosystem of [DApps](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/decentralized-applications-dapps) to solve real-world user problems. The PoS blockchain can achieve a theoretical transaction [throughput](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/throughput) of over 150,000 [transactions per second](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/transactions-per-second) (tps) through parallel execution. In March 2022, Aptos raised $200 million in a seed round led by the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). Other crypto heavyweights like Tiger Global and Multicoin Capital took part in the funding round. Fast forward to July, the startup raised another $200 million in a Series A round with participation from Dragonfly, Apollo Global, Franklin Templeton, Animoca, Jump Crypto and others. Two months later, Binance Labs made a strategic investment of an undisclosed amount in Aptos. On Oct. 18, 2022, Aptos announced the [mainnet](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/mainnet) launch, while the Aptos genesis occurred on Oct. 12, 2022.

As we mentioned, the circulating supply of LEO tokens is designed to diminish over time. Originally, the total supply was set at 1 billion. LEO was sold for $1 apiece on a 1:1 basis with the Tether stablecoin, meaning that a total of $1 billion was raised over a 10-day period. There were 660 million ERC-20 tokens at launch, as well as 340 million EOS-based tokens — and Bitfinex allows conversions between the two chains to be made with ease. At the time, the company described the dual protocol launch as “unique” — and vowed that it would empower the Bitfinex community.

A token burn mechanism means iFinex is committed to buying back UNUS SED LEO from the market on a monthly basis. The amount that’s purchased and burned is equal to at least 27% of the revenues generated by iFinex — and tokens are also purchased at the market rate. In a news release at the time, the company said: “The burn mechanism will continue until 100% of tokens have been redeemed.” Whereas some cryptocurrencies just launch on a single blockchain, LEO tokens were issued on two blockchains. While 64% of the original supply was on Ethereum, the remaining 36% could be found on EOS.

The purchase of DAI tokens is available on numerous online platforms. These include Decentralized Finance ([DeFi](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/what-is-decentralized-finance)) token swap protocols: * [Uniswap](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/uniswap-v2/) * [Compound](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/compound/) And traditional cryptocurrency exchanges: * [Coinbase Pro](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/coinbase-pro/) * [Binance](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/binance/) * [OKEx](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/okex/) * [HitBTC](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/hitbtc/)

DAI is an Ethereum-based, [ERC-20](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/erc-20)-compatible token. As such, it is secured by Ethereum’s Ethash algorithm.

New DAI tokens are not produced via [mining](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/how-long-does-it-take-to-mine-one-bitcoin) like Bitcoin ([BTC](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/)) and Ethereum ([ETH](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ethereum/)), nor are they minted by a private company according to its own issuance police like Tether ([USDT](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/tether/)). Instead, new DAI can be minted by any user via the use of Maker Protocol. Maker Protocol, which runs on the Ethereum blockchain, is the software that governs DAI issuance. In order to maintain the soft price peg to the U.S. dollar, Maker Protocol ensures that every DAI token is collateralized by an appropriate amount of other cryptocurrencies. As part of this process, the Protocol allows any user to deposit their crypto into a so-called vault — a smart contract on the Ethereum blockchain — as collateral and mint a corresponding amount of new DAI tokens. There is no upper limit on the total supply of DAI — the supply is dynamic and depends on how much collateral is stored in the vaults at any given moment. As of November 2020, there are around 940 million DAI in circulation.

DAI’s main advantage lies in its soft peg to the price of the U.S. dollar. The crypto market is notorious for its volatility with even the largest, highly-[liquid](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/liquidity) coins such as [Bitcoin](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/) sometimes experiencing price changes (both up and down) of 10% or more within a single day. Under these circumstances, traders and investors are naturally predisposed to add safe-haven assets to their portfolios, whose stable price might help offset significant market fluctuations. One such kind of asset are stablecoins, of which DAI is one example. These are cryptocurrencies whose price is pegged to assets with a relatively stable value — most commonly traditional fiat currencies, such as USD or EUR. Another key advantage of DAI is the fact that it is managed not by a private company, but rather by a decentralized autonomous organization via a software protocol. As a result, all instances of issuance and burning of tokens are managed and publicly recorded by Ethereum-powered self-enforcing smart-contracts, making the entire system more transparent and less prone to corruption. In addition, the process of developing DAI software is governed in a more democratic way — via direct voting by the regular participants of the token’s ecosystem.

