2018 is shaping up to be the Year of the Altcoins: Let’s Take a Look
Nowadays it seems Bitcoin and Ethereum are all over the news. Between reaching record highs
in December of 2017, coming close to almost $20,000USD/BTC, to reaching harsh lows in the
post-holiday market correction, Bitcoin has made headlines, news stories, skeptics, and
believers in 2017.
But with all this new media attention and growing public participation in cryptocurrency, have
new investors missed the boat? Sure, it would be great to go back in time and buy Bitcoin at
under $1USD a coin, but that’s not possible, so what else can new investors do besides getting
in when Bitcoin is trading above $12,000USD?
In this post, we’ll take a closer look at 3 major altcoins (cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin) that
are looking to have a strong 2018.
#1 Cardano (ADA)
If you’re fairly active in the cryptocurrency world then this first choice won’t come as much of a
surprise. Cardano (ADA) has been called many things, often referred to as the “Japanese Ethereum” or the “Ethereum Killer,” but we prefer to describe it with just one word: undervalued.
Though the Cardano team has been working diligently on the project since 2015, Cardano really
made news this past year when it came flying out of the world of altcoin obscurity and secured a
position in the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap, reaching an impressive total of $17.4B.
ADA is the actual coin from the Cardano team, and it’s likely to make big moves this coming
year. With Charles Hoskinson, Ethereum co-founder, leading the team and developing a new
blockchain (read: not another ERC20 token) that seeks to solve some of the Ethereum
shortcomings, the project is sure to only gain more traction as 2018 progresses and new
updates come out. Check it the project here.
#2 NEO (NEO)
NEO, perhaps the one coin in the recent post-holiday dip that actually managed to not only
make it through the short-lived, albeit brutal, bear market that kicked off 2018. While the majority
of the market was bleeding out, NEO saw consistent gains.
Like Cardano, NEO is another coin that is platform based and is sometimes referred to, funny
enough, as the “Chinese Ethereum.” Both of these cryptocurrencies bring a lot to the table
besides their coin. NEO has seen tremendous success because of their reworking of smart
contracts and use of decentralized applications (dApps) and other tokens running off of the NEO
platform like Red Pulse (RPX).
Being a platform that revolves around ushering in and implementing the “new economy,” NEO is
a rock solid altcoin that has seen an impressive about of both growth and resilience in the
recent weeks. On top of everything NEO already has going for it, holding the coin will also
generate GAS for holders as payment (think of these tokens as like being paid out dividends like
one would receive in the traditional stock market). Altogether, 2018 is likely to be a very strong
year for this coin and the “new economy.”
For number three, we’ve got one of the more interesting coins to choose from for this new year,
and that’s 0x. The entire 0x platform has a lot going on for them that shows promising signs for
potential investors.
Like a variety of other coins, the 0x team has built a platform for other developers to work off of
and contribute to help grow the community. Focusing on decentralized applications (dApps), 0x
has a respectable list of projects running off of their protocol and using their technology, which
can be found here.
Even if you were to simply ignore all of the dApp work 0x has been doing and projects that have
been working with them, arguably the most interesting part of the project becomes the focus: a
decentralized exchange.
0x set out to fill a need in the market they didn’t see properly filled. The idea was to offer an
exchange for individuals, investors, and day traders to all exchange ERC20 tokens for free. The
exchange will operate not only free of charge, but decentralized in order to protect from an
occurrence like Mt. Gox and Bitconnect where customers were left solely to the will of the
exchanges and what they decide to do with the funds.
0x does have a fair bit of competition when it comes to exchanges broadly, especially with
KuCoin offering a payout program, Cobinhood also offering free trades, and Ether Delta offering
a decentralized exchange as well. However, 0x has a power house team behind them and a
significant amount of investor funding to ensure the project is a success, not to mention how
well ZRX has been performing since its release too.
Ultimately, it will all come down to which team is able to develop the most user friendly
exchange that traders will want to use. As users start migrating to one exchange, funds will
follow, pricing will be more accurate, and liquidity will be increased.