Today is the 1st of April, and as we always do at the start of the month, we will be covering our top picks for the month, these are coins we think will see positive price action in the coming month, not based on our personal preference but based on roadmaps and upcoming events. To find out our picks for the month of April, keep reading!
there is a video link below for those who prefer to listen to audio
Our first pick for this month is Oyster.
Oyster protocol for those who are not familiar with this project, is an ambitious blockchain project that aims to do 3 things.
Oyster aims to create a decentralised cloud storage that cannot be hacked or controlled by external parties.
Oyster also aims to combat unwanted advertising on websites, by providing an alternate source of revenue, where viewers of the website, lend a bit of their CPU and GPU to the website to contribute to the decentralised cloud server described above. The website gets paid for bringing new cloud users and contributing to the running of the cloud. This removes the need for ads and provides the viewers with an ad-free experience. The overall amount of CPU or GPU used is estimated to be even less than loading an ad.
The third thing that Oyster aims to do is to create a low cost, encrypted internet access. Think of this like a cheap VPN that is not centralised operated, but peer-to-peer, decentralised operated. So where governments can pressure VPN services to hand over their records, and this has happened to many big VPN companies, Oyster protocol will provide a true encrypted internet access that cannot be traced or recorded.
There are 2 major events happening for Oyster this month, the first is coming up in 5 days and it is their air drop for the Oyster Shell token.
So uptil now, Oyster has only had a single currency which was PEARL token. But starting from April the 6th, they will introduce a second currency called SHELL. Think of it like NEO platform having NEO and GAS. PEARL tokens are the tokens that are pegged to the data retention and will be more stable. SHELL is the currency used for the day day functioning of data transmission.
At this point, we do not know the actual token price of SHELL when it is being released. But we do know that the airdrop will be a 1:1 drop. Meaning 1 SHELL for every PEARL you hold.
Also because the ratio has to be 1:1, so there cannot be more SHELL than PEARL token. Meaning, currently this is the ONLY way to get SHELL tokens, there will not be a token sale. So this is going to be a commodity in high demand, suggesting the initial value of SHELL should not be too far from OYSTER token. If an airdrop is worth 5% of the token held, that’s a pretty decent drop. But this drop could potentially be worth 20-30% of the PEARL token held, so that’s very significant free money.
Usually, the details of an airdrop will be released about 3-4days before the actual event, so it is likely this news is still under the radar of the general crypto population for just a couple more days.
Over the past month, we saw NEO, EOS and ICON have airdrops and each time, the token price rose 30-40% approaching the airdrop. So we do think that there will be short term gains in Oyster token over the next few days, until the airdrop. A warning too is that there is usually a drop in token price after the airdrop due to people moving back to other tokens, so if you’re thinking of jumping on this FOMO, make sure you monitor the market very closely to jump off ahead of the crowd.
Another major event for Oyster this month is their mainnet release. So far Oyster has been on track in releasing their testnet according to their roadmap so we can expect them to be on track to release their Mainnet this month as well. We don’t have an actual date yet, but once it is announced, it is very likely the price will surge as well. Mainnet release is the biggest news for any protocol/ platform project, and also this is also the last event on their roadmap with an actual month/ date tagged to it for this year, so we expect them to make a big deal of it.
For the above two reasons, we think Oyster is a project to keep an eye out of in the month of April.
For each of our picks in this video, we will do a follow up indepth review in the coming month. Because Oyster’s roadmap event is the soonest, basically 5 days away, we will do an indepth review either tomorrow or the day after, and if you were thinking of investing in this coin, we strongly recommend you watch the video, as there is a potential red flag we will raise which involves their CEO having an anonymous profile on their website.
Our second coin to look out for this month is LISK
LISK is a sidechain and Dapp platform. To explain what this means simply, LISK is different from almost every other blockchain platform in 3 ways:
It does not use smart contracts. We are so used to smart contracts in crypto space that we assume every blockchain platform uses smart contracts. But rather than use smart contracts, Lisk enables every App that is build on it to build an entire custom blockchain, instead of using a single blockchain’s protocol.
The Apps are build on side chains rather than on the main chain. Traditional blockchain platforms like Ethereum, build all Apps on their main blockchain. This also confines those projects to the mother platform’s rules and adds heavy traffic. LISK combats this by building every app on side chains but this structure also has other benefits e.g. isolating faults in the system. We will discuss this further in our indepth review coming soon.
Thirdly LISK uses Javascript the most common developer language in the world, instead of blockchain specific language like Solidity that Ethereum, the biggest blockchain platform uses.
The end goal of LISK is to be a decentralised app store. E.g. you have ITUNES app store or Google pay, LISK is trying to be the decentralised version of a major app store.
Historically, LISK has received some flag for being slow and unreliable in keeping to their roadmap. They have postponed several SDK events and even community meetups. The most significant event being their rebranding was due last November, but it was postponed to Feb 20th this year. In Nov 17’ when their postpone was announced, their token price dropped 20%. The rebranding did happen on 20th Feb this year, but unfortunately, it failed to lift the price up, in fact the token price dropped by 10% the next day.
