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Learn About Each of the Top 50 Cryptocurrencies [2018 Review Guide]

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There are currently over 1,500 cryptocurrencies in the market, with more being added every day and others being removed.

Therefore, it is often difficult for newbies to figure out which cryptocurrencies are best for their investments. This is why we have created this guide.

The goal of this guide is to show you what coins are considered most valuable right now as well as provide you with vital information on each and every cryptocurrency project.

Of course this could change given the ever volatile and non-regulated nature of the cryptocurrency market.

More importantly, this will help you avoid any scam cryptocurrencies out there, encourage you to conduct even more research on every listed coin, as well as spot new opportunities that you can take advantage of and profit from to your heart’s content.

To make it easy for you to navigate this guide, we’ll split the guide into five sections, starting with the first 10 cryptocurrencies according to market cap, user adoption and valuation, followed by the next 10, and so on. That said, let’s jump right in.

Top 1-10 Cryptocurrencies

  1. Bitcoin (BTC)

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Unless you have been living under a rock or in Mars for the last 3-4 years, chances are you would have heard of bitcoin.

This is the pioneer cryptocurrency as well as the most popular in the market owing to it is meteoric rise from just pennies to over $18,000 in December 2017. It is the cryptocurrency singularly responsible for spurring the creation of many other altcoins.

Bitcoin is ever more well-known than the term “cryptocurrency”. Bitcoin’s sole use case is the transfer of funds from one person to another without any regulation, third party oversight or excess fees.

Because of its popularity, bitcoin has become somewhat of a FIAT currency as you now have merchants, businesses and individuals accepting bitcoin as payment for services rendered and products bought.

While it is still far off from becoming a conventional currency, it is gradually approaching that state owing to its adoption by countries. There are various ways to profit from bitcoin:

  • You could day trade with the coin, depending on market movements and price fluctuation.
  • Use it as an investment instrument by buying in at a certain price, holding it as an asset for months or years and then sell after significant appreciation.
  • Bitcoin mining.

So far though, bitcoin is the benchmark against which all other cryptocurrencies are measured. As a result, it is still holding strong and is by far, the most expensive cryptocurrency in the market.

However, current market fluctuations has seen the currency take a huge dip in price from less than three months ago. The good news though, is this is still a viable cryptocurrency to invest in and hold.

Many market analysts predict that around the third to fourth quarter of the year, we can expect the currency value to start increasing –barring any regulatory or major market problems. Whatever the case, if you want a rock solid cryptocurrency to invest in or trade short, medium or long term, bitcoin should be your first call.

2. Ethereum (ETH)

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The second most popular cryptocurrency in the market, Ethereum is a platform that’s primarily based on the concept of blockchain smart contracts, low fees and data decentralization.

Smart contract is ja name use to describe computer code that can facilitate the exchange of money, content, property, shares, or anything of value.

Ether, the platform token, is used by application developers to pay for transaction fees and services on the Ethereum network.

The ETH token can be mined and is represented by the symbol ETH.

Ethereum is a more recent cryptocurrency –released in 2015- but has gone on to become a leading coin in the market. It is currently favored by users because of the near instant transaction speed as well as its smart contracts technology.

Lots of currency traders are finding ethereum to be an excellent alternative to bitcoin owing to its worldwide acceptance, ease of transactions as well as the speed.

Bitcoin currently takes a lot longer to transfer funds owing to the wait period and huge transaction volume. This means that it can take anywhere from 20 minutes to 12 hours to transfer bitcoins from one exchange to another or one account to the other.

Ethereum on the other hand is near instant, or takes about an hour at the latest. Ethereum experienced incredible growth in 2017, going from about $8 in January, 2017 to over $1,000 in December, 2017.

With its increased adoption and use case, it looks like it still has room for growth as an investment vehicle. Investment forecast for this should be medium to long term for those with less capital. Those with a lot of capital can easily trade this by capitalizing on the daily/weekly price fluctuations.

3. Ripple (XRP)

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Ripple is currently popular because of its unique use case. Its primary function is to drastically reduce money transfer transaction costs. As a result, it is being adopted by banks and individuals as an alternative transfer platform.

In a manner similar to traditional transfers, all you have to do is utilize Ripple’s network for the transfer and drastically slash your transfer costs.

Transfers on the Ripple network also reflect almost immediately as transfers are sent in about 4 seconds, compared to traditional international transfers that take 3-5 business days plus a not insignificant transfer fee of at least 6 percent.

Ripple is a truly disruptive technology and one with a lot of potential. The only downside is because it does business with traditional banks, it is regulated and requires trust, unlike other cryptocurrencies that run on a trustless, zero monitoring system.

Ripple’s technology is so impressive that major financial institutions are beginning to consider using the platform for transfers. As its adoption becomes more widespread, investors you can expect significant returns on investment in the coming years.

4. Bitcoin Cash (BCH)

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Most newbies often confuse this with bitcoin as they think they are one and the same. Well, they aren’t. Bitcoin Cash is a hard fork of bitcoin itself. It was created to help combat some of bitcoin’s issues –specifically the issue of scaling and speedy transactions- which threaded and still threatens its viability.

Bitcoin currently suffers from serious transaction delays. As a result, more people are wary about trading with bitcoin. Bitcoin Cash was the community’s answer to the delayed transaction issues of bitcoin, whilst still leaving bitcoin to run as is.

Think of it as a “subsidiary” of bitcoin devoted to solving a specific problem. Bitcoin Cash’s increased block size means that transactions carried out with it are faster and quicker, because there’s more space and little or no transaction backlogs.

To help you understand this, think of the checkout lines in malls. When all cash registers are open, purchases are faster and customers check out quicker. But, when you have fewer cash registers open, there’s the backlog of customers, which means longer checkout times for the customers as well as overcrowding in the store.

The good news though is that Bitcoin Cash received global acclaim and is currently very well valued. Because it’s a hard fork of bitcoin, its value is inherently tied to bitcoin and it will most likely be available and popular while its source remains active and in demand.

5. Litecoin (LTC)

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Another bitcoin fork, Litecoin’s concept is similar to bitcoin’s. It’s essentially a P2P transaction that does what bitcoin does, only faster and cheaper. It is fondly referred to as the digital silver in the cryptocurrency space.

There are many who think it might be the next bitcoin owing to its rapid mass adoption and its ability to do what bitcoin does… only better. Litecoin is particularly well associated with the little daily transactions.

In fact, in the crypto community, Litecoin is often compared to the walk around money and expense accounts, while bitcoin is compared to your investments or gold bars. This coin is performing well in the market and will do so for the possible future.

If you’re looking to invest in a worthwhile cryptocurrency that doesn’t cost quite as much as bitcoin or others, and still has excellent growth potential, this is the coin.

6. Cardano (ADA)

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New on the scene, Cardano has grown over the last few months into something of a success. This is not surprising seeing as its founders –Charles Hoskinson specifically- were formerly members of the ethereum team who realized the limitations of ethereum and set out to fix that.