Dai is the second-largest decentralized stablecoin by [market capitalization](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/market-capitalization-market-cap-mcap), having been [flipped](https://decrypt.co/88791/terra-ust-flips-dai-fourth-largest-stablecoin) recently by Terra’s native stablecoin — [UST](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/terrausd/). Both are backed by cryptocurrencies and pegged to the Dollar, while the top stablecoins like [USDT](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/tether/), [USDC](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/usd-coin/) and [BUSD](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/binance-usd/) are backed by traditional assets such as cash, corporate bonds, U.S. treasuries and commercial papers (which has come under [increased scrutiny](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/mystery-over-tether-s-billions-deepens) in the case of USDT). So what exactly is Dai backed by? The Dai stablecoin is a collateral-based cryptocurrency soft-pegged to the U.S. dollar. Users generate Dai by depositing crypto-assets into Maker Vaults on the Maker Protocol. Users can access Maker Protocol and create Vaults through Oasis Borrow or other interfaces built by the community. On [Oasis Borrow](https://oasis.app/borrow), users can lock in collateral such as [ETH](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ethereum/), [WBTC](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/wrapped-bitcoin/), [LINK](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/chainlink/), [UNI](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/uniswap/), [YFI](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/yearn-finance/), [MANA](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/decentraland/), [MATIC](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/polygon/) and more. Users can then borrow against their collateral in Dai, as long as it is within the collateral ratio, which ranges from 101% to 175%, depending on the risk level of the asset locked.

One of the defining features of DAI is that it wasn’t created by any single person or a small group of co-founders. Instead, the development of the software that powers it and the issuance of new tokens is governed by the MakerDAO and Maker Protocol. MakerDAO is a [decentralized autonomous organization](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/decentralized-autonomous-organizations-dao) — a kind of company that runs itself in a decentralized manner via the use of smart contracts — self-enforcing agreements expressed in software code and executed on the Ethereum [blockchain](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/blockchain). This organization is managed democratically by the holders of its Maker (MKR) governance tokens, which act similarly to a traditional company’s stock; MKR holders can vote on key decisions regarding the development of MakerDAO, Maker Protocol and DAI, with their voting power being proportionate to the amount of Maker tokens they own. MakerDAO itself was originally founded by a Danish entrepreneur Rune Christensen in 2015. Before starting work on the Maker ecosystem, Christensen studied biochemistry and international business in Copenhagen and founded the Try China international recruiting firm.

DAI is an Ethereum-based [stablecoin](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/what-is-a-stablecoin) (stable-price cryptocurrency) whose issuance and development is managed by the Maker Protocol and the MakerDAO decentralized autonomous organization. The price of DAI is soft-pegged to the U.S. dollar and is collateralized by a mix of other cryptocurrencies that are deposited into [smart-contract](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/smart-contract) vaults every time new DAI is minted. It is important to differentiate between Multi-Collateral DAI and Single-Collateral DAI (SAI), an earlier version of the token that could only be collateralized by a single cryptocurrency; SAI also doesn’t support the DAI Savings Rate, which allows users to earn savings by holding DAI tokens. Multi-Collateral DAI was launched in November 2019.

STX is available to trade on several prominent exchange platforms, including [Binance](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/binance/),Coinbase, Kraken, Upbit, and KuCoin. For a full list of available trading pairs and supported platforms, see the [markets section](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/stacks/markets/). For more information about buying cryptocurrencies with fiat, click [here](https://coinmarketcap.com/how-to-buy-bitcoin/).

