1. Bitcoin (BTC)

Market cap: US$561.3bn

Topping our list of the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalisation is, unsurprisingly, Bitcoin, with a gargantuan valuation of US$561.3 billion. Invented in 2008 by an unknown individual or group using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin has been described as its own economic bubble by recipients of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, and has also become synonymous with ‘crypto’. Built on open-source code, Bitcoin is a public-domain platform as well as a digital asset within its own class. Today, Bitcoin’s platform is the largest computer network on earth and offers tools, products and services to the public in order to manage, buy and trade their crypto assets. In 2021, El Salvador adopted Bitcoin as a legal tender and, more recently, Ukraine has been accepting Bitcoin donations to fund its resistance against the Russian invasion.