Cardano is being positioned as Ethereum 2.0. That’s because Cardano has set out to rectify and fix all the issues that ethereum has –like scalability problems. While they don’t really have a working prototype yet, they are working assiduously towards creating a working product that will provide some sorely needed solutions.

And from the look of things, it is capable of doing just that in the very near future, thanks to the incredibly impressive team. Investors looking for cheap but high potential cryptocurrencies will find Cardano an incredible steal.

In fact, if the project is successful, it is possible that Cardano will grow from the less than 25 cents it’s priced at right now to hundreds of dollars in the forthcoming years. As far as we can see, Cardano is a relatively medium to long term hold. Investors looking to make a quick buck might need a lot of capital to day trade.

This may never grow to the dizzying heights of Bitcoin, but it has the potential to be just as big –if not bigger than- ethereum and other prominent altcoins. Otherwise, if you’re looking for viable investment opportunities that are sustainable and capable of incredibly growth over the years, Cardano is one of them.

7. EOS (EOS)

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Another one of those “Ethereum killers”, EOS is positioning itself as an alternative and a better ethereum with the ability to upstage ethereum in the smart contracts niche through the EOS network.

They intend to do this by eliminating the restrictive issues surrounding ethereum’s reported inability to scale quickly and handle even higher transaction volumes as evidenced in delayed transfers and transaction confirmations during high volume periods.

Unlike ethereum that charges you a small fee every time you carry out a transaction on the platform, EOS doesn’t charge the user. Instead, the owner of the decentralized app pays for your usage.

With these features and many others, EOS just may upstage ethereum in the future if the team keeps developing and ethereum slows down in fixing its problems. Investors looking to make some money can get in on this.

Please note however, that we think it might be a medium or long term investment if you want significant gains and returns. Recently EOS surpassed Litecoin and is now the 5th most promising cryptocurrency project based on market cap.

8. NEO (NEO)

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Frequently called China’s ethereum, NEO created by a leading cryptocurrency expert, is China’s answer to ethereum. NEO was created to provide similar services that ethereum does, but for residents of China.

This is why it is primarily popular among the Chinese. It is essentially an ethereum clone with a few extra features added to the platform. Its key use case is smart contracts which can be easily transferable and eliminates all the conventional bureaucracy –something that ethereum pioneered and still does.

Intending investors need to understand that its user base is predominantly from China, which means it is subject to Chinese interference. China has been known to flip-flop in their stance on cryptocurrencies.

While this may be bad for business and the cryptocurrency, we have seen NEO hold its own and consistently grow in value in spite of a significantly unstable climate and unfavorable government policies. If you’ll be investing in this, be aware that China does influence this particular cryptocurrency.

9. Stellar Lumens (XLM)

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A newbie on the scene, Stellar Lumens is an ambitious cryptocurrency looking to do everything from decentralized exchanges to processing international payments in less than five seconds for really low prices, among a ton of other things.

Users would be able to use the platform for mobile payments and micropayments among other forms of payments. In fact, when it’s fully deployed, users would be able to send money in a manner similar to Western Union and MoneyGram, only faster and at a cheaper price.

This will therefore, attract the attention of migrant workers in developed countries looking to send some money back home to their loved ones. Stellar Lumens is positioned to disrupt the multibillion dollar industry of international transfers, and is fast becoming one of the most promising cryptocurrencies that came out in 2017.

If you are actively looking for a very cheap, potentially highly valuable cryptocurrency to invest in, Stellar Lumens loos like one of those. It has shown great promise, and with the team that’s currently working on it –the founder has led a ton of successful crypto companies, this should be around for a long time.

In fact, the platform is so promising that IBM has already partnered with them. If this is not an indicator of a bright future, we don’t know what is. For interested investors though, this is a medium to long term hold. If you haven’t bought this, you may want to seriously stop reading this, go buy some now that it is seriously cheap and then come on back to reading this.

10. IOTA (MIOTA)

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IOTA intends to correct some of the major flaws of Bitcoin and Ethereum by creating a different validation network that tackles these problems effectively. This network is called Tangle, helps make the process of transaction validation seamless and faster.

So, instead of waiting on miners to validate or approve a transaction, the network handles it quicker and does all that the miners would normally do in a fraction of the time they would have done it.

IOTA’s effectiveness is contingent on the number of people using ledgers. Transactions become faster on ledgers that are in higher use. Another appeal of that IOTA has is its nonexistent charges on every transaction carried out on the platform.

The company is very serious about growth and providing a world changing tech. This is why they have recruited and are still recruiting brilliant techies, developers and minds from all over the globe.

IOTA has great potential, and may grow in the medium and short term. Investors looking for a more stable company and cryptocurrency to invest in, should find IOTA an excellent option.

Top 11-20 Cryptocurrencies for 2018

11. Monero (XMR)

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Monero’s major selling point lies in its ability to facilitate anonymous payments. This is courtesy of a decentralized platform that’s primarily privacy driven. This is different from bitcoin’s transactions that are often listed in public ledgers, thus making them possible to see and track.

With Monero, tracking payments or transactions becomes almost impossible because of the anonymous nature of the network. Listed transaction destinations are therefore separate from the real receiving address through a technology called cryptonic hashing.

If you want to hide transactions, this is probably the platform to use for your purchases. Naturally, this cryptocurrency has attracted a lot of investment from tons of people. This accounts for its reasonably pricey value.

If you want to invest in this, you can be sure of viability, but don’t expect to get returns in the multiples like you would for the cheaper coins. Of course it could eventually happen, but don’t count on it.

12. Dash (DASH)

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Dash is actually short for digital cash. The platform offers an alternative means of sending and receiving funds anonymously, deleting all transactions as well a double-send-proof security measures.

The platform aspires to be the fastest and most scalable cryptocurrency with the capability of expanding hugely with increasing transaction volumes.

Transactions on this platform attract very low charges, as well as fast with the sender and receiver getting their notifications almost instantly after the transfers are made. There’s also the added perk of “instant send” which attracts a marginally higher fee.

This ensures that your transactions are prioritized and executed immediately. This singular feature is why investors believe in its real world use where they believe it can be integrated into traditional stores’ payment processors.

The team is actively working on its improvement and seamless usage so that users can benefit even more largely from it. Investing in DASH should be a medium to long term approach, particularly if you're looking to double or triple your capital at the very least.

13. TRON (TRX)

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TRON is a cryptocurrency project that’s designed to further decentralize the internet, and break the monopoly of major stakeholders such as Google and Amazon.

According to Justin Sun, the founder, TRON’s purpose is to essentially “heal the internet” (we suspect that there might be something missing in translation from Chinese to English).

TRON hopes to do this by putting power back in the hands of the crowd –the internet’s many users. Thus, providing them with the option to charge for their content. Of particular focus is the entertainment system where people are not getting their due for all the content put out.

TRON hopes to help content creators decide where, when and how they want to share their content –if they want to- without any oversight, regulation or interference from the big hegemonies that threaten to cripple and monopolize the internet.

