2017 was really a big year for the entire crypto ecosystem. We saw massive adoptions and the cryptocurrency market capitalization increasing by over 3000%, but get ready! Get ready to be blown away by a much bigger 2018.
In this post I'll go over some of the best cryptocurrencies to watch in 2018 based on observation of trends and fundamental analysis
1. LITECOIN (LTC)
This pick might be a surprise to some of you but you'd agree with me that Litecoin is the second most well known and adopted cryptocurrency today right behind bitcoin. There are a lot of new crypocurrencies coming out nowadays with a lot of promises and good teams but no products or adoption; Litecoin definitely has those. Charlie Lee, the creator of Litecoin, recently committed to spending a lot more time marketing and forming business relationships on behalf of Litecoin. Litecoin implemented segwit and lightning network which enables it to do atomic swaps. This has paved the way for a lot of opportunities for Litecoin. It has broken its previous ceilings and is heading much higher. Litecoin is not to be ignored.
2. ARDOR (ARDR)
ARDOR was built on the NXT platform by the NXT team but of course with improvements. It includes childchains which primarily move transactions off the blockchain. This generation 3 platform aims to help the blockchain scale tremendously to handle the future. ARDOR has a good adoption rate which will increase enormously once we see new coins and DAPPS being released for ARDOR. If the adoption continues to grow and they become one of the leaders of generation 3 platform coins, then a 10x or more by the end of 2018 is likely.
3. IOTA
A lot of people jumped on IOTA bandwidth recently and there's a good reason for that. What really kicked off the interest in IOTA is their big partnership with Samsung and Microsoft and Ethereum's scaling issues. Ethereum, because it's a generation 2 platform, can not handle a lot of transactions; it handles only about 15 transactions per second. The Ethereum team is desperately trying to scale that up through on-chain and off-chain solutions. An Off-chain solution would be Raiden network which is kinda equivalent with lightning network for Ethereum and ERC20 based tokens. With that being said, Ethereum team still needs time to develop, test and get everything working. We all saw what happened with cryptokitties recently and that really revealed Ethereum's scaling issues, creating a lot of tension and consequently interest in IOTA. IOTA doesn't use Blockchain, it uses something called the "TANGLE". A TANGLE, unlike a blockchain where you need nodes or miners to process and confirm transactions, forms a lot of transaction channels between each user whereby, as a proof of work, you have to verify two other transactions for each you make. This means that the more users the IOTA network has, the faster it becomes. It's the only cryptocurrency that gets better with more users and transactions and has zero transaction fees. IOTA has a lot of growth potential in 2018
4. RAIDEN NETWORK
Raiden network opened its network in November, 2017 and is being tested by a bunch of ERC20 based token companies. As mentioned earlier, Raiden Network is the lightning network for Ethereum. This opens up payment channels, 'Raiden fast' transactions and low transaction fees, Also, if Ethereum were to resolve the scaling issue, they, and many other companies, would need to rely on the Raiden Network. That's a huge plus for Raiden.
5. POWER LEDGER (POWR)
Power ledger unlike a lot of cryptocurrencies has a working product. They're disrupting the energy market and even have established presence in Australia. They have contracts to build smart grids with solar energy and are also working with utility companies so that users can buy energy upfront and either use, hoard or even sell it to neighbours at a profit; it's the first of its kind. They're already making great strides in Australia and have plans of expanding to India, Thailand and some of the poor countries that really don't have access to power. POWR will explode in 2018.
There you have it. These are the top 5 cryptocurrencies I think will see massive growth in 2018. Contributions will be very much appreciated.
Thanks for reading.
Disclaimer: This post should not be taken as, and is not intended to provide, investment advice. Please perform your due diligence before investing in any cryptocurrency.