Stacks uses the Bitcoin blockchain as its base layer. As a [Proof of Work (PoW)](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/proof-of-work-vs-proof-of-stake)-based blockchain, Bitcoin uses the combined efforts of thousands of miners and nodes to protect the network against [attacks](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/51-attack) by making it computationally and economically unfeasible to subvert the network. On top of this, Stacks introduces its own consensus model, known as proof-of-transfer (PoX), which is a novel mining mechanism that sees users transfer the base currency (BTC) to mine STX — effectively bootstrapping the security of the Stacks blockchain using BTC.

The Stacks cryptocurrency has a predefined future supply that reaches approx 1,818M STX by year 2050. The Stacks ecosystem is a collection of independent entities, developers, and community members working to build a user-owned internet on Bitcoin. No entity in the space holds >10% of the circulating STX supply. Even the early investors/entities generally hold less than 5%. These stats are self-reported and from on-chain data and naturally update over time.

* As a Bitcoin layer for smart contracts, Stacks has the following innovations that make it unique: * In the upcoming release of Stacks, Stacks will be secured by the entire hash power of Bitcoin, giving it Bitcoin finality. * Stacks will soon have a novel backed Bitcoin that is 1:1 backed with BTC on Bitcoin L1, and can be moved in and out of the Stacks layer in a decentralized way. * The new 1:1 Bitcoin backed asset called sBTC enables Stacks smart contracts to write to Bitcoin. * Stacks powers atomic BTC swaps and assets owned by BTC addresses. * Stacks uses the Clarity programming language for safe, decidable contracts. * Stacks has knowledge of the full Bitcoin state, thanks to Proof of Transfer and Clarity, enabling it to read from Bitcoin at any time. * Lastly, Stacks is a scalable layer that enables fast transactions that settle on Bitcoin.

The project started in 2017 when Muneeb finished his PhD ([his thesis laid out the foundations for the Stacks layer for Bitcoin](https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.cs.princeton.edu/research/techreps/TR-003-17&sa=D&source=docs&ust=1678030902432250&usg=AOvVaw3GPZe_ECpyHTAy5YfG5GDL)), released the original whitepaper, and raised $50M. Before this, the early team built protocols and apps on Bitcoin L1 before they began working on Stacks in 2017. Some early visions of the project are represented in this TEDx talk. In 2019 there was the first-ever SEC qualified token offering ([see WSJ article](https://www.wsj.com/articles/sec-clears-blockstack-to-hold-first-regulated-token-offering-11562794848)) for the general public, including the US. The [full offering material](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1719379/000110465919020748/a18-15736_1partiiandiii.html) disclosed everything and anything about the project/company/people. 2018-2020 the team was heads down building out the Stacks infrastructure— it's a programming layer for Bitcoin (it works like a blockchain with cross-chain consensus with Bitcoin) and Clarity lang, a safe language. Some technical re[sources are here](https://https://github.com/stacks-network/stacks).

Stacks is a Bitcoin Layer for smart contracts; it enables smart contracts and decentralized applications to use Bitcoin as an asset and settle transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain. Bitcoin is the largest, most valuable, and most durable decentralized asset. The Stacks layer unlocks $500B in BTC capital using the Bitcoin L1 as settlement for decentralized applications. Stacks has knowledge of the full Bitcoin state, thanks to its Proof of Transfer consensus and Clarity language, enabling it to read from Bitcoin at any time. All transactions on the Stacks layer are automatically hashed and settled on the Bitcoin L1. Stacks blocks are secured by 100% Bitcoin hashpower. In order to re-order Stacks blocks/transactions, an attacker would have to reorg Bitcoin.

Ahead of the Filecoin mainnet launch, [Gemini](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/gemini/) and [Kraken](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/kraken/) have announced support for FIL. [Huobi](https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/huobi-global/) will list FIL after the mainnet goes live. For more information about buying crypto, see CoinMarketCap’s easy guide [here](https://coinmarketcap.com/how-to-buy-bitcoin/).