Justin Sun, the founder of the project himself is a reputable “techpreneur”, who has won a slew of awards for his inventions and tech products; the most prominent of which is Peiwo, a well-known app in china with an active user base of 10 million, with an estimated 1 million joining every month.

In keeping with his precedents, Justin Sun is working hard to make Tron’s viability a reality through the recruitment of highly talented developers and an impressive team. There are even rumors that Alibaba might be interested in a partnership.

While it’s really cheap to buy now, we believe Tron is one of those sleeping giant cryptocurrencies with the potential to generate significant return on investment –probably in multiples.

This is also great for short, medium and long term holds. It’s very possible to double your investment in a few weeks or wait a few more months or a couple of years to get 5X-10X returns.

14. NEM (XEM)

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Short for New Economy Movement, NEM’s technology is based on the proof of importance, cryptocurrency protocol for transactions. Created in 2014, with its headquarters in Singapore, the cryptocurrency’s function is to help businesses execute their business activities more efficiently using something called a smart asset system and deploying them on their blockchain technology.

The smart asset system in this case, can be anything related to your business process e.g. reward cards, mobile payments, inventory taking and so much more.

Businesses and organizations looking to create their own blockchain solutions, can also use the NEM technology to do so.

Government and other public organizations may also be able to use the technology to drive their voting and polling activities. The point is the technology looks like one that can be useful across board, and industries.

As for its investment value, we think this might be a decent medium/long term hold. Sure, you can make a tidy sum from trading huge volumes in the short term, but investors would most likely benefit from being patient and watching the cryptocurrency’s coin increase.

15. Tether (USDT)

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Tether is one of the relatively stable cryptocurrencies owing to its direct value connection to the dollar. Currently every unit of the Tether token (USDT) is exchangeable at a dollar.

It is thought that each token available is backed by a US dollar, thus ensuring that the value stays stable or rises and falls according to the value of the dollar. This makes it one of the more conventional cryptocurrencies whose currency and price activities are somewhat regulated by traditional financial institutions.

Tether’s use case is the cheaper and faster transfer of funds on its network. So, unlike traditional funds transfer processes that often take 3-5 business days, transfers on the Tether platform is near instant, and costs far less.

This is why many banks have/still are currently looking to partner with them. If you are looking for a less unstable cryptocurrency to invest in for the long term, Tether will do just fine.

Just know that, unlike the other more volatile, if profitable cryptocurrencies, you probably will not experience returns on investment in multiples. If you want a safe, moderate investment vehicle or asset to tie down your money, Tether will suffice.

16. Ethereum Classic (ETC)

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Sometime in 2016, over 11m Ether was stolen –that’s valued at over $4.5 billion USD today- after hackers found a bug in the platform. Of course the ethers were largely recovered, but the damage was done.

This, essentially forced people –mostly bitcoin enthusiasts- to rethink ethereum’s safety and security, considering that the hack was only possible because of a vulnerability in the cryptocurrency’s code.

Thus, was Ethereum Classic born. A hard fork of its progenitor, this was created to help ascertain the “death” of ethereum. After the founders did a lot of promotion and saw that people piled on, the initial plan of ETC eliminating Ethereum was jettisoned and they decided to stick with it, creating a new code to further make the platform hack-proof.

Make no mistake, there’s so much controversy around ETC, with many claiming it is a scam coin run and owned by Barry Silber, a well-known pump and dumper in the cryptocurrency world.

So, even though there are people who think that Ethereum Classic is a better, more reliable version of Ethereum, there are many who seriously doubt the validity of such claims.

Whatever the case, intending investors in this coin would do well to understand that there’s often a lot of pumping and dumping, and that it is largely positioned as an anti-ethereum chain –that is not a good reason for a cryptocurrency’s existence.

Many people call it the “older version of ethereum”. Sure, its small circulation volume –around 144 million- and its current price can be tempting, just know that it may not be a viable long term project.

If you’ll be investing in this –and most savvy crypto enthusiasts would tell you to avoid this like a plague- understand that it is a short term to medium term investment –this means months to a couple of years max. Make your money and get out as fast as you can.

17. VeChain (VEN)

Information dissemination and transfer is the heart of business processes and activities nowadays. As a result, more people are spending a lot more time and money on this in the form of infrastructure and tools.

Unfortunately, a pretty significant part of this process is unnecessary and inefficient, thus resulting in resource wastage, delays in the form of bureaucratic nonsense, reliance/trusting a system to work and so on.

So, what if there was a way to drastically cut this wastage and ensure a smooth, seamless efficient flow of information within and across businesses? This is essentially what VeChain set out to do.

As a trustless business ecosystem, the goal is to eliminate all the “wastes” inherently found in the transfer of business information, thus ensuring a faster flow and ease of business information transfer.

They are taking on huge industries like the global logistics and supply chain, food safety, fashion and luxury. And it does look like companies are beginning to take note. A recent report indicated that the head of DHL Asia Pacific indicated that they would love to work with VeChain.

One of the key things about successful cryptocurrencies is the real world application as well as a tangible product. VeChain seems to have those two covered. This is why we think it might be a viable cryptocurrency to invest in medium/long term.

If you really want, you should treat VeChain as more of a cryptoasset, seeing as it has huge potential and the capability of an immense value growth, resulting in significant ROI for you and other smart investors.

There are strong indications that this has immense potential, so invest in the tech as we think it’s one of the better cryptos out there.

18. Qtum (QTUM)

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Qtum’s use case is primarily centered on decentralized apps (DAPPs) and smart contracts. As a value transfer platform, this combines both the strengths of bitcoin and ethereum to provide an excellent range of benefits to users.

Combine that with their focus on deploying their platform and products on just mobile devices and you have a winning cryptocurrency technology that just might change the world. Bitcoin and ethereum are doing a bit of everything and targeting multiple devices.

Qtum (pronounced as Quantum), does just mobile devices. The concept itself is very appealing and potentially rewarding financially for investors.

Also, developers who are looking to deploy similar apps might find their platform an excellent place to do the same. For a cryptocurrency that’s less than a year old, Qtum’s market acceptance is pretty great.

Considering that half the world uses mobile devices, and many of them run on apps that either snoop on your or require some form of reward that will be sent back “home” to a centralized server or something, Qtum’s focus on decentralized mobile apps that users can trust is a huge concept; one that can actively disrupt the tech sector.

Investors in this cryptocurrency would do well to hold as it has the potential to yield multiple returns on investment.

19. Binance Coin (BNB)

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Binance is one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, and to help facilitate transactions on its platform, the exchange released the BNB token. The coins helps with the faster ease of transaction on the platform.

This is not surprising seeing as the platform processes almost 2 million transactions per second. Its ease of use combined with the acceptance of traders from other parts of the world and zero security vulnerabilities, makes it one of the more trusted exchanges.

As long as the platform exists, the Binance coin will always have value.

