__*Introduction to Blog Series on Top 20 Bitcoin Alternatives*__

Since the advent of Bitcoin there’s been a proliferation of hundreds of cryptocurrencies.  Most are copycats, others are distinctly different, but all have failed to get nearly the traction and support Bitcoin has.  Currently there is one cryptocurrency Ethereum that is gaining momentum and whose total market value is now worth about 17% of the total value of Bitcoins (~$6.86 Billion).    Currently no other ecosystem has a market value that is worth more than 3% of the total value of Bitcoins.   As a future monetary asset, network effect is critical so Bitcoin has an incredible advantage.   However alternative cryptocurrencies should correlate to some extent with the ebbs, flows, surges and declines of Bitcoin prices.  Over time some coins have the potential to serve a particular niche, some may gain significant momentum for a particular application and others may outpace Bitcoin growth at times especially considering these other systems are starting from a much smaller size.   Currently there are 600+ alternatives listed on Coinmarketcap.com, the most popular aggregator of market information in the cryptocurrency landscape.    However only about a couple hundred or so have any meaningful daily transaction volume, and that’s if you consider a hundred dollars a day meaningful.   As a speculator or investor, you can dig deep to find diamonds in the rough, but generally the market capitalization of a cryptocurrency gives a good initial indicator of what market participants deem to have the most potential.  Of course in such a new space this does not mean there aren’t alternatives that are severely undervalued, but for now we’ll arbitrarily limit the scope to the top 20 and evaluate any new up and comers later on.  Furthermore technology is not necessarily the big differentiator for the success of an ecosystem.  Since many of these ecosystems can add and copy opensource features from other systems, the distribution, marketing and adoption of these cryptocurrencies will be more important in the long run.  Ultimately businesses that solve problems and grow user adoption using these cryptocurrencies will drive their market values.   I'll provide highlights, a short analysis and summary of each of the top 20 alternative cryptocurrencies listed on Coinmarketcap.com as of May 19th, 2016 every day or two over the next month.

Here is the list of cryptocurrencies under consideration:
1. Ethereum
2. Ripple
3. Litecoin
4. Dash
5. MaidSafeCoin
6. Dogecoin
7. DigixDAO
8. NEM
9. Steem
10. FedoraCoin
11. Monero
12. Factom
13. Bitshares
14. Stellar
15. Peercoin
16. Synereo
17. Bytecoin
18. YbCoin
19. Nxt
20. Emercoin

Up first: Ethereum.   To be continued...