2018 - Year of the Altcoin

2017 - The Bitcoin Ride

In 2017, Bitcoin saw some massive gains that I don't think anyone expected. Month after month, experts predicted Bitcoin's value, but it far surpassed what everyone was saying. January 1, 2017 we saw Bitcoin reach the $1,000 mark something it hadn't seen since late 2013 right before it came crashing down. Many economists are calling it a bubble while enthusiasts such as Andreas Antounoupolos are continuing to contend that it has much more to gain in the coming years. What we do know, is that there are some major issues with Bitcoin (BTC) as it currently stands:

1. Speed - If you skimp on the transaction fee, it could take a really long time to confirm your transaction.
2. Fees - When you're paying an exorbitant amount of money just to use the currency, it makes it much less useful in everyday transactions. Unless you're buying a car every day, it's hard to justify paying such high fees.
3. Consensus - If Satoshi Nakamoto would just identify himself, we could all just ask him where he believes Bitcoin should go next. Then, at least we'll have a good group of people that can follow his implementation. Instead, we've now got Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash see Roger Ver and a bunch of people who are trying to interpret where it should go.
4. Centralization - Many people argue that one of Bitcoin's goals was to get away from a centralized bank controlling all the finances. With Bitcoin's increasing mining difficulty, there are a small amount of mining pools that control the majority of the hashrate on the network see https://blockchain.info/pools.

With that said, there is a lot of excitement on the future of Bitcoin, especially with the development of the lightning network see whitepaper. While I believe, Bitcoin has a use as a store-of-value, like gold, I don't believe 2018 will see as large of a rise as 2016 and 2017. However, with the above mentioned issues, I believe 2018 will be the year of the altcoin.

10 Altcoins of 2018

There's a lot of talk about altcoins because people want to find the next Bitcoin before market cap is too high. However, with the infancy of these coins, a lot of this is pure speculation and guesswork. Remember, it took a while for people to see the value of Bitcoin. Here are the coins I'm watching closely in 2018:

1. Cardano - This coin has had an amazing run in the past month or so. They've got a great roadmap, but that's just it, it's a roadmap. This roadmap has gotten them to #5 on CoinMarketCap. Without the implementation, it's very hard for me to trust that valuation. Once we see the release of Shelley and it delivers on all its promises, then we can start trusting this, but until then, it's mostly speculation.
   Verdict - wait and see
2. TRON - According to their Twitter account, they will be announcing a huge partnership on January 10th. People are buying TRON ahead of the announcement hoping for the best. However, I'm not convinced of the use of TRON as it stands. Do I really need a decentralized peer-to-peer protocol for my content or would I rather have it on Google's HUGE infrastructure without having to pay a penny? If anything, I would buy and probably sell soon after the announcement for a quick gain, but I just don't see the long term value in having this protocol or a currency associated with the protocol.
   Verdict - not buying
3. HempCoin - In the US, marijuana is outlawed. So it has been very well-documented of their struggles with cash and banks in the US. Although, I'm not a fan of recreational use of marijuana, I definitely see how appealing this coin is for farmers and distributors in the states where it is legal to buy and sell. Their website suggests that the coin is for the whole agricultural/farming (gimme a break) community, but what irks me is that they don't have a valid HTTPS certificate. I mean, it's 2018 and you have companies like LetsEncrypt where you can get a free valid certificate. It's had an amazing run, which I believe is founded, but I see the government legalizing marijuana soon anyway. Once it is legalized, do people really want another currency just for the agricultural community?
   Verdict - not buying
4. Decred - This is one I believe has long term potential to be a really great currency. The speed and privacy with which it operates far surpasses Bitcoin and they are working to create more mining pools so centralization doesn't become a huge problem. Users who hold stake in Decred are able to vote similar to stakeholders in a publicly traded company. I believe Decred is building a great product instead of spending a lot of time on marketing and learning from the faults of other cryptocurrencies. For this reason, I believe this to be a longterm buy and hold. It has seen steady growth since its inception which is a good sign for me.
   Verdict - buying
5. Ripple - Over the past 2 months, XRP has seen a tremendous growth becoming the second overall leader in terms of total market cap in cryptocurrency. The question now is have we hit the peak? Where does it go from here? I believe banks will start to invest in some form of cryptocurrency and Ripple is at the top of that list. Having investors such as Andreessen-Horowitz backing the project is a solid plus for this technology. My bold prediction for 2018 is that we will see Ripple pass Bitcoin in total market cap.
   Verdict - buying
6. Quantstamp - Nobody wants to be audited, but we all know that's what keeps people honest. With cryptocurrencies, I don't think we need to go over why its needed, but rather how we do it. Why does HTTPS work so well? Because we have companies like Verisign or Symantec that we trust to verify the identity of servers. At some point, we need to trust somebody, and that's who Quantstamp wants to be. It's still in very early stages of development, but I believe that this could be the moonshot of 2018, if they hit all their milestones. It is an ERC20 token, so we know the pros and cons of that, but this has some great potential.
   Verdict - closing my eyes and buying
   
7. Litecoin - If you don't follow Charlie Lee on Twitter, you really should. He'll tell you everything you need to know about Litecoin. I think it'll see some massive pull back early in the year and recovery about halfway through. Lee stated recently that he believed Litecoin was overpriced and it was amazing to see the repercussions of one man's tweet.
   Verdict - wait and see
8. IOTA - IOTA's made some huge claims that if sustainable would completely revolutionize cryptocurrency as we know it. No transaction fees, extremely fast transactions, and quantum-resistent are some of the claims made by IOTA. However, there are some major security questions and a lack of arduous review of the technology. The Tangle is something that could change everything but is largely unproven. It is also only available on a handful of exchanges. 2018 represents a sink or swim year for this technology. Could this be what we've all wanted from a cryptocurrency? Only time will tell.
   Verdict - not buying
9. RaiBlocks - RaiBlocks is often compared to IOTA because it solves similar painpoints in something like Bitcoin. We need faster transactions with less fees. RaiBlocks introduces the Block-Lattice architecture. Since its ICO, it has had a continual climb in market cap. With the speculation alone, I believe 2018 will be a great year for RaiBlocks, but beyond that is anyone's guess.
   Verdict - buy...but be ready to sell
10. Reddcoin - Reddcoin (with two D's) has been around since 2014, but hasn't seen much growth until 2017 saw some massive pumps in May and December. It promises to revolutionize sending payments through existing social media platforms. Proof-of-Stake-Velocity combines some great ideas to solve the issues with Proof-of-Work/Proof-of-Stake algorithms. Twitch, Twitter, and Reddit already have Tipbots using Reddcoin. However, the lack of communication with the community leaves people wondering if this thing will really take off. The reddheads website still has coinfest 2017 from April 7-8 as its latest news. Should I be worried?
    Verdict - buy...but be ready to sell

Thanks for reading! What altcoins do you have for 2018? What do you think Bitcoin will look like a year from now? Comment below!