My Cryptocurrency Tier List (from F to S)

In this article I will be ranking the top 20 Cryptocurrencies by marketcap on a on a tier list from F to S, and provide the rationale behind it.

The ranking will take into consideration how close each chain is to resolving the blockchain trilemma as well as the utility that they bring to the crypto world. So the ranking factors are:

• Decentralization
• Scalability
• Security
• Utility

While the ranking is mostly data-driven, and I will aim to provide rationale behind each decision, it is ultimately my own interpretation and opinion of how well each chain ranks in each of the above categories.

This excludes most memecoins and stablecoins. The rationale for each coin will be short and straight to the point — no deep dives.

With this as our initial set-up, let the ranking commence.

F Tier — bottom of the barrel

• Ethereum Classic (ETC)

After a hack where a large amount of ETH was stolen from the largest smart contract known as The DAO on Ethereum in 2016, Ethereum chose to reset the state of the chain to a date before the attack. Ethereum Classic chose to acknowledge the hack and continue on, forking its own chain.

Ethereum Classic has failed to scale, or provide adequate security with more than 5 51% attacks since 2016. There has been little to no development on Ethereum Classic, and it’s unlikely that it will ever hold a compelling selling point against Ethereum.

For this reason, ETC gets to be the very bottom of the barrel, scoring low “F”.

D Tier — sort of OK but flawed

• Dogecoin (DOGE)

As a standalone project, Dogecoin is not horrible. At core — Dogecoin is a fork of Litecoin which is a fork of Bitcoin. It has enough of a community to keep it decentralised and secure. The main issue is that it doesn’t have much utility — and again in and of-itself that’s ok — for a memecoin. That’s why it does get a mention on this list. But it can’t rank any higher due to its limited use case.

• Bitcoin Cash (BCH)

BCH is in somewhat of a similar boat to ETC — in that it’s a hardfork of a significantly larger chain. The difference between BCH and ETC is that BCH has seen some degree of adoption as well as relatively decent security due to this adoption.

The whole reason why BCH forked in the first place was to offer higher scalability compared to Bitcoin. However, the scalability of BCH is still TBC. Furthermore, with Lightning, BTC fees and transaction speed are fast and cheap enough for daily use, making BCH somewhat redundant. Due to this, BCH finds itself in mid-range D tier.

• Binance Smart Chain (BNB)

Higher than Dogecoin or BCH, but still on the D tier — mainly due to the fact that BNB is completely centralised. Yes BNB and the Binance Smart Chain are great products, with arguably a lot more utility compared to Dogecoin, but in the blockchain trilemma, it doesn’t fare well on the decentralised part. It overall ranks on high D tier due to its utility.

• Tron TRX

Tron is a decentralised smart-contract platform whose most significant product offering is USDD — a decentralised algorithmic stablecoin that is pegged to the price of the US dollar. The governance token — TRX is used in a balancing mechanism whereby Tron can be burned for USDD or vice versa in order to maintain the peg. LUNA and UST is another chain that used a similar mechanism for maintaining the peg of UST. Due to the inherent risk of algorithmic stablecoins, as well as their tendency to death-spiral, Tron finds itself into the upper D tier.

C Tier — mid-range

• Flow

Unlike most other chains on this list, Flow is not quite as general purpose. Flow is a platform that has a particular focus on NFTs, dapps and gaming. It makes it all the way to the bottom of the C tier due their focus on NFTs within a gaming ecosystem. However, there are concerns regarding its decentralisation. Furthermore, Flow is yet to stand the test of time, with it only being launched in 2021.

• Near Protocol

Near protocol is a general-purpose smart contract platforms, with solutions for scaling and supporting Web3 applications. And this precisely why Near gets a mid-range rating. Near doesn’t seem do be offering anything differently from its larger competitors such as Solana and Cardano, which have had the time to be tested and improved. For this reason, near gets a mid-range C tier rank.

• Litecoin (LTC)

Unlike the other two mentions on the C tier list, Litecoin is an old-timer, and some even consider it a bluechip. As mentioned before, Likecoin is a fork of Bitcoin with some substantial changes to ensure that it is “lighter” than Bitcoin itself. It uses Scrypt hashing instead of SHA-256 encryption algorithm and generated 1 block every 2.5 minutes, as opposed to Bitcoin’s 10 minutes.

However, all other coins out there are faster than Bitcoin. The only thing that will probably ensure the future for LTC is its early mover advantage, but lacks a strong selling point. For this reason, it ranks at the top of the C tier.

B Tier — Solid projects

• Stellar (XLM)

Stellar deserves a B tier spot due to how easy it is to transact, and the low transaction fees. Its recent developments into smart contract support along with the fact that’s been here longer than a single bull market give it a good selling point in that it’s been tested enough to be deemed safe to build on. Stellar also comes with a built in Dex and can be traded straight from the owners wallet, without having to go through an exchange.