Platform users can use the coin to pay transaction fees on the platform, thus ensuring that it stays relevant. If you are looking for a longer term, stable cryptocurrency to invest in, Binance coin might be a worthwhile investment vehicle and should provide decent returns.

20. ICON (ICX)

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ICON is another cryptocurrency whose sole aim is to serve as a meeting point for all the various blockchains. Their singular product is based on the idea of a loopchain, whose sole purpose is to provide and enhance smart contracts based transactions in real time.

As a result, users who are interested in accessing or using specific blockchain technologies will be able to do without the need for exchanges. ICON’s goal is to build the world’s largest decentralized network and develop global standards for inter-blockchain networks.

The team running and managing this company and its token, the ICX are very impressive, and consist of leaders from various backgrounds. While ICON is very ambitious, the returns from successfully building and deploying such a tech would be incredible.

If you’re interested in investing in it, do well to research it as it can be a hit or miss.

Top 21-30 Cryptocurrencies for 2018

21. OmiseGo (OMG)

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Created from the Ethereum platform, OmiseGo’s singular use case lies in its ability to help accelerate banking transactions and transform the banking sector, particularly in the Southeast Asia.

While following its tag off unbanking the unbanked, it is hopeful to disrupt the financial market by offering an alternative platform that’ll most users in these countries sidestep the regulatory and bureaucratic red tape they face on a daily basis while executing financial transactions.

With the exchange, users can easily send and receive money in a matter of seconds. This will open up the southeast Asian markets and accelerate the speed at which business is concluded in the market.

With an impressive team of 130 highly talented individuals working on the project, OmiseGo looks like a viable investment, particularly for those interested in the Asian markets.

To their credit, the company has found viable partnership in huge brands like Credit Saison and McDonald’s. OmiseGo is considered an incredibly impressive project by leaders in the cryptocurrency market, most notably the founders of Ethereum.

22. Lisk (LSK)

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Lisk is a platform that allows developers to write decentralized applications in the JavaScript programming language, which is very valuable. In a sense it will allow the implementation of JavaScript to the blockchain.

As a decentralized network similar to ethereum and bitcoin, this is a platform where people looking for a more effective and flexible blockchain to deploy their apps and projects on.

Admittedly, this concept sounds similar to what ethereum does, but Lisk’s advantage is in the fact that the platform provides blockchains that are partially developed, thus saving developers the time and stress required to create blockchains from the ground floor up.

To help you understand this, think of it in terms of editable website themes as against building the site from the scratch.

23. Bitcoin Gold (BTG)

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Another fork of bitcoin, this was designed to modify bitcoin’s consensus mechanism, thus making it easy for more people to mine the cryptocurrency.

The idea of bitcoin gold is to help ensure that people looking to mine bitcoin would do so without unduly utilizing huge parts of their computing machine’s CPU.

Most people don’t know what to do with bitcoin gold because of the uncertainty surrounding its use. This is probably why its value isnt at par or close to its “sister coin” Bitcoin Cash.

However, because it’s a hard fork of bitcoin, there’s considerable interest in it, enough to attract significant investments. You should actively research this before thinking about investing in it.

24. Nano (NANO)

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Previously known as Railblocks (XRB), Nano is solely dedicated to speedy transactions with very low fees. This is based on the platform’s ability and handle huge transaction volumes.

Unlike other cryptocurrencies that are focused on too many things, Nano is strictly focused on making your transactions on their network incredibly fast.

So, if you’re looking for a platform that solely dedicated to scalability and performance, and beats every other platform or network on those two capabilities, this would be the perfect one.

Nano’s technology is one that’s in huge demand across the cryptocurrency industry. This makes it an unusual platform to invest in. If the tech gets significant adoption, this just might be a worthwhile investment.

As amazing as this tech sounds, we’re not sure we’re so hot on it. If you’re looking to invest, do your research properly. For now though, we’ll be watching it for massive adoption. If it gets that, then we’ll be investing it.

25. Zcash (ZEC)

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Another hard fork of bitcoin, Zcash is similar to bitcoin in its function and use. The only edge it has over bitcoin is that all trabsactions are truly anonymous as it masks both the sender’s and receiver’s addresses as well as details of their transactions.

This is based on its zero cash technology concept. This is a purely privacy driven platform, so people looking to hide their transactions from the prying eyes from regulation and traditional financial system, will find it worth their use.

While it is still relatively new in the market, it has quickly become popular for doing what it does very effectively. To show how popular and effective their tech is, even ethereum is “borrowing” some of their tech to use on their platform. ZCash’s tech has even been adopted by JP Morgan Chase for one of its finance products.

26. Verge (XVG)

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Verge’s technology is based on the peer to peer fund transactions, where people can send funds to others through the platform for very low fees. The unique use case is that all transactions sent on the platform are meant to be private and untraceable.

It’s able to do this through a combination of two platforms –Invisible Internet Project and Tor- that are able to effectively mask all users’ IP addresses. As a result of its decentralized and privacy driven use case, lots of people did cheer for it, until recently.

Verge has had a rough run lately with all the FUD’s, scandals, unfavorable news items and wildly unstable price movements.

While Verge is a laudable project and bound to become hugely in demand if it reaches its potential, the reality is there’s too much uncertainty surrounding it right now.

However, if it can weather this series of “storms” –and it looks like it is beginning to rebound gradually- the coin can become one of the most coveted and popular cryptocurrencies in the world.

27. Ontology

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New in the industry and making a lot of waves recently, Ontology is a blockchain project that’s focused on solving public blockchain issues. Touted as a “high performance” public blockchain, this project is looking to fix the scalability issues that has plagued public blockchain projects.

It aims to do this through a distributed trust collaboration platform –geek speak for providing an avenue in which all public blockchain project developers can marshal their resources, and collaborate to solve the ever present scaling problems.

At the end of the day, the company is looking to support custom public blockchains for all users.

Just recently launched in March, 2018, it is interesting to note that it has jumped to the top 30 cryptocurrencies in the market. Whether it’ll stay there remains to be seen. For now though, we’ll wait to see how it plays out before even considering investing.

So, if you’re an investor, we’ll suggest you put this on your watch list and see how it performs over the next 4-12 weeks, before deciding on whether you should invest in it or not.

28. DigixDAO (DGD)

Another decentralization focused cryptocurrency, DidixDAO is short for Digix Decentralized Autonomous Organization. This token’s primary usage is to help further the success of the Digix Network.

They do this by funding projects that aid the growth and expansion of the network. Please note that this is not the same as the soon to be released DGX token created by the same organization.

The DGX is different in the sense that its value is measured against real gold, with 1 DGX equaling 1g of gold stored away. So, think of the DGX as an indirect way to invest in gold.

The DGD however is completely different from the DGX and stands out alone in its viability and market acceptance. Individual investors will find this a medium to long term investment if they’re interested in that.

29. Bytom (BTM)

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For many people, the process involved in the transfer of assets can be somewhat difficult and stressful. Enter Bytom, an investment asset transfer platform that makes the process fast, seamless and stress-free.

