Over the past five years some life-changing fortunes have been made in the cryptocurrency space, with the likes of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin and even Bitcoin cash going gangbusters for early investors.
It's also worth noting a lot of money has probably been lost on major and minor cryptos over the past year, and that the smaller the digital currency the higher degree of risk it carries.
Therefore readers should remember that a fast-rising currency may also mean fast-rising risks and be sure to do their own research before even thinking about buying a speculative digital currency.
However, online financial data wire and investing news stream Investing.com produces a list of more than 1,000 cryptocurrencies by market cap, so let's take a look to see what currencies are on the list between numbers 10 – 20 by total market size.
This should give us a pretty good idea as to some of the fastest-rising cryptocurrencies that most readers will never have heard of.
Who knows perhaps this time next year one of these digital currencies will be the talk of dinner parties and locker rooms everywhere – just like bitcoin last year.
- Tron with the symbol TRX has a market cap of A$2.05b
- IOTA with the symbol MIOTA has a market cap of A$1.93b
- Dash with the symbol DASH has a market cap of A$1.91b
- Binance Coin with the symbol BNB has a market cap of A$1.71b
- NEM with the symbol XEM has a market cap of A$1.42b
- NEO with the symbol NEO has a market cap of A$1.4b
- Ethereum Classic with the symbol ETC has a market cap of A$1.35b
- Tezos with the symbol XTZ has a market cap of A$1.07b
- Zcash with the symbol ZEC has a market cap of A$971m
- VeChain with the symbol VET has a market cap of A$745.5m
Of the above NEM and Zcash have climbed 21.6% and 9% in value over just the past 7 days according to Investing.com, while all the others have fallen over what has been a poor week for traditional capital markets and cryptocurrencies alike.
The cryptocurrency space looks especially high risk though and more so the lower down the spectrum you go in chasing the new bitcoin. In fact some of these currencies could probably go to zero just as fast as they could triple in price.
Therefore many investors would still prefer the reliable dividends of Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) or Insurance Australia Group Ltd (ASX: IAG), over digital currencies any day.
However, neither CBA or IAG are ever going to shoot the lights out in our lifetimes.
As such the smart path may be to look for a mix of growth and dividends available from these 3 shares listed on the ASX.