• Ripple (XRP)

Where there’s Stellar, there’s Ripple. Founded by multiple members of the same team, Ripple is aimed towards banking systems, and is on a mission to change the way global banks operate. In terms of scalability, adoption and utility ripple ranks quite high, earning it a strong mid-B tier place. However, 50% of all XRP are currently locked away in a ledger that technically no one has access to. But if any of the founding member do somehow have an override on this, even for security purposes, it could pose a massive risk to the decentralisation nature of Ripple.

• Cosmos (ATOM)

Cosmos has a strong and arguably unique product offering. The idea behind Cosmos can be described as an Internet of Chains, aiming to provide multichain support and become the internet that allows all blockchains to communicate between themselves using IBC or inter-blockchain communication. The recent interest in cosmos has sparked significant adoption with apps like Binance Smart Chain, Terra and Crypto.org leveraging the connectivity that it offers. However, a recent $5m hack on the chain has caused it to halt raising potential centralisation issues. It still deserves the top spot in the B tier in my opinion.

• Avalanche (AVAX)

In my mind, Avalanche is on the same level as Cosmos, so only a horizontal shift here, due to the difference in product offering. Avalanche is a general-purpose smart contract platform for decentralised applications. It makes use of a unique set-up of 3 blockchains, that work in tandem with each other, in order to provide scalable solutions to fast growing dapps. The AVAX ecosystem currently Includes Pangolin, SushiSwap, UniSwap and more. AVAX could be a A tier chain, had it not been for several (recent) hacks, the most recent one causing over $100m in stolen funds through AVAX bridge.

• Solana (SOL)

I have to admit I struggled with this one. Solana has been making all the right moves lately and with the introduction of Token Extensions, it really is a force to be reckoned with in the space.

That’s not to say that Solana is without issues, the chain has halted several times in the past and transactions seem to hang at times. On the plus side, it has a vibrant and ever growing ecosystem, community adoption, a vision and plenty of use cases. The only thing that keeps me from giving it a solid A rating is the occasional chain halting issue which has not been fixed to this day. So I give it an A-.

A Tier — outstanding projects

• Monero (XMR)

Not a popular choice for an A tier project but bear with me. Monero was built for privacy, and spared no expense to ensure that it will stand by its usecase — anonymous, untraceable money. This naturally, creates a bad rep as it could technically be used for illicit transactions and for buying illegal goods on the dark web. I’m not saying it’s not being used for that. But in spite of it being considered a bit of a controversial currency due to its privacy, it has maintained its position at the top of the crypto charts for years.

The reason it can’t score any higher on the tier list is because what makes it great, also affects its adoption. Governments and large organizations are likely to avoid Monero.

• Cardano (ADA)

Cardano earns a spot as a mid A tier project due to its smart contract platform offering, but mainly because it’s been a household name for a quite a long time now. In spite of not having a usable platform for over 5 years, Cardano managed to retain it’s top 10 market cap spot. But it’s finally good to see that Cardano is no longer vaporware and actually offers a solid, tangible platform. I have not personally used it, but many people I know seem to be happy with the NFT crowd that Cardano has gathered recently.

• Algorand (ALGO)

Algorand is yet another Smart Contract platform out there, but here’s why it ranks, in my opinion higher than some of the previously mentioned ones. Algo allows any holder of ALGO as long as they have at least 1 ALGO to stake, even if held in a Ledger — this is arguably as decentralised as a mechanism can get. Furthermore, algo doesn’t select delegators for make decisions for the entire network, instead it relies on the network itself. As long as the network 2/3 truthful, it remains secure. Algo earns the top spot on A tier due to its design and effort to solve the blockchain Trilemma.

• Polygon (MATIC)

The only L2 scalable solution on the list. Polygon’s role in the cryptoverse is absolutely instrumental. With a zk rollup scaling solution as well as a sidechain, Polygon is the scaling solution for Ethereum L2 and they’re doing a fantastic job at innovating that space and decongesting Ethereum.

• Polkadot (DOT)

Polkadot is just great. It tags along, hitting milestone after milestone and does so without the drama so prevalent on other chains. As a smart contract platform, its parachains implementation, may be a little bit ahead of its time, and many users in the space might realise the true use-case of parachains, but Polkadot is actually the only other alt that has Blue Chip potential — that’s why it scores at the top of the A list.

S Tier — Blue Chip / Legendary

• Bitcoin (BTC)

Let’s be clear here, BTC gets an honorary spot at the bottom of the S list for being the project that started it all. It’s not the fastest network, nor the cheapest to use. In fact, without lightning, which hasn’t been fully rolled out, it’s barely usable. But it is the most secure store of value out there.

• Ethereum (ETH)

The top spot on our tier list belongs to Ethereum, the first smart contract platform that brought Web3 here. It dramatically changed the crypto space forever, and continues to do so as its utility remains paramount. It is supported by a multitude of Layer 2 solutions in order to decongest the network, and the move to proof-of-stake and sharding are soon to come as well. Ethereum has an amazingly talented developer team and it just keeps getting better with age. It deservers the very top spot in my opinion.

Here it is — the complete Tier list:

What do you think? Do you agree? Anything at all you would change? Let me know in the comments.

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