2021-09-06
5 Top-Ranked Cryptocurrencies That are Available to Purchase in Malaysia
There are over 6000 cryptocurrencies available as of September 2021. Suppose you are a newcomer who is still searching for information, it is easy to get overwhelmed with the extensive amount of coins and tokens available in the market.
So here, we narrowed down in the article the 5 cryptocurrencies that can be purchased directly using Ringgit Malaysia (RM). We highlighted the technology behind each cryptocurrency, their security models, usage, price predictions and much more.
Bitcoin will be the first word to come in mind whenever someone says the word 'cryptocurrency'. It is the first decentralised digital asset and was created in 2009 by a figure named ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’. However, the creator's identity still remains unknown.
According to the Bitcoin whitepaper, published on October 31, 2008, Bitcoin was created as a P2P (peer-to-peer) version of electronic cash that allows online transactions without going through financial institutions. Behind the Bitcoin protocol is a technology called Blockchain, which is available and transparent to the public. A distributed ledger that consists of every Bitcoin transaction where each blocks are chained together. The latest block with the most recent transaction, timestamp and hash data of the previous blocks are stored. Adding to the previous block will cause the hash data to change, thus invalidating the block that comes next. When the new block is formed, the transactions are placed in this block and considered confirmed.
The security model for Bitcoin is called Proof-of-Work (PoW). Which simply means using specialised machines to solve a complex mathematical puzzle, or better known as 'mining' in the crypto space. The miner that solved a difficult puzzle will be rewarded with some newly mined Bitcoins. Bitcoin's primary usage is the Store of Value (SoV). There is a cap amount of only 21 million Bitcoin can be mined, and there are a total of 18,807,837 BTC has been mined in the circulation.
The world's second-largest decentralized cryptocurrency, Ethereum (ETH), was created by Vitalik Buterin back in 2015. The idea came to place when Vitalik Buterin discovered there are many more features that a blockchain could unfold than just being a peer-to-peer currency.
Similar to Bitcoin, you can transfer between accounts or earn through mining. The main reason why he created Ethereum is to break the limitation that fails to be covered by Bitcoin. He sees Ethereum as a smartwatch while Bitcoin is like an ordinary watch. A smartwatch can do a lot more than just telling time. With Ethereum, users can build new programmes, known as 'smart contracts', on its own ledger technology.
Like Bitcoin, Ethereum runs on PoW, but it is moving towards Proof-of-Stake (PoS) as its security model. However, Ethereum requires its users to stake 32 ETH to become a validator in the network. As a validator, you will be chosen randomly to create blocks, check and confirm the transactions. A validator will be penalised heavily if a malicious block gets validated. Unlike Bitcoin, Ethereum has an unlimited supply but it is capped at 18 million ETH per year.
XRP is currently the cheapest cryptocurrency that can be purchased straight using Ringgit Malaysia. As of 6 September, it is traded at RM5.40. XRP is a digital asset built for payments. It is the native digital asset on the XRP Ledger.
XRP Ledger is an decentralised, open source blockchain technology that can settle transactions in 3-5 seconds. XRP able to handle up to 1,500 transactions per second, 24x7, and can scale the same throughput as Visa. (Data as of July 2019). Using the same principle as other cryptocurrencies. XRP transactions can be made without the need of a central intermediary, thus making it a convenient instrument in transacting two different currencies quickly and efficiently.
XRP innovative technology transforms the payments space due to its characteristic of cost efficiency, swiftness and scalability compared to other digital assets. Unlike Bitcoin and Ethereum, The XRP Ledger settles XRP transactions instantly without the gas associated with PoW.
Charles “Charlie” Lee created Litecoin in October 2011 as a fork of Bitcoin. It has the same characteristic as Bitcoin, which is open-source, global payment network that is not controlled by any central authority but at the same time has faster block generation rate and use Scrypt as its PoW scheme. Due to its similarity to Bitcoin, LTC is often being used as a testnet for Bitcoin improvement.
Scrypt is a password-based essential derivation function that was developed specifically to make custom-built hardware attacks on the currency more tedious. After the improvement made on LTC of SegWit and Lighting Network in early 2019, Charles Lee announced that Litecoin would pursue MimbleWimble development. It claims that MimbleWimble can decrease block size and increase scalability. However as of 2021, the development is still on-going.
Like LTC, Bitcoin Cash is also another form of Bitcoin. It was ceated in August 2017 to increase the size of blocks, allowing more transactions to be processed and improving scalability. Unlike BTC, Bitcoin Cash offers a bigger block size of 8MB, whereas Bitcoin blocksize is limited to 1MB. A Bitcoin block holds about 2500 transactions, whereas, the first BCH blocks reached 7000.
Bitcoin Cash implement the nature of scarcity. Having the same characteristic of BTC, Bitcoin Cash too has a limited total supply of 21 million coins. Besides that, BCH also has the spendable nature of cash which can be spent easily where anybody can accept BCH as payments on their devices. Bitcoin Cash is also cost effective as their transaction fees are so small, typically less than a tenth of a cent.
Currently, there are 4 regulated exchanges that has been approved by The Securities Commission Malaysia (SC). The exchanges are Luno, Sinegy, MX Global and Tokenize. With these exchanges, you can make purchases straight using Ringgit Malaysia through any internet banking facilities and credit card.
You can also make your purchases through unregulated exchanges such as Huobi, FTX and Kraken. Unfortunately, some of these exchanges are listed in SC’s Investor Alert List. Binance, one of the world largest crypto exchanges, had been blocked by SC earlier last month.
You can also make purchases through P2P platforms like Remitano and MoonPay.
**Please do your own research before placing a single purchase as cryptocurrency can be highly volatile.
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