Bitcoin, the most popular digital currency, soared to a new all-time high of nearly $70,000 per coin this week.
And even some of Wall Street’s biggest names, most notably JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, remain skeptical of cryptos’ staying power.
That’s the key difference between bitcoin and traditional fiat currencies like the US dollar or the euro, which are controlled by central banks.
Part of bitcoin’s value is determined by the finite number — 21 million — of coins that can be created.
But it’s still one of the most popular and valuable digital currencies, and with a market cap of nearly $560 billion, it’s firmly in second place behind Bitcoin.
The value of Ethereum, launched in 2015 as open-source blockchain-based software with its own cryptocurrency, has risen more than 540% this year.
The third-largest crypto, with a market cap of more than $100 billion, Binance Coin, or BNB tokens, is a different beast.
It has a cap of 200 million BNB tokens, but tokens are regularly destroyed — or “burned” — to reduce the total supply and stabilize the their value over time.
Last summer Binance hired Brian Brooks, who was acting head of Office of the Comptroller of the Currency during the last eight months of the Trump administration, to head its US business.
It’s an example of a so-called stablecoin because it is pegged to the US dollar.
While regulatory uncertainty is a big topic for all cryptos, stablecoins might be at particular risk: Earlier this month, the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency all urged Congress to slap bank-like rules on stablecoins.