https://www.marketwatch.com/story/7-cryptocurrencies-to-watch-in-2018-if-youre-on-the-hunt-for-the-next-bitcoin-2017-12-12
A massive bubble? A passing fad? A scam?
Whatever the cynics out there want to call bitcoin, its BTCUSD, +1.61% insane rally continues to befuddle the haters and enrich the crypto faithful.
Fear of missing out can have a powerful — and dangerous — influence on financial decisions. It’s playing out in a big way right now as many of those who’ve missed out on the digital currency craze kick themselves and frantically search for the next bitcoin — or something even better.
But does that even exist and is it worth the risk to invest?
While he’s still extremely bullish on what lies ahead for bitcoin, George Tung, co-founder of Cryptos R Us and a veteran of investing in cryptocurrencies, says there’s still plenty of upside opportunity in lesser-known coins.
“Will we see another coin with a market cap exceeding bitcoin?” he said. “Yes, I believe that is definitely possible within the next three to five years.”
Hitesh Malviya, the crypto consultant behind ItsBlockchain.com, says that bitcoin is obviously the place to be during bullish explosions like the one we’re seeing right now, but, in the long run, the big gains in cryptos lie elsewhere.
“The alts industry is new and it will take at least a few years to become mainstream,” he said, adding “we can see 10x gains — like bitcoin this year, in many alt-coins.”
But with more than 1,300 alt-coins — basically any digital currency that isn’t bitcoin — to choose from, it’s no easy task uncovering potential winners. Tung uses a four-part screener to determine which alt-coins may be worth a flyer.
1. Study the team behind it. “Where do they come from? Have they been involved with other cryptos before? Are they backed by anyone, and what kind of experience do they bring? The alt-coins that have done the best and have the highest market caps have the most proven teams.”
2. Take a look at the why. “How useful is this? Are they trying to solve a problem that doesn’t need solving? Some alt-coins coming out are simply ridiculous.”
3. Determine where they are in the process. “I look at the road map of the alt-coin and see how far along are they. Do they have a test-net or a beta? Are there new features being released? Are there soft or hard forks coming up?”
4. Assess the valuation. “Since alt-coins get pumped and dumped a lot, I look at the current market evaluation and see if they are priced right. A lot of alt-coins are priced way too high and I tend to stay away from them.”
With that in mind, here’s an overview of seven cryptocurrencies that analysts have said may be worth watching in 2018. Like bitcoin, all cryptocurrencies are subject to extreme volatility and risk -- so if you intend to invest, it’s well worth doing your due diligence and reading up more on each one.
Litecoin (LTC)
Market cap: $17.78 billion
Performance in 2017, as of Dec. 11: +4,800%
Who created it? Former Google GOOGL, +1.37% employee (and now notable star in the crypto universe) Charlie Lee
The skinny: Litecoin has been described as the silver to bitcoin’s gold.
Created by Lee back in 2011, it’s billed as an alternative to bitcoin. Without getting too wonky, Lee essentially aimed to cut the amount of time required to confirm new transactions and tweak the way bitcoin was being mined to ensure anybody could participate. “My vision is people would use Litecoin every day to buy things. It would just be the payment method of choice,” Lee once said.
Litecoin is also designed to produce more coins -- it has an 84 million coin limit, versus bitcoin’s 21 million. About 54 million coins are currently in circulation, versus bitcoin’s current 16.7 million circulating supply.
Monero (XMR)
Market cap: $4.84 billion
Performance in 2017: +1,930%
Who created it? Much like bitcoin, Monero’s creator is anonymous.
The skinny: The appeal of Monero? Anonymity. With Monero, the details of every transaction, including sender, receiver and size, are recorded on a public ledger, but are obfuscated to reportedly make them untraceable. Use Monero, and, in theory, there’s no way for anyone else to connect the dots between the sender, receiver or size of the transaction.
Sound like an appealing coin to cybercriminals? It is. The hackers behind the global ransomware incident WannaCry, which infected 230,000 computers running Microsoft Windows, demanded payments in Monero.
That said, there are many more cases recorded of hackers demanding bitcoin, and Monero’s backers say the coin’s biggest use cases aren’t illicit. It would appeal, they say, to corporations who want to move money around without competitors knowing, or to anyone who simply doesn’t want their balance and transactions made public, such as someone doing business in a foreign country who doesn’t want to become a target.
Monero recently said 45 musicians, including Lana Del Ray, Sia and Dolly Parton, will be accepting Monero. Many will even offer discounts to those who pay with it.
There are about 15.5 million XMR in circulation, and, unlike bitcoin and Litecoin, Monero doesn’t have a fixed coin supply.
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