Hello my fellow Steemians,
So I thought I'd use my first post to help out some of the newer players in the crypto space get their feet wet. Since getting into the crypto market early this year I have spent countless hours researching blockchain technology and how the different coins utilize it. I have also helped around half a dozen of my friends make hundreds of dollars in a matter of weeks off of their small investments. Besides the big daddy Bitcoin, there are hundreds of alternative coins and from those I have selected my top 2 for three levels of risk tolerance.
LOW RISK:
Ethereum
Ethereum is currently #2 on coinmarket cap and for good reason. While Bitcoin is a digital currency, Ethereum is more of a blockchain platform on which developer's can build decentralized apps (or DAPs). Some examples of existing projects on Ethereum is Golem, which will allow people to rent out their spare processing power to others on the blockchain. Ethereum has seen amazing growth this year, outpacing even bitcoin recently in terms of making new all time highs. It recently touched $400 and has since receded. Because of it's larger use case and status at #2, in my opinion ETH could reach $1000 in the near future, but at the very least I expect steady growth and new all time highs over the next few months.Litecoin
Litecoin is well known as the silver to Bitcoin's gold. This is because of Litecoin's much longer track record than the rest of the alt coins. Litecoin was always intended to be a more scale-able and flexible Bitcoin. This is especially exemplified by it's recent implementation of Segwit (segregated witness). This allows Litecoin to have much faster transactions for much lower fees, which are a few of the major pain points with Bitcoin. As the new market entrants' honeymoon phase comes to end and Bitcoins fork on August 1st, the conversation will turn towards coins like Litecoin who already have scale-able protocols implemented. Litecoin is currently valued around $50 which is relatively low given it's #4 position on coinmarketcap and being the third crypto sold on Coinbase (one of the largest american exchanges). Other current momentum news items for Litecoin include:
Charlie Lee (a well known figure in the cryptospace) leaving the Coinbase team to go back to working on Litecoin.
Other perks include China's love for LTC. China usually accounts for around 40% of daily trading volume and some Chinese exchanges actually do more volume in LTC than BTC.
The newest bit of news comes from MIT, where they have just announced a Litecoin related development that they will be announcing August 1st.
Litecoins availability on Coinbase, it's implementation of segwit and it's placement on the market cap list leads me to believe that it is still highly undervalued at the $50 mark and I could easily see it reach $100 as we get closer to August 1st.
MEDIUM RISK:
- Steem
This one may seem like a no brainer as it is the very platform that I am writing this piece on, but it is actually the project I'm most excited about. While the previous coins have either been currencies or platforms that hold potential, Steemit is an up and running beta, already drastically changing the way people make money on the internet. Previously, content creators would make their money off of ad affiliate programs, either on their websites or through youtube. This meant playing by those advertisers' rules and waiting on checks in the mail that represent only a small percent of the value they had created. With Steem, the same creator can make many times as much money simply earning upvotes on Steemit. Other advantages include the fact that the nature of the blockchain means that the site cannot be censored, especially nice in the age of Facebook/Twitter/Reddit/Google mass censorship of certain stories the establishment wishes to suppress. Currently valued at only $2, I could easily see the price reaching 10 dollars in the near future as the word gets out. Imagine a world where Youtube celebs that have lost massive amounts of of their income to new stricter Youtube ad algorithms like Pewdiepie joins the site for extra income and points his millions of followers here.
- Ethereum Classic
Ethereum Classic is the result of a hard fork of the Ethereum blockchain that resulted from a incident when large amounts of ether was hacked and stolen. The decision was made to roll back the blockchain to before the hack had taken place and those was born the modern Ethereum blockchain. Ethereum Classic is what remains of the old network, using essentially the same tech as the main chain but is worth a fraction of the price at around $20 currently. It is an especially good time to invest as there will be multiple development tools and the emerald wallet being released over the next few months, making it easier to store and develop for ETC. As it is the same technology as ETH, ETC could have the potential to be worth around $50-100 in the near future as more projects surrounding it are announced.
HIGH RISK:
- Basic Attention Token
First in my picks for high risk tokens for those looking to get in early on projects that could increase their value exponentially in the near future is the Basic Attention Token. BAT tokens are used in conjunction with the Brave browser, which blocks ads and trackers natively allowing for super fast browsing. However, if users do wish to opt in for ads, they can be rewarded by receiving BAT tokens. In a world where this browser gains significant popularity, we could see a complete paradigm shift in how internet advertising works. Currently companies pay advertisers who pay websites and services to advertise to customers who most of the time bock the ads with adblocker anyways. With BAT tokens, the customer is paid for viewing advertisements, and as BAT tokens rise in value, so does the system as a whole. BAT is currently trading at around 20 cents. Yes you heard that correctly, 20 cents. It received a lot of attention and price gains around it's ICO (initial coin offering), but because of the way they ran the offering, it resulted in a lot of dumping, lowering it';s price and the hype surrounding the project. Another huge issue slowing it's growth currently is the fact that it is not on Poloniex yet, the major US at coin exchange. It is currently listed on smaller exchanges with less volume. If BAT was to ever be listed on a larger exchange (which I expect it to), the immediate price gains could be massive.
- CryptoPing
CryptoPing's Ping is a very interesting coin. CryptoPing is essentially a bot that watches for major changes in all crypto markets and alerts users to them. This is very useful for crypto traders as an early notice might allow one to get on a trend before it's too late. The Ping tokens currently being offered through their ICO will eventually be used as the currency to pay for their subscription service. This service will include advanced features such as an actual trading bot. Other intriguing aspects of Ping include a market cap at only 9 million (relatively low in the crypto space) and the fact that any non purchased Ping from the ICO will be burned. These two facts mean that Ping tokens will be in very limited supply which should help keep the value high. Ping is also already ready to be listed on the Yobit exchange, which means there will be somewhere to trade Ping in immediately (and thus take potential profit from), an nice feature for a new coin. Currently offered for well under 50 cents, ping has great potential for growth post ICO.
Well that's pretty much all I have for you guys, these are all simply my opinions on the market as it currently is. I'm sure there will be many people with different picks than myself and I encourage you guys to leave a comment with your own picks (I'll up vote of course ;) )
I would just like to thank Jeff Berwick, Ryan Lee, Jerry Banfield, and Champagne Crypto for getting me into cryptos and for all the information along the way. Looking forward to interacting with you guys and the whole Steemit community as a whole!
Thanks for reading, follow me if you found the article helpful!