Hi everyone,

Following up from my original post: https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@banglasteve/bitcoin-cryptocurrency-and-markets-a-summary-of-2020-and-what-to-expect-for-2021

We all remember these beloved 'alt coins 'from 2017, some saw life changing gains from $0.10 to $1 in a week and others that held through the dark years of 2018 saw returns of investment of -99% or exit scams for your precious Ethereum. Please note everything mentioned is not financial advice but simply my thoughts. I can not tell you when the right time to buy is and its almost "back to the future" where the current rise of Bitcoin recently many "saw coming".

I will cover the following:

Alts leader (Ethereum)

My top 5 coins to watch

Where to buy alt coins?

Ethereum (Market leader)

The markets have heated up with the king 'Bitcoin' surging over almost 150% this year. Usually the leader to follow is Ethereum and once Ethereum lifts it is known as the lead indicator for 'alts'. Just recently we have seen Ethereum also rise in value and the other coins follow. These are typical indicators of 'alt season'. Bitcoin can help preserve wealth but altcoins are what can make some truly 'rich'.

Generally, I err towards the side of the majors (top 10 etc.) and these are the coins I am most interested in currently and looking at:

1.DOT (POLKADOT)

This has been created by one of the founders of Ethereum and has many projects building on it already like Kusama and Ocean. The interoperability and scalability solutions it presents makes it a good contender to Ethereum. Also the project has a lot of hype and community backing which is necessary to get price action once we get either adoption or mass hysteria and the chase of the next "100% gain".

2.FTT (FTX TOKEN)

For anyone that knows Vitalik Buterin (Creator of Ethereum), Sam Bankman-Fried is like his long lost brother. Watch him speak in interviews and the growth of the exchange and you will be sold. This is a man with a clear vision and the volume is slowly creeping into the FTX Exchange over time and it is quickly catching up to one of the top derivative platforms Bitmex. To me this is the Binance of the next bull run which is now the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange.

3. ONT (ONTOLOGY)

The brother or cousin of $NEO which is also one of my favourite projects from 2017 days. With similar token metrics of GAS distribution but with $ONG dropped daily to holders you can see how much ONG you can generate by holding ONT. https://ontcalc.com/
Think of this as a daily dividend given the more you hold. The beauty of it is that when the price increases for both ONT and ONG you make capital on capital on capital.
But on a serious note in terms of development and projects Ontology has not lost pace in Crypto Winter with its ONT ID project being explored by Mercedes (https://www.ledgerinsights.com/daimler-reveals-several-blockchain-identity-projects/)

4. HTR (HATHOR)

Imagine a project where you could create your own custom token for its own use cases?
Hathor is a digital platform for financial transactions and contracts with a unique combination of high scalability and high decentralization. The project is backed by 7 years + of research meaning it was not born overnight. Similar to IOTA it has 0 fees and uses DAG technology. HTR leverages on some of the best concepts of other cryptocurrencies such as atomic swaps. The tier 1 listing next year should send this flying higher. But at this moment this is one of the riskiest projects in terms of investment as to make this project rock solid it requires adoption and alliances with big corporations/tech.

5. ETH (ETHEREUM)

The queen to Bitcoin. It is impossible to leave out and just recently the price action has been phenomenal. With the launch of ETH 2.0 soon and the change of the models from "Proof of Work" to "Proof of Stake" essentially moving away from mining and more of a holding approach which rewards those that lock their coins to the network (the minimum amount is 32 ETH). Check out that parabolic price action recently clipping $600 USD (Approx. $850 AUD).

?CHAINLINK?

The Chainlink ($LINK) army might send new recruits out to get me since I have left it off the list and YES I do think it will go higher but I am trying to scale my strategy to specific coins unlike buying 50 different coins in the past and it becomes too hard to find the wallets and locate them and transfer the coins. For those interested in Chainlink there is a bright future ahead and it is the number 1 Oracle coin. My current low cap oracle favourite is $DIA - DIA (Decentralised Information Asset).

My closing comments are in the words of JFK "A rising tide lifts all boats" so in general if 2021 is "alt szn" boys and girls expect the entire market to lift and "Bitcoin" and "crypto" to dominate every watercooler conversation and computer screen like 2017.

My prediction is as Ethereum rises and cools it will filter into the 'alts' which will then also cool and then filter back into BTC which will start a meteoric rise and repeat the process by transferring across to Ethereum and repeat as we crack the $1 trillion cryptocurrency market cap. Beware of the 10-30% corrections to shake you out.

As always start small and learn big.

Cryptoshaf

WHERE TO BUY?

Exchanges to buy alternate coins (some discounts):

Binance - https://www.binance.com/en/register?ref=10231577

Coinspot - https://www.coinspot.com.au?affiliate=UCZKE

Kucoin - https://www.kucoin.com/ucenter/signup?rcode=rM9YT23