A cryptocurrency, crypto-currency, or crypto[a] is a digital currency designed to work as a medium of exchange through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it.It has, from a financial point of view, grown to be its own asset class. However, on the contrary to other asset classes like equities or commodities, sectors have not been officially defined as of yet, though abstract versions of them exist.
When a cryptocurrency is minted, created prior to issuance, or issued by a single issuer, it is generally considered centralized. When implemented with decentralized control, each cryptocurrency works through distributed ledger technology, typically a blockchain, that serves as a public financial transaction database.
The first cryptocurrency was Bitcoin, which was first released as open-source software in 2009. As of June 2023, there were more than 25,000 other cryptocurrencies in the marketplace, of which more than 40 had a market capitalization exceeding $1 billion.
