Altcoins may actually be the future of cryptocurrencies rather than Bitcoin for various reasons including transaction speed and fees. As Bitcoin is priced really high, entry is hard for those new to cryptocurrencies, and altcoins are much cheaper alternatives. To add to that, they are pretty advanced technologically and some even boast a 3 second transaction speed (Steem). Here’s a list of top altcoins with high potential in 2018 that you may want to invest in.
There are plenty of high potential altcoins out there and no doubt many are just pump and dump. Look for those with great fundamentals and not just because they are cheap.
Disclaimer: This is merely my opinion and is not to be taken as an investment or financial advice. Always invest what you can afford to lose and do your own research.
As always, my favorite altcoin that I recommend day and night is Steem. Why Steem? So many reasons!
First of all, Steem has a transaction speed of 3 seconds and ZERO fees! It has reached 1 million transactions yet it didn’t even slow down, unlike Ethereum with their Cryptokitties. Steem only used less than 1% of the bandwidth.
Steem is the currency that is used on Steemit, a social media cum blogging platform that rewards content creators. There’s also Steem Dollars (SBD) which is basically supposed to be pegged to 1 USD but the price these days is crazy! It went up to $16 which has never happened before. I guess the crypto world can never be predicted.
You basically earn Steem and Steem Dollars on the platform. Steem can be powered up to Steem Power, which basically influences how big your vote is and how much your vote is worth. For example, someone with 100,000 Steem Power can probably give out more than $10 worth of votes and someone with 500 Steem Power barely gives 10 cents. As more content creators join this platform, more investors will want to come in and gain more influence on the platform.
Think of how big Facebook is and that’s how much potential Steem has. Most people on Facebook or other social media platforms earn nothing from posting. Steemit on the other hand rewards you for it.
Besides that, Steemit is also introducing Smart Media Tokens next year. This means anyone can create their tokens and do crowdfunding or raise funds in some way. It will also help existing businesses to further monetize their websites. Ethereum’s network that allows people to use the Ethereum blockchain to create tokens is worth so much these days, i.e. over $600 per piece. Steem is only at $2.50 and it has a transaction speed of 3 seconds. I believe the potential is there.
Ark brands themselves as the platform for consumer adoption. What stands out for Ark is basically their attempt to bring the SmartBridge technology to life. Think of it as a technology that links blockchains together, i.e. Ethereum with Steem with BitShares and so on.
Ark is also a pretty fast coin (around 8 second transaction speed). It allows you to stake as well. Staking means you generate more coins from what you have. It’s also decentralized like other cryptos and the voting weight in Ark is divided across all votes. It also has an ArkShield program that provides additional protection to Ark.
As they plan to be an ecosystem of its own, with their own physical card system that can be used in malls or restaurants, it’s one of the top altcoins in my opinion. It rose from $3 to almost $9 recently but has since gone down.
Ark also has plans for optional privacy that may compete with Monero, and a storage function which will compete with other coins like Siacoin and Storj.
IOTA may be one of the top altcoins and is modeled after the Internet of things (IoT). It has come a long way in its price as well. It used to be so cheap but now it’s already at $3 – $5. What’s different with IOTA is that it’s not based on blockchain technology, unlike the other coins mentioned here.
IOTA also uses a public ledger called Tangle so the function is quite similar in a way. It uses addresses that are constantly changing every time you perform a transaction, which means it’s quite secure. To create an IOTA wallet, you need to first generate a seed (password) of 81-characters long.
IOTA has also zero fees, no miners and has an unlimited transaction rate which means scalability is not an issue here. Furthermore, their recent partnership with Microsoft has caused the price to shoot up and I believe it can go higher. Apparently they have a bigger announcement up their sleeves.
Prior to this, they have already partnered with big brands like Bosch. Who knows how high they can go?
Among all of the coins, Stratis kinda confused me the most. What do they do actually?
Looking at their official website and other blogs, Stratis seems to be a blockchain-based platform which makes it easy for development, testing and deployment of C# applications on the NET framework. In other words, they provide a service to corporations and institutions to implement blockchain technology.
They are also using a clone of Bitcoin’s main code with some modifications of course.
As far as real use cases are concerned, Stratis may impact many sectors including fintech, research, internet of things and so on.
It has gone up to around $13 the past few days.
Ethereum was dubbed to be the top altcoin and has traded over $700 a couple of days ago. It has risen so much in a few years, when it used to be only a few cents.
Ethereum is amazing because it introduced their own Ethereum network, in which other people can create tokens based on it. It made it easier for developers to create their own tokens, because they don’t need to create an entire blockchain from scratch. Some of the popular Ethereum tokens are OmiseGo and BAT.