With Bytom, all traditional assets –called atomic assets- like bonds, securities, treasure bills and stocks can be transferred to the “byteworld”, using smart contracts. As a result, all of these details and data can be digitized and further secured –this is called asset securitization.

This is the process of transforming assets into tokens and storing them using blockchain technology, thus eliminating all the initial security risks associated with leaving your assets in their physical state.

While the concept sounds interesting, we’re concerned about its adoption and usage. When it comes to their assets, most people with assets as well as organizations managing these assets are often reluctant to embrace new technologies like this.

So, we are somewhat skeptical about its viability. However, the token goes for cheap right now, so you might want to get in early, hold until the value increases, and then sell.

30. Populous (PPT)

populous-cryptocurrency

Many of the available tokens are targeting the finance industry, including this one. Populous is blockchain based platform where invoices are bought and sold. Business owners can log on, purchase their invoices and have it sent to them instantly.

It’s also providing access to previously exclusive financial markets and investment vehicles that were unavailable to the common man. This invoice trading platform is open to investors from all over the world. For now though, this doesn’t sound like a solid concept.

That, combined with the fact that the project is nowhere near completion or execution, makes it a risky investment for us. You should put this on the watch list though seeing as there’s decent interest and investment in it already.

Top 31-40 Cryptocurrencies for 2018

31. Steem (STEEM)

steemit-token

Created for content creators, Steem is a decentralized blockchain powered platform that rewards content creators for content. Most social networks these days don’t do that well enough.

The only one that attempts to do it is Youtube, and even then, they only pay their content creators pittance, compared to how much they pocket. Steem was designed to encourage and reward premium quality content creators, so they can focus on doing just that.

Content that attracts significant social proof –likes, shares, upvotes and syndication- naturally get more rewards than those with less social proof. With Steem, you no longer need be satisfied with just social proof. You get financially rewarded for that.

You can check here for more information on how that works as well as compensation. This has great use case, a viable product, provides a real solution, has an active community backing it, as well as a solid team. You should invest in this token.

32. Waves (WAVES)

Waves-Blockchain

For many people, the single biggest challenge preventing them from getting into the blockchain scene is the required code necessary to build their token.

Waves has made this possible by creating a platform where anyone regardless of their programming skills can create their own token. With Waves therefore, you don’t need any coding skills.

Just get on the platform and create your own token within minutes. While, the organization behind Waves has started offering a wide array of services, their major selling point and their very useful use case is blockchain token creation for anyone within minutes.

This is vastly different from the token creation services that ethereum and other platforms are offering. Most of these require you to have some programming or coding skills. Waves doesn’t!

To make it even easier, you can create and launch your tokens on their platform, and then have your tokens listed on their decentralized exchange platform where it can be exchanged with other cryptocurrencies and regular currencies.

Waves has great potential and can generate decent returns on investment as a short, medium or long term asset.

33. Bytecoin (BCN)

bytecoin-cryptocurrency

Imagine a blockchain technology that prevents transaction analysis, leaves no trace of payments, and keeps all transactions separate so there’s no link to any of them. That’s what Bytecoin intends to do through its network.

The transactions done on the network are instant to anywhere in the world, costs no extra fees and completely untraceable. The token is clearly very big on privacy.

The organization is also very transparent, and makes its code available to any developer who wants to contribute to the growth of the network. As a result, it is a community driven network that runs on the efforts of developers around the globe. This gives it a truly decentralized nature, as no one person owns or runs the platform.

34. Stratis (STRAT)

stratis-coin

Another platform that’s similar in function to ethereum, Stratis is a blockchain development platform that’s dedicated to making blockchain easy for companies and organizations to use.

This is a sorely needed platform, seeing as blockchain development can be difficult. The organization hopes to make this possible by currently limiting its programming languages to just .net and C#.

This way, companies can just come in and create their own blockchain tech without needing to go through the pain of learning a new coding language. As a result of their ability to create customized blockchains, they can deploy their tech on the platforms very easily.

If this technology sounds familiar, that’s because it is. Lisk does something similar. You may need to compare and contrast before making a decision on the best platform to go with or invest in.

Whatever the case, it is clear that this technology fills a demand –most people don’t want to go through the stress of learning a new programming language to create their blockchain techs or tokens.

So, if you want to fill your coffers with a comparable butt cheaper priced version of Lisk, this might be the best option to go with. Just make sure to do your due diligence before investing. We think this might be a medium to long term investment instrument.

35. Maker (MKR)

MakerDAO-token

Anther ethereum based decentralized platform, Maker is something called a “stablecoin”. These are designed to eliminate and stabilize market volatility, thus ensuring that the currencies don’t fluctuate extremely like them have in the last few weeks.

It aspires to help bring more “sanity” into the cryptocurrency market by staying constant in the face of incessant and relentless market fluctuation. It is able to do this because it is backed by assets which are valued at 1 Dai to $1 USD.

Thanks to ethereum’s smart contracts, this has been holding steady for a while. And as long as ethereum is still valuable and held in high regards, the Maker token will be the same. This is a medium to long term investment vehicle.

36. Siacoin (SC) 

Cloud storage has become pretty ubiquitous. The problem with that though, is that these services are often centralized and managed by a few organizations. Siacoin intends to disrupt this industry by providing a decentralized, p2p cloud storage platform.

It utilizes the free space on people’s computers who are connected to the platform. So, with this, you won’t have to store your documents on the cloud or with specific companies.

Instead, bits of them will be stored on millions of computers across the globe, only coming together when you call for it. Those who give out the space will of course be compensated for renting out their extra space.

This way, the cost of running a cloud storage and its attendant prices will bottom out, resulting in very cheap cloud storage costs. This sounds like a very laudable idea, but the tech isn’t yet fully deployed.

If the company succeeds, they just might be competing with services like Mega, Dropbox and Amazon’s storage services. You should add this to your asset portfolio as it can be a short, medium or long term investment.

We think you can easily double, triple or even quadruple your investments over the next year, owing to its ridiculously cheap price.

37. Bitshares (BTS)

bitshares

Another decentralized exchange, Bitshares is the brainchild of Dan Larimer, one of the thought leaders in the cryptocurrency industry.

Bitshares was established at a time when cryptocurrency exchange platforms were closing down willy-nilly, taking people’s monies and investments with them in the process.

The sole purpose of creating the platform was so that there would be an exchange that wasn’t owned by one person or a group of entities. With a decentralized exchange, it would be difficult for one person to just close up shop and abscond with people’s monies.

Apart from that, it’s also a community, a ledger, a network, and a software among many other things. Bitshares was designed to help ensure that p2p transactions were trustless and independent.

As laudable as Bitshares sounds, they haven’t grown much in value over the last four years. We have have watched them for a while –since 2014 when it was established- and haven’t seen much in the way of growth, enough to warrant an investment.

Maybe it will grow to become bigger and provide decent returns, but we wouldn’t hold our breath –particularly now that there are quite a few decentralized exchanges in the marketplace.

