Cryptocurrency and its price
A cryptocurrency is digital money that no central bank or government issues. Ownership and transfers are recorded on a blockchain — a public ledger kept by the computers of the network and protected by cryptography — so two people can send value to each other without a bank in between. What an owner actually holds is a private key, the secret that allows the coins to be moved.
Prices are set on exchanges around the world, around the clock, mostly in US dollars. The table above shows the 100 largest cryptocurrencies by market value. The price in lari is calculated from the dollar price and today’s official dollar rate of the National Bank.
Bitcoin
Bitcoin was launched in 2009 by a person or group known as Satoshi Nakamoto and remains the largest cryptocurrency. Its supply is limited to 21 million coins, and the smallest unit, one hundred-millionth of a bitcoin, is called a satoshi. The best-known early purchase was made in May 2010, when a programmer paid 10,000 bitcoins for two pizzas.
Bitcoin’s price has always moved in large swings: several times it has lost more than half of its value within months and later reached new highs.
Ethereum and stablecoins
Ethereum, launched in 2015, is the second largest cryptocurrency. Its blockchain runs “smart contracts” — programs that execute automatically — and most tokens and decentralised applications are built on it. Since 2022 Ethereum has been secured by staking instead of energy-hungry mining.
Stablecoins such as USDT (Tether) and USDC are tokens designed to keep the value of one US dollar. People use them to move money between exchanges and countries; their price in lari follows the dollar rate.
What you can buy with cryptocurrency
Some online services, shops and companies accept cryptocurrency, but in everyday life it is still used far more for saving, speculation and transfers than for payments. In Georgia the lari is the only legal means of payment: a shop prices its goods in lari, and cryptocurrency is normally sold for lari first.
Four things to know before you invest
- The price can fall by tens of percent in a short time. Invest only money you can afford to lose.
- Learn how the coins are stored. On an exchange you depend on the exchange; in your own wallet you depend on your private key — if it is lost, the coins are lost.
- Do not put everything into one coin because its name is familiar, and be wary of coins that promise a guaranteed profit.
- Nobody guarantees cryptocurrency: there is no deposit insurance and no central bank behind it.
Myvaluta.ge shows prices for information only; nothing on this page is investment advice.