There are several forms of money, and for example, fiat money (real currencies) are issued in the form of banknotes and coins, which can be both cash and non-cash (bank cards). In this case, the amount of funds owned by a person or organization is determined in the form of a record in a bank document, including electronic, and when conducting financial transactions in a non-cash form there is a change of these records.

Like real money, cryptocurrencies are also represented electronically, but unlike ordinary money, the same Bitcoin is exclusively a digital currency. In addition, cryptocurrencies are recognized as a conditional settlement unit, as officially digital money in most countries is not recognized as a means of payment.

Records of the number of cryptocurrencies are stored not in one bank or financial institution, but in a distributed registry, or an electronic file, which is securely protected from hacking by cryptographic encryption technologies. The file with this information is repeatedly duplicated, and it is stored in a chain of other similar files, which in turn is distributed among a large number of users connected to the same network (e.g. Bitcoin network). To access this data, you must first hack into a distributed registry on one of the users' computers, but even if the attacker can do so, they will not be able to make changes to the information, as exactly the same data is stored on the computers of many other users. That is, to make changes to the specified registry you need to carry out this operation on 51% of the computers participating in the network, which is physically impossible to do, as the number of network members is in the millions.

How many cryptos are there?

According to statistics, currently, there are officially registered and traded approximately 2,322 cryptocurrencies with a total market capitalization of 349 billion dollars. During the month, this figure increased by more than $72 billion. This figure is constantly changing, but according to data for 2020 in the world created more than two thousand digital coins. At the same time, some cryptocurrencies may eventually leave the market due to the lack of demand for them.

Are cryptocurrencies the same?

The cryptocurrency market presents completely different types. There are currencies that are almost a complete copy of Bitcoin (i.e. these cryptocurrencies support the same encryption methods and algorithms), but there are fundamentally different products among existing coins.

Among the latter is the cryptocurrency Ethereum, which is created to service smart contracts. In fact, a smart contract is a normal contract, the terms of which cannot be changed without reaching a consensus. The treaty is considered closed if certain results are achieved.

But the cryptocurrency Ripple was created for very different purposes, which included cooperation with banks and the creation of additional liquidity for payments in and between banks.

Some cryptocurrencies are now used for shopping. In particular, Litecoin coins are used for this purpose, transactions with which are conducted faster than with Bitcoin.

How many cryptos are enough?

It is very difficult to answer this question. With time more and more cryptos are created and at some point, people assume that enough is enough. As has been mentioned above we are dealing with more than 2,000 cryptocurrencies but perhaps we might know about 20 of them. There is no limit, beyond which cryptocurrencies will no longer be created. But one thing is clear - the more ones are created, the less it is a possibility that new cryptocurrencies will be used because already established ones have long excelled in popularity and it is very hard to replace them.