38. RChain (RHOC)

An ambitious program, RChain intends to become something similar to Facebook when it comes to content delivery and process transactions on the scale that Visa does.

So, think fast huge volume payments, and massive content delivery… all of these made possible by a decentralized smart contracts blockchain platform.

To help with this, the organization currently has a virtual machine called the RhoVM (short for Rho Virtual Machine) that runs numerous parallel sets of blockchains, and smoothly handles huge volumes, adapting to scale as the need arises.

This way, the scalability issues that are plaguing popular platforms like ethereum become a non-issue. RChain has great potential, but you may need to further research them to see if they are a viable investment vehicle or not.

39. Bitcoin Diamond (BCD)

Another bitcoin fork, this essentially mimics the same modus operandi used by bitcoin cash and bitcoin gold. Looks like another means to supplement and shore up bitcoin value, but without any real value brought to the table or the market.

This might be another pump and dump coin, primarily designed to reward its founders. If you’ll be investing in this, think more along the lines of just daytrading.

No long term investments for this one as far as we’re concerned. This is not to say it will not moon one day, but we will be steering clear of it.

40. Status (SNT)

Ethereum is currently host to many decentralized applications. Many of these cannot currently interact with each other. Status aims to be a messaging platform that’s designed to interact with all these apps, thus serving as a “middle man” of sorts for all these apps.

It will be a gateway to all these apps in a manner similar to browsers and websites. The company is very serious about this as seen from their hugely successful ICO where they raised $100m USD and the subsequent appointment of Google’s erstwhile product manager.

Status has an excellent team behind it and has great potential. You might want to invest in this for the medium/long term. We think it would make a very good addition to your cryptoasset portfolio.

Top 41-50 Cryptocurrencies for 2018

41. Aeternity (AE)

aeternity-blockchain-token

Aeternity intends to provide access to data for a very low price, as well as enhance scalability and governance in the cryptocurrency sector.

All transactions made on the platform are untraceable because they are primarily taken off the blockchain and kept on something called state-channels.

These will be left there until there’s a need for data verification –usually in the case of a transaction dispute or inconsistency- and clearing up disagreements. This is possible through the use of ethereum’s smart contracts technology and its smart oracles.

With these in place, outrageous data costs and operating inefficiencies are drastically cut down, resulting in cheaper operational costs and fees.

42. Dogecoin (DOGE)

dogecoin

There was a lot of hype about this coin last year, resulting in huge pump and dumps that made a lot of money for some people and nothing for others. Dogecoin serves as a p2p electronic payment platform that allows people make micropayments for services or give small donations for content they find useful.

While it uses a mining tech similar to bitcoin, it’s vastly different in the unlimited number of coins in circulation. With DOGE, you can mine as much as you want until infinity, unlike bitcoin whose token circulation is capped.

While it has decent sized followership, we feel that most of them aren’t ardent enthusiasts or investors. They are more like hobbyists who just buy the token for fun, hence the reason it is called a “joke coin”. To this end therefore, we would suggest you steer clear of this one until they get on more solid footing.

43. Decred (DCR)

decred-cryptocurrency

Short for Decentralized Credit, Decred is run by a group of anonymous developers who are in the business of providing the often elusive blockchain governance.

This has become even more imperative seeing as the lack of cohesion among platforms and blockchain tech has resulted in splits and a more volatile industry.

They are big on decentralizing the decision making processes necessary for the execution of transactions. As a result, transactions are faster, more effective and unlimited by blockchain protocols.

This is possible through their hybrid proof of stake and proof of work mining. It is a very viable project and one with an interesting use case. So far, they are the only ones doing this in the market, which means they will be around for a long time.

You may want to add some Decred to your cryptoasset portfolio.

44. Ardor (ARDR)

ardor

Another cryptocurrency designed to fix scalability, bloat and adaptability problems in blockchains, Ardor is a blockchain service that’s touted as an upgrade of Jelurida’s NXT Software.

This is an open source platform that aims to improve blockchain tech and usability. The only thing is there’s precious little information about the token itself to warrant any major investment.

If you’re in the market for a cryptocurrency, you might want to keep looking until we know more and update this guide.

45. Zilliqa (ZIL)

zilliqa-cryptocurrency

If there’s one major issue that blockchain techs and platforms face, it’s that of scaling. This why many cryptocurrencies are looking to fix this issue.

Scalability often determines just how much growth a platform can experience and how well it will thrive. Without that, they are limited in their functions and use.

Zilliqa is another blockchain platform that’s dedicated to fixing scalability problems on public blockchains. It does this by scaling according to demand.

So, the platform “expands” according to transaction volumes because of the addition of more nodes. Thus, ensuring that transactions are still processed at a faster rate, even if the volume is high.

To show how serious they are, the company ran a test that included the processing of 1,200 transactions per second using just 2,400 nodes without any performance issues. Zilliqa’s use case is incredibly solid as is the availability of a viable platform.

This combined with the team of veteran cryptocurrency guys makes this a good investment for the short, medium and long term. And if you don’t want to invest, you can simply opt for mining the ZIL token, which energy resource friendly.

46. Komodo (KMD)

komodo

A hard fork of the ZCash cryptocurrency, Komodo is a privacy based token that’s designed to keep all transactions on the platform private. Transactions carried out on this platform are often untraceable because the platform hides all details about the payment including the receiver, sender and amount.

The platform also boasts of added security through its use of the dPoW protocol. This makes it a potentially excellent security based platform too for other blockchains that might be seeking that extra security layer.

The team behind this seem very dedicated to the cause. However, identifying them by their real names is almost impossible –you should expect that from a privacy based crypto. You only know them through their pseudonyms.

Yet, because privacy and decentralization is the key driving force behind the blockchain tech, the organization seems to be thriving, as seen from their very successful ICO –it was the world’s first decentralized ICO too.

Some of the major appeals of blockchain technologies or platforms are privacy, decentralization and security. Komodo seems to offer this in abundance, which makes it a potentially worthwhile medium/long term investment.

You could also make your money in the short term –say 4-12 months- when the market rebounds. But, if you’re looking for a possibly long lasting cryptoasset, Komodo might be what you need. Just endeavor to do your research properly before investing.

47. 0x (ZRX)

0x-Protocol-blockchain

Another ethereum hosted blockchain decentralized exchange, 0x aims to be a platform for those looking to produce their own decentralized exchange.

While the concept doesn’t sound foreign –there are currently a few tokens doing the same thing- 0x differentiates itself by its speed of transaction. This is possible through a process where transactions aren’t kept on the blockchain platform.

They are instead moved off it and verified later on. As a result, no gas is expended during transactions –as against the ethereum platform or other decentralized exchanges where gas has to be used to pay off network costs- which are further verified through the use of smart contracts.

48. Augur (REP)

augur

Another open source platform, Augur however, is a decentralized platform that focuses on markets predictions. It does this by combining two conventional tools and concepts like wisdom of the crowd and game theory.

