PANews, January 5 news, according to the public account of the China Finance 40 Forum, Zhong Yi, a researcher at the China Finance 40 Forum Research Institute, wrote an article "Cryptocurrencies Have 'Changed Dramatically'", which pointed out that the development of cryptocurrencies has so far evolved into at least three different types of characteristics, and according to the design mechanism and function, private cryptocurrencies can be mainly divided into three categories: Store of Value Cryptocurrencies, Utility Tokens, and Stablecoins.
The first category: Store of Value Cryptocurrencies, with typical representatives being Bitcoin and Litecoin (LTC). Although the original design goal of this type of cryptocurrency was to realize peer-to-peer electronic payments, its development has now taken on more of the function of digital value storage.
The second category: Utility Tokens, with typical representatives being Ethereum (ETH) and Solana (SOL). Ethereum is the first blockchain platform that supports smart contracts, allowing developers to create and deploy decentralized applications (DApps) and digital assets on its network. Utility Tokens can be roughly divided into three categories: Infrastructure Tokens, Service Tokens, and Finance Tokens.
The third category: Stablecoins, with typical representatives being USDT and USDC, which can be mainly divided into four types: fiat-collateralized stablecoins, commodity-collateralized stablecoins, crypto-collateralized stablecoins, and algorithmic stablecoins.
As of December 28, 2024, the CoinGecko website has counted 16,022 cryptocurrencies traded on 1,200 cryptocurrency exchanges worldwide, with a total market capitalization of about $3.43 trillion and a trading volume of about $165.3 billion in the past 24 hours. In relative terms, this market capitalization is equivalent to 5% of the total market capitalization of the US stock market and 35% of the Chinese stock market. In early 2014, the global cryptocurrency market capitalization was only $10.6 billion, representing a growth of over 300 times in the past decade.
