Bitcoin's latest success has coincided with the developments of other cryptocurrencies, each with its unique features making the ecosystem radiant and highly competitive.
Other top currencies that recorded a push in their prices include Monero, Dash and Steem.
Cointelegraph takes a look at some Altcoins that are leveraging Bitcoin's progress to offer alternatives to crypto community members.
GoldCoin was up 600 percent
Originated from a Litecoin fork in 2013, it bagged an incredible 600 percent in 2016.
Greg Matthews aka Real Microguy, PR Director/Systems Admin of GoldCoin attributes their rapid growth to two factors:
"A cryptocurrency’s value function is “voodoo science” but basically it’s a product of node count network users, development quality, network health, inflation rate, coin supply and distribution, brand, historical price history, and market sentiment. The GoldCoin currency has a rapidly growing community - and that – coupled with an increase in Bitcoin’s popularity and the price has led to our success."
Bitcoin’s influence
“The financial frontiers are going through a metamorphosis unprecedented in human existence,” says Greg Williams. Bitcoin's revolutionary ability to offer expeditious and cheaper financial transactions without an intermediary helps other cryptocurrencies, too:
“Money is changing, and people are finally beginning to understand that cryptocurrency is not a gimmick. It’s a better form of money.”
He adds: “Bitcoin and GoldCoin make P2P transactions possible without a middleman and have mathematically guaranteed circulation and inflation rate. These are feats that fiat will never be able to perform. And because of these differences, cryptocurrencies like GoldCoin will make fiat currencies obsolete.”
Greg Matthews recognizes that the prominent challenge is educating the public about crypto. In fact, a lot of people are still not able to grasp the concept of Internet money. "When someone has GLD or BTC on their phone, and they lose that phone, they don’t understand there is no 800 number to call. It’s hard for people to understand the concept of digital cash."
ICO aided growth
Other top currencies that recorded a push in their prices include Monero, Dash and Steem.
Thanks to Initial Coin Offer hereinafter ICO, another brain child of the Blockchain, ICONOMI was pretty noticeable in 2016 which consequently spurred its growth as well.
"The public listing of the ICN tokens enabled our ICO investors to trade it. This has increased both our visibility and the circle of potential shareholders, as a lot of them were not aware of the ICONOMI project during the ICO," says Jani Valjavec, co-founder of ICONOMI.
Christened the Uber of Fund Management, the digital asset is currently at number eleven on CoinMarketCap.
"What we believe in is that DAO as an organizational type will go mainstream and the number of value tokens will explode." Valjavec is optimistic DAOs will be in vogue in 2017. The decentralized economy is going to be the key.
There is no success story or a venture without challenges, and Valjavec regards security as what his company grapples with:
"Our main challenge is to set up an incredibly safe environment that will protect users. We have designed the platform from the ground up to safeguard the users and their investments on the platform. Our next focus is on the user experience - creating Digital Asset Arrays or supporting DAA creators should be simple and fun."