Ideally, prediction markets are known for their far better accuracy than those of individuals no matter how knowledgeable. As a result, entities using these services can utilize those resources for accurate data collation, forecasting and utility.

The platform also offers the added benefit of trading and investing, so that people can invest in future outcomes and events. The organization has an impressive team, one of which is Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s founder.

They also have seasoned advisors who have vast knowledge of the financial markets as well as cryptocurrency industry experts. This looks like a good medium/long term cryptoasset to us.

49. Waltonchain (WTC)

waltonchain-coin

One of the more interesting cryptocurrencies, Waltonchain is a blockchain powered platform that’s designed to create a potent internet of things network. It does this using the aid of RFID and the aforementioned IoT network.

This platform is called the Value Internet of Things (VIoT), and is dedicated to lowering the tracking cost of connecting physical products to a digital database.

The use case therefore, lies in businesses being able to access consumer or product data for a fraction of what it currently costs. All transactions carried out on the decentralized will be stored and encrypted, thus preventing security vulnerabilities and related issues.

50. Substratum (SUB)

A decentralized peer to peer web hosting platform. This is what Substratum promises. It aims to do this by encouraging users to lease out extra spaces on their computers for a small cost.

As a result, taking away centralized hosting and putting it back in the hands of the people. Substratum has incredible viability and potential, and looks like a project with a very good use case.

As long as the computing nodes are hooked up to the platform, users can easily host their websites for cheap, ensure their data are secured and stay safe in the knowledge that their files and websites are never going to experience any downtime. Web traffic spikes have also been prepared for as the platform will be built to seamless handle scalability issues. Substratum, if successful, will be a game changer for the web hosting industry and a major disruptive tech. This is one to look out for and possibly invest in long term.

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Cryptocurrency Information

Bitcoin Volumes Finally Grow Again and Bitfinex/Tether Issues Spark Systemic Risks, New Diar Report Affirms

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Diar has recently published its report of the crypto market for April. According to the company, Bitcoin volumes are finally growing again and the whole situation with Tether and Bitfinex showed the industry some of its systemic risks. DAI fee hikes and stablecoin projects were also highlighted in the report.

Bitcoin Goes Back To Growing Again

The main highlight of the month is, obviously, that Bitcoin is back on the action. After facing lows which started in 2018, the token has finally been able to effectively reverse the trends and have an actual price surge this month, going from less than $4,200 USD to over $5,200 USD during this short timeframe.

With this, the number of on-chain transactions has spiked for three months in a row, since prices started to get some of their value back in March and April. Now, transaction volumes are around their levels in June 2018 when the price of the asset was around $7,000 USD.

However, charts indicate that Bitcoin is yet to find more footing outside of speculative trading, so the bull market may not be as near as some think.

When looking at the volume of the whole quarters, Q1 2019 had lower volumes than Q4 2018, but Q2 2019 started considerably well.

Bitfinex and Tether Start Concerns of Systemic Risks

As you may have heard, Bitfinex was accused of using Tether funds to cover up its losses. According to Diar, there is a 26% shortfall of in-cash reserves to back Tether tokens (USDT). Tether loaned $850 million USD to Bitfinex to cover up losses and its general counsel Stuart Hoegner has affirmed that the company is operating with fewer reserves than the total market cap of the token.

This happened because Bitfinex had the $850 million USD “seized” by Crypto Capital, one of its payment processors. Unless Hoegner is lying, though, the company had the assets to back the stablecoin until recently.

While it is clear now that Tether simply does not have the money to back the funds, people simply keep buying the tokens. Now, instead of all cash, some shares of Bitfinex are being used to represent the rest of the value, which makes the stablecoin enter securities territory for the first time.

Curiously, the markets are all very tolerant now since the prices are still stable but the systemic risks are clear, especially if other companies are to follow Tether’s path.

DAI Hikes Fees Once More

Another situation highlighted by the reports is that DAI has decided to upgrade its stability fees once again as the community is desperately trying to make the prices of the so-called stablecoin go up again. DAI tokens are being sold for less than $1 USD, their official price, on secondary markets.

At the moment, the fees are 16.5%, after increasing three times in only one month. Before April, the fees were only 7.5%. This has resulted in a decrease of 4.9% in the circulation of DAI tokens.

Stablecoins Eye Wider Use Cases

Gemini and Harbor, a A16Z tokenized securities platform, have started a partnership in order to get more clients for the Harbor stablecoin. However, this was deemed “too soon” by Diar, as Harbor does not have any known token right now. The only one the company had was canceled.

TrustToken is also trying to get more stablecoins on its list, especially the ones that are not focused on USD, but on several other fiat currencies like HKD, CAD or GBP instead.

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#DropGold Campaign to Hit Your TV, Here’s A Breakdown of the Underlying Bitcoin Message(s)

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Grayscale, a leader in digital currency investing, launched an ad on Wednesday, May 1, telling investors that money should be contributed to Bitcoin holdings as opposed to gold. In a number of interviews, CEO of Grayscale’s parent company (Digital Currency Group), Barry Silbert and Managing Director of Grayscale, Michael Sonnenshein, have since expressed the underlying message of the ad.

The #DropGold Ad

According to news outlet, U Today, the ad starts off with a man holding gold bars in his arm, which he decides to drop. While doing so, a woman also does the same. Throughout the ad, people supposedly have their gold bars stacked in shopping carts, while “losing their gold coins.” Watching what’s about to unfold, the two individuals try to find their way out.

Advertising Bitcoin or Grayscale’s Services?

Despite being the one to have introduced this campaign, Silbert argues that it isn’t entirely about Grayscale services, but rather said services being a result of consumers’ decision. Yahoo Finance has since quoted the following comment made by Silbert himself:

“We do not see this as a Grayscale commercial. For us #DropGold is our ‘Got Milk’. This campaign is first and foremost focused on starting a conversation about bitcoin vs gold. If the ad makes people want to get into Bitcoin, we’re completely indifferent about how they go about doing it.”

Having said this, the commercial is evidently portraying Grayscale as an option, as towards the end, one is told, “Go Digital. Go Grayscale.”

Silbert’s and Sonnenshein’s Arguments Regarding Gold’s Limitations

Silbert believes that this campaign works towards addressing the fact that Bitcoin can serve as an equal asset class as gold, if not better. In particular, he was quoted saying, “But now you have Bitcoin, which, in our opinion, provides all the same attributes as gold – it’s fungible and scarce and you can’t counterfeit it – but the big difference is that Bitcoin has utility. Gold doesn’t have much utility beyond jewelry.”

He further argued that the goal here isn’t to replace fiat currency for shopping purposes, but rather to show the world that Bitcoin does a better job at doing gold’s job and this will be evident in the long run. Although he has acknowledged Bitcoin’s volatility as being concerning, he is hopeful that it will one day serve as both an ideal utility token and store of value.

As for Sonnenshein’s viewpoint, he sees this ad as revealing the “absurdity” associated with gold. More specifically, he said:

“We’re going after a narrative around gold being where investors should go when markets turn south or as a hedge against inflation […] we’re highlighting the absurdity of gold.”