It also introduced smart contracts which may well be used for businesses in the future. Bitcoin can be said to be a very simple smart contract as well. It sends and receive coins but that’s it. Ethereum is a higher level where it allows you to set conditions on when the tokens are to be released and so on.
It has already risen a lot in value so I’m not sure how much higher it can go. Do note the number of tokens in circulation and the maximum supply when you consider prices in the market.
Litecoin was created by Charlie Lee not long after Bitcoin came into existence. It was supposed to be the silver to Bitcoin’s gold. It’s a peer to peer decentralized crypto, meaning it’s supposed to be used for all transactions like buying food at a cafe or paying your bills.
If it can be adopted into day-to-day transactions, then the potential is there. Then again, most of the altcoins are aiming towards the same goal. To be mainstream.
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Litecoin’s greatest feature is perhaps their lightning network and atomic swap which made transactions a lot faster. You don’t need to wait for confirmations unlike Bitcoin which is rather slow.
So far, cross-chain atomic swaps have only been done between Litecoin and Bitcoin. Whether it works with other coins in the future, that’s for us to find out.
It is also said to be much more scalable compared to Bitcoin.
Cardano has been dubbed as the Ethereum killer and it’s always compared to Ethereum due to their features. Cardano allows for the execution of smart contracts like Ethereum, and their token ADA is the crypto part of it. Furthermore, the previous CEO of Ethereum is a co-founder of Cardano.
Cardano also aims to release a debit card which allows users to load funds and then use it anywhere, like you do with a regular debit card.
Cardano also came up with Ouroboros, which is basically their proof-of-stake mining algorithm. Steem uses a proof-of-stake system as well, i.e. delegated proof of stake. This means you don’t have to spend so much electricity mining for coins.
Apparently ADA has no fees as well, giving most tokens a run for their money. It has shot up in value from $0.02 to $0.40 in 2 months, but the supply is pretty huge, i.e. 31 billion ADA tokens. It does have a high potential if it can surpass Ethereum and similar tokens.
Contrary to popular opinion, Bitcoin is not really anonymous. If you want an anonymous coin, try Monero.
Monero has shot up so much, from $50 to over $300 in a span of a few months. The reason why it’s popular is due to its anonymity feature. It has a few methods to ensure that the coin is truly anonymous.
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First of all, it uses stealth addresses. When you trade your other cryptos, you’ll normally have a destination address that is public. Anyone will know it’s you if they know your address. However, Monero only displays a cryptographic hash of the destination address to the public. This means only the recipient and the sender can decipher the hash.
Secondly, it uses separate transaction units. If you send 100 tokens, it will be split into different sums like 30, 40 and 30 tokens (XMR). They are also recorded separately so you can’t really track them.
Furthermore, it uses ring signatures to mix up the transactions and make it even more anonymous. Surely, the black market would love a coin like this.
Verge was designed to help people carry out everyday transactions. It was built on Bitcoin’s blockchain and it is supposed to allow businesses and individuals to transact in a quick manner while keeping it private.
It used to be called DogeCoinDark somewhere in 2014 but has been rebranded to Verge later in 2016.
Like Monero, Verge is supposed to be anonymous as well and it obscures IP addresses of users. Furthermore, it is decentralized like most of the other coins. Verge claims to be ready for mass adoption as well with their secure and private wallets.
It is considered to be very fast in carrying out transactions as well and the technology is called the Simple Payment Verification technology where the transactions are about 5 seconds. It’s still slower than Steem’s 3 seconds though.
OmiseGo or also known as OMG was started by a Thai group and it has risen a lot in value the past few months. At one point it even hit $20.
OMG is an Ethereum based blockchain and it’s meant to be used for commercial transactions across jurisdictions. It’s both a blockchain and a payment platform.
Their goal is to make it cheaper to make transactions (send and receive payments) and it may disrupt the financial institutions by being more efficient.
OMG has a partnership with McDonalds Thailand, which means they have at least done something outside the crypto world. Many tokens on crypto are just predictions and attempts to create something. The good ones are those who have a live product and are currently using it in the real world.
This is probably why OMG rose a lot in value over the couple months. They also plan to do financial transactions like remittances, deposits, business to business commerce, supply chain finance, loyalty programs and other services. They also plan to allow users to convert fiat to crypto easily.
December 25, 2017 by Alvin Lau
Source:https://www.ordinaryreviews.com/2017/12/25/top-altcoins-high-potential-2018/