To be fair, we do not think that LISK deserved the blame for that price drop, the market was just tremendously bearish in that period and it is actually not uncommon for prices to rise approaching rebrand and subsequently correct itself. However, we will acknowledge that as a project, LISK has lost a lot of momentum in the first quarter of 2018 compared to the last quarter of 2017.
Hopefully, Q2 2018 will see LISK turning the corner and gaining the momentum they need again.
Firstly they have 3 community meet ups within the first 10 days of the month in Antonio, Ottawa, and Seattle,
and also just yesterday they launched Lisk Hub 3.0 with several new updates.
And the most important event, is their beta test net is due to launch in first week of April.
At the relaunch on 20th Feb, it was announced that their Testnet Core 1.0 would be released 4-6 weeks from the time of the relaunch. First week of April is the 6th week mark. So far even though we’ve past the 4 weeks mark, no news of the testnet has been officially released, and this is making some of the community nervous. Understandably, a lot of users have been posting in their social media about when this will happen.
A pinnned telegram message from LiskHQ and it will be for the Testnet : Our current main development at the time is on the release of Core 1.0 Beta. This is expected to be released on the first week of April.
Since this is an official pinned post by the team, it gives us hope that LISK will keep to the dateline and release news of testnet soon. This will be a long awaited news and also their first practical product launch. We are hopeful it will generate a lot of momentum, and again, this news is not well known to the main crypto community so there is a chance to be ahead of the game here.
At the moment, Lisk is sitting at $7.58. At its all time high it was almost $35 less than 3 months ago. So it’s really taken beating, even more than other coins and we think its due a big rebound if it can time good news with a general market recovery.
The note of caution we will input here, is where we see a chance of great gain, we also see the risk of significant loss if the team is unable to launch their testnet soon and announced another delay in their roadmap. If that was to happen, the price would drop significantly.
Our last coin that we are hopeful for the month of April, and my personal favorite out of the three we’ve discussed is Cardano.
Everyone knows Cardano, number 8 on the marketcap. Cardano is a blockchain platform, and the first to be built on research driven approach as well as the first to use a proof of stake approach.
Cardano is currently sitting at $0.149, just under $0.15, at its high it was sitting at $1.36 so this is only 11% of its high. Almost a 90% discount. It hasn’t really done anything to account for this exaggerated fall, the biggest fall in the other top 10 coins, and it still has a massive follower base who are positive, meaning it can build momentum very fast.
The big news of this month for Cardano is their Goguen testnet launch. On their roadmap it is actually worded that it is due to be released around April. It doesn’t actually state a date.
But several news articles and even their own social media is pointing the date as 30th April. This might be because coinmarketcal listed it as so, but coinmarketcal will automatically list the last date of the month if a specific date is not given. So I don’t know how accurate the actual date of 30th April will be. But I do have confidence in Cardano that if they announce it will happen around April, it will happen around April and we can expect good news some time this month.
Another major event for them this month is they are due to update their roadmap on the 5th of April. On their website, roadmap page, there is actually a countdown timer than shows the time to the next roadmap update, and they are very punctual with the updates. So we expect to find out then when Goguen testnet launch will be. For those who don’t know Goguen is the third major stage in the Cardano’s roadmap, and involves the production of their virtual machine.
Besides just the token price in the month of April, which is what this video is primarily about, we think Cardano is just a buy in general for the next few months. Not only is it a solid project with one of the best teams in the crypto space and biggest communities around, a recent video update less than a month ago by Duncan Coutts, their director of Engineering, stated “Throughout Q2 and Q3 of 2018 the features of Shelley will be released, starting with delegation and stakepool testnets”.
So we think this is going to be massive, because the crypto space is huge on proof of stake at the moment, because it offers passive income. And Cardano is a top 10 coin, who is also the first project to design proof of stake, and its expected proof of stake return in the first year is expected to be better than DASH, which is already higher than NEO. Now, NEO is the current hot favourite for staking, lots of people including myself have bought NEO because you can stake for free GAS. NEO’s current price is just under 1/3 its all time high, meaning it’s sitting about 30% of its all time high. Cardano is sitting at about 10% of its all time high, so that’s 3 times the discount and its expected staking rewards are expected to be more than NEO. If the staking profits are as rumoured, when this news is released, I think it’s very likely that Cardano will see a surge in popularity and a lot of people rushing to buy it.
The market might tank or rise from here, I don’t know. But personally I think Cardano is at an awesome price and in the medium term, over the next few months, I do hope for it to recover to a much higher price than this, and I’m personally seriously considering getting into it soon.
So those are our thoughts about the top coins to look out for in April. Again, we will be doing an indepth review on each of them this month, starting with Oyster protocol which we will do within the next couple of days. If you are thinking of investing in these coins, or just want to learn more about them, make sure you catch those posts.
If you liked this post or found it helpful, do give us an upvote and follow, so you don’t miss out on any of our future content. As a disclaimer, I am not a financial professional and this is not financial advice, just me sharing with you my thoughts on my own personal crypto journey with you. Also do your own research and make your own decisions. And remember, crypto investments are always high risk investments especially in the recent times, so only invest what you can afford to lose.
Alright guys, have an awesome first of April, and we will catch you tomorrow!
We are not professionals and this is not financial advice, just us sharing our thoughts with you. Always do your own research and make your own decisions.