As per The Block Crypto, Grayscale also tries to convince investors that the return earned from redistributing 5% of gold to Bitcoin will be greater than 5% yearly.

What are your overall thoughts on this ad? Did it leave you asking yourself, “Why did you invest in gold? Are you living in the past?” Share your thoughts below!

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Huobi Pro Bitcoin Exchange: Cryptocurrency Asset Trading Platform?

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Huobi Pro Cryptocurrency Exchange

Founded in 2013, Huobi Pro allows for a myriad digital currencies to be exchanged, at a 0.2 percent trading commission. Loyal users point to the low fees and stellar service that make the exchange stand out above others.

Although pitched at dedicated cryptocurrency enthusiasts since the site doesn’t accept fiat currencies many who enter the realm on the back of fiat end up at Huobi Pro, largely due to its diverse offering and favorable fee structure.

Huobi Pro in A Nutshell

A victim of China’s clampdown on digital currencies, the company might be registered in the Seychelles, but was originally founded in Beijing. As testament to the broad appeal of the platform, after the Chinese regime effectively banned all things crypto at the beginning of 2018, trading volumes have only grown.

While at first very much a Chinese company looking at the home market, Huobi Pro has been forced to find a wider marketplace on the international scene. Indeed, even prior to the official cessation of altcoins and their trading, the company heard the rumblings in 2017 and took its cryptocurrency interests abroad.

Huobi now provides exchange services to users in over 130 countries. Company offices are located in the USA, Korea, Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong. Although the Huobi Group also owns and manages the Huobi Autonomous Digital Asset Exchange (HADAX), Huobi Pro is more of a pure “login and trade” exchange.

Users can employ network tokens to cast votes on adding new altcoins on HADAX. On the Huobi Pro exchange, a simplified offer encompassing all of the mainstream altcoins greets visitors. Some more popular coins offered are Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), NEM (XEM), NEO (NEO), Qtum (QTUM) and Ripple (XRP).

That said, when one actually tallies the number of altcoins available for exchange, it becomes apparent why loyal followers value the site. A marriage of both simple ease of use and diversity in trading, the platform is largely welcomed by newcomers and experienced enthusiasts alike. In the current melee of regulation being contemplated, implemented and tweaked all the while, some users may be precluded from trading on the exchange based on their country of residence.

Huobi Pro accepts the funding of accounts only in digital currencies, and accepts deposits in any of its listed altcoins. Unlike other exchanges that have opted for a midway between crypto and fiat, Huobi Pro traders deal strictly in digital coins at every point of a transaction. Funds need to be withdrawn to a wallet, and fiat users looking to buy in will have to establish a wallet first in order to fund their Huobi Pro trading account.

Traders pay a maker or taker fee of just 0.02 percent using the exchange. There are more detailed offers, worth looking at for daily traders with volume.

Huobi Pro Membership Levels

VIP users get preferential platform trading fees if they buy the privilege with Huobi tokens. The Huobi Token (HT) was never an ICO token, but rather a system token that users only obtain by buying “Point Cards” on the Huobi Pro platform. Point Card is essentially a pre-paid Huobi card that keeps users liquid on service fees. One HT = 1 USD, therefore one “point” = 1 USD. The more points purchased, the more free points are added, although savings on 1000 points, for example, means only 10 HT for free.

Huobi Global minted a fixed total of 500 million tokens, with 300 million employed to facilitate the in-house VIP structure. A mark of the business group behind the platform is seen in their practice of buying back-sold tokens from the open market each quarter. Not only that, but those funds go towards the Huobi Investor Protection Fund (HIPF).

This is a planned fund that will compensate investors who suffer platform disruption and subsequent losses. It’s a tool that minimizes risk, smooths out the market overall and also goes towards protecting investor interests. This transparent and pleasing aspect of the platform is one reason traders have confidence in the exchange, and its popularity is rising worldwide.

By way of example, in order to glean a VIP status, a trader will pay 120 HT a month for First Level membership. This enables a 20 percent discount on trading fees. Running through toward the top end, a pricier option of 6,000 HT a month secures a 50 percent discount on fees. Overall, a diligent trader can optimize the system and come out with a substantial discount on the already low 0.02 percent base offer.

The company charges no fees to deposit funds, but there are withdrawal fees. Although there are reviews online listing withdrawal fees, it appears that, especially within the membership structure, users are advised to ascertain exact fees when establishing their account. Likewise, transfer limits need to established upfront to avoid disappointment later. There exist order size limits on the platform too, again becoming more malleable as one moves up the ranks of the VIPs.

Security And UX On Huobi Pro

All of the standard protocols including two-step Google Authenticator verification are at play on the platform. Unlike many other exchanges that offer a simple crypto-exclusive platform, Huobi Pro will need your personal details in the form of a passport copy and chat room comments are not devoid of complaints, although almost all of them take issue with the structure of the platform and its potential pitfalls. There are few allegations of lost funds or other negligence on behalf of the company. On the whole, Huobi Pro seems to be rubbing off its decidedly corporate ethos onto the exchange – good news for traders overall.

Another serious boon for the cryptosphere as a whole is that over 98 percent of holdings are stored in an offline cold wallet or vault. Imbued with a strict customer service ethic, the platform probably sports the best customer service to date for crypto exchanges. Available 24/7 365, there is a live chat option onsite.

The platform intel is sufficient although newbies might have to scratch to paint a clear picture of how exactly everything works. The FAQs are thoughtful and, again, testament to a polished offering. Huobi used to be one of the biggest Chinese crypto exchanges, based in Beijing. Started by entrepreneur Leon Li in 2013, since the move there has been mutual appreciation of its value. Worldwide users have taken to the exchange, as it too realized that it had global appeal.

Huobi Pro Conclusion

Huobi claims to have exceeded BTC 500,000 in daily trading approaching 2014. Although only in its fifth year, that’s a long time in cryptocurrency. Although frequently accused of embellishing trading volumes, these allegations have never been proven. In comparison to other digital exchanges that have suffered persistent user complaints and even been shut down due to criminal activity, Huobi Pro shines.

As an offering, it has low fees, great diversity and an unbeatable crypto-energy. No trader on the platform feels like they’re missing out on something else somewhere else, by most accounts. Possibly due to their prior involvement in the fintech world, the platform got it right first time around and user numbers prove it. The company Huobi also owns another trading platform, BitYes, more focused on USD/BTC and USD/LTC pairs trading. Great customer service and minimal technical glitches have made it appear positively top-tier, again in comparison to less polished outfits.

With a detailed offering, great client liaison – very unusual for most digital exchanges so far – and no legitimate proof of anything even vaguely dark hanging about them, the Huobi Pro project is recommended. Users are advised to always ascertain costs prior to trading – not hard with the customer support in this case – and sample a platform with small trades before trading greater amounts. To learn more, you can head to their official website: huobi.pro

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