Purse.io’s number one most-used cryptocurrency, besides Bitcoin, is Dash for the second month in a row. But despite the progress made by some Altcoins in real-world adoption and usability, Bitcoin has strengthened its position as number one in the rankings.
An online shopping site popular in the cryptocurrency community, Purse acts as an escrow service to allow customers to trade Bitcoin for purchases made with Amazon gift cards. This effectively allows anyone to shop on Amazon.com with Bitcoin, sometimes at significant discounts. Purse has partnered with streamlined cryptocurrency exchange ShapeShift to allow other coins to be accepted as payment.
Purse announced October’s rankings via a Tweet:
Purse informed Cointelegraph that Dash was once again the number one Altcoin for November, with Ethereum in second place and Litecoin taking over Ethereum Classic in third place. According to Steven McKie, Purse’s Head of Business Development & Product Content, the integration with ShapeShift was meant to expand to new communities of users:
“Digital currency use continues to proliferate around the world as adoption marches forward. In order to leverage the long-term growth of other alternative digital assets aside from Bitcoin, Purse teamed up with ShapeShift. Partnerships like these enable us to extend the use of our platform to more diverse communities; exposing more individuals to Bitcoin, and pushing adoption forward.”
Usability-focused cryptocurrencies make inroads on Bitcoin’s “digital cash” game
While Bitcoin remains comfortably at the head of the crypto pack and Ethereum looking to continue holding its piece of the crypto pie by looking into alternative ventures other than digital currencies, other coins continue to diligently improve the concept of digital cash for the common man.
Dash rebranded its name from Darkcoin to a monosyllabic combination of “digital” and “cash,” in order to maintain a focus on expanding its use as an everyday medium of exchange, pushing an ambitious strategy to get as many new merchants to accept it before Christmas.
Its development team remains hard at work developing the Evolution update, which among other features will remove long cryptographic addresses in favor of user accounts and allow for user-to-user messaging, slated for release in late 2017.
Gulden, another cryptocurrency focused on usability as an everyday digital medium of exchange, is on a similar path to take Bitcoin’s basic technology and present it to the world in a much less intimidating fashion.
The Netherlands-based coin recently released an update allowing for seamless conversions to Bitcoin addresses and bank accounts, buying Gulden directly from wallets and a link between desktop and mobile wallets without employing a third-party service.
In 2017, the Gulden developers intend to do away with traditional alphanumeric addresses as well as build an instant, zero-confirmation feature.
Bitcoin’s dominance over cryptocurrency strengthens
However, despite the progress made by other coins in real-world adoption and usability, Bitcoin not only remains the premier cryptocurrency but has actually strengthened its first place ranking over the past several months. Bitcoin’s share of the global market cap for cryptocurrencies grew to over 86 percent, up from 80 percent two months ago and its all-time low of 74 percent in March. This is mostly due to a price above $770, the highest since early 2014, and a market cap of nearly $12.4 bln, the highest since 2013.
Meanwhile, the top seven cryptocurrencies excluding Bitcoin have all fallen in value over the past several months. Since late September, the combined market cap of Altcoins has fallen from $2.6 bln to under $2 bln.