Competitors were emerging to challenge bitcoin. By July 14, 2014, Litecoin, which some touted as the smaller alternative to bitcoin, had a circulation worth US$262 million, with each Litecoin worth $8.67. In contrast, bitcoin’s value was $620.92 on the same day, and the total circulation of bitcoin was worth US$8.1 billion. Bitcoin’s historical value can be found in Exhibit 4. Similar to bitcoin in terms of how it was created and managed, Litecoin offered bitcoin users an alternative cryptocurrency. Exhibit 5 shows the value of a Litecoin in bitcoin currency. Nxt, the third competitor, had a currency worth $0.045 per unit and a total value of $44.7 million.43 There were others as well — Peercoin, Darkcoin and Ripple — with each alternative trying to capitalize on bitcoin’s popularity.44