PART II
This is Part II in a series I am doing of personally rating cryptocurrency blockchains in response to the Weiss ratings. This will mostly focus on unique blockchains rather than ERC20 tokens.
The selection of coins I am mentioning are from Coinmarketcap Coins section, which for the most part is based on actual projects and blockchains rather than tokens on another Blockchain.
If there is a project I have not researched in the past I will not list it, as it takes time to actually understand the investment and tech potential of a project. Nor will this be a list of every project, just every project I have researched myself.
WHAT DO THE RATINGS MEAN?
A = Rating for a project has already won on some level, it has massive network effect, adoption, speculation, massive community. This does not mean there will be huge gains from buying, holding or trading, but in my view it is safe and that could happen.
B = Rating for a project that is close to a top cryptocurrency, they might have a large community, but nobody is using it yet, it likely has lots of potential but not quite there, in my humble opinion.
C = Rating for a decent project that has potential, but they are missing some key ingredients. Projects like these can still be great investments as there is room for improvement, and improvements increase value.
D = Rating for a project that has problems or is dishonest in some way. Fake partnerships, misleading investors. I don’t care about pump and dumps, I like quality projects I can buy and not worry about. Projects with this rating can still be profitable, but there is more risk.
F = Rating for projects that have scammed people or totally failed, they might still have potential, new devs can take over, they can fix problems, but these are the projects I have zero interest in myself.
STRATIS B+
Solid project based on Bitcoin, I avoided it early on as it started as a fork of Blackcoin and many scams started that way, a big mistake considering how much it went up over time. My only issue is that there is already Bitcoin and I see this as a direct competitor, but for a Bitcoin alternative this is a strong option and I consider it fairly safe.
SIACOIN B-
Siacoin is a great project, but I am unsure how much people will pay for storage, the angle of the coin, as tech advances and storage costs continue to drop - keep in mind all cryptos are speculative and mostly betting on where they will be in the future with adoption.
BYTECOIN C-
This could be called a scam by some, but the tech was so innovative it lead to the popularity of Monero that is based on Bytecoin. Monero had a fair launch, Bytecoin did not. Obviously, I prefer Monero, but I have to respect that they did come up with the technology originally, so they get a fairly high grade even for having such an unfair launch.
BITSHARES B-
One of the most technically innovative projects in Blockchain, the Legendary Dan Larimer left the project though, so slightly lower grade. Dan Larimer, I consider one of the best Blockchain devs out there so anything he has been involved in has some quality to it.
WAVES A-
One of the best projects based on NXT, with very strong lead dev. NXT was at the time of creation very advanced, and Waves takes the concepts of NXT to the next level. This is ideal for super simple, cheap and easy token creation, the downside, many tokens, and projects on Waves are junk, but they have a system that identifies the best projects to help investors decide.
DOGECOIN B+
Legendary meme coin based on appealing directly to the populace, high grade for past achievements like sponsoring a race car and an Olympic team. This was super popular in the past but had lots of problems after the Moolah scammer caused a lot of harm, and Jackson Palmer left Dogecoin after some drama when he was supporting Neucoin. At the time he said he was done with crypto forever, but I notice he is doing crypto videos again. I have not followed Doge in years so I am not sure of Jackson Palme’rs relation to Dogecoin at present.
KOMODO B
This is connected to jl777 of NXT, Bitcoin Dark and so on, great dev, but anonymous and somewhat controversial. Jl777 I consider a very good developer, and there is always lots of development and improvements going on in Komodo. The only downside is that jl777 has moved on from projects he was working on in the past, but it appears he is very committed to this one.
DECRED B+
Has a Bitcoin dev working on it last I checked, which adds some value and some nice technical innovations. I dual mined this for ages along with Expanse using the Claymore miner, as this is a quality project.
PIVX A
I consider this the best Dash Alternative, strong community, and great marketing. When I found out early on the Netcoin dev was helping PIVX I knew it was a buy, as he is a great marketer, even though Netcoin eventually lost popularity. Lots of people with plenty of experience involved in this project, constantly growing and they are a strong competitor.
ZCLASSIC C+
Interesting coin, has some issues and drama in the past, this is the first fork of Zcash and they removed the founders rewards, but of course those are not needed quite as much when you are forking the work others were paid for - holding this will give Bitcoin Private, so the most interesting thing is that this coin keeps being used to fork into other free money projects, that are superior to Zclassic.
FACTOM A+
Real world use of Bitcoin now, if you believe in Bitcoin, this is a good option. While this is basically just Bitcoin and not a unique blockchain, I consider it very high quality and worthy of mentioning and grading.
DIGIBYTE D-
They mislead investors and I find that dishonest. The tech was taken from a couple other projects and some passed it off as original, they implied partnerships with Microsoft, Blizzard, and Riot games, but they were just using some API so people could run private Minecraft servers and earn DGB. That is a big turn off for me, although I think the technology they borrowed from Myriadcoin is innovative.
MONACOIN A-
I look at this like the Litecoin of Japan, Monacoin has lots of real-world use, ATM machines all over the place, and thriving community, Japan only, but Japan is very pro crypto so this is a solid option, and they are doing well marketing it in Japan.
NEXUS A-
Strong lead dev and a loyal community of holders and many technical innovations. I know the lead dev quite well, but Colin and I disagree about the angle for Nexus, he sees it as something to help Bitcoin, I see Nexus as a Bitcoin competitor. So when I consider Nexus, I look at it much like Stratis and compare them both to Bitcoin.
SYSCOIN C+
Good project from the dev of Kittehcoin, but they never gave me my hat, shirt, keychain, and all the other SWAG from the ICO when I participated in it, after promising they would. Might be a small thing from long ago, but a blockchain for business should know that the customer is always right and you always ship the products people paid for. Still waiting.