Top 7 Cryptocurrency to Look Out For In 2018

The first quarter of 2018 was a bitter one for the whole crypto market with heavy hitters like Bitcoin and Ethereum dropping in value consistently.  The market also faced a series of exchange hacks, scandals, scams, and rumors of government controls. Despite all these challenges, analysts indicate that 2018 may be the most historic year in the adoption of cryptocurrencies.

The crypto space is developing at a fast pace. Acceptance by large companies, improvement in protocols, and promotion of crypto use by various governments. These are some of the main reasons we could see the rise in the value of the cryptocurrency coins. But despite all these rules and regulations, one clear fact about cryptocurrencies is that there a lot of them available, so investors have an easier time to choose a coin for every preference. However, newbies may need to do some research to decide which currency to mine or invest in.

With a variety of cryptocurrencies available in the market, there are those that you should keep an eye on as they are looking to do big things in 2018. Here are the best seven that feature in this list.

Monera

Just like Bitcoin, Monera’s developers remain anonymous. The anonymity feature of this altcoin is beneficial for investors. Because every transaction is recorded and verified on a public ledger, but they are untraceable. When you use Monero, the inventors have designed it in a unique way such that there’s no way anyone can connect the dots on the activities that occur between the sender, receiver, or amount of transaction.

Its adoption will need some of the large business entities that use crypto technologies to invest in it and use it as their means of exchanging value around. Currently, Monera has approximately 15.5 million coins in circulation. Unlike bitcoin, Monera has no fixed coin supply. It is expected to increase in value this year, especially if the press starts to conduct tax crackdowns, check on regulation. Other key aspects –total anonymity will be of great use in surviving from these bottlenecks.

Cardano

Created by Charles Hoskinson, a former member of Ethereum Team, Cardino is a fully open source and decentralized cryptocurrency. In fact, it’s the first blockchain project built on peer-reviewed academic research. It’s a strong competitor for Ethereum. Backed by experienced engineers and IT experts, the force behind Cardano is nothing short of science scholars. They aim to provide the world with a scientific method of breaking down the concept of cryptocurrency. Cardino ensures there is a full application of stake approach to arrive at a consensus. This is another win for investors across the world.

Cardino also aims to create a form of decentralized apps. It can be processed by formal verification to allow the proof the accuracy of the code using mathematical formulas.

Cardano’s ADA token is something to watch out this year. In the past few months, its value has increased steadily, the latest being in late Nov 2017 when the team officially released an updated roadmap. The coin shot to the ninth spot in the market cap rankings. In the first quarter of 2018, the coin is still in the top ten meaning that investors are starting to recognize the value of the project.

Ripple

Ripple is another impressive coin that is loved by some and hated by others. Created by programmer Jed McCaleb, businessman Chris Larsen, and web developer Ryan Fugger, Ripple is a fully licensed centralized private blockchain cryptocurrency to over 100 banks. Ripple along with Bitcoin Cash is one of the most unique cryptocurrencies surrounded by a controversial ecosystem. Ripple provides a means for different businesses to transfer money quickly for a relatively low price. It might be considered a competitor to the interbank and payment system SWIFT.

Ripple is expected to have a good year in 2018, but this depends on a few things including its acceptance in large businesses as a form of exchange. Being one of the cheap coins, it looks attractive, but that shouldn’t dictate whether or not you put your money in it.

Iota (MIOTA)

Created by a team of mathematicians, developers, and entrepreneurs, IOTA is one of those alternative coins that seek to break paradigms. It followed the likes of Bitcoin, Etherium, and Ripple and increased in value over the past couple of months. Now, the thrill has stagnated and IOTA creators are back to grind on to deliver the end platform. That is ideal for Business to Business model of business.

Iota’s big win is that it doesn’t have trading fees or blocks. For each transaction made, the processing power validates two other transactions, thus making every Iota owner and Iota miner too. Its development is based on a distributed ledger structure known as Tangle Protocol, an innovation that is made to achieve key milestones in the crypto market such as offline transactions, zero-cost transactions, as well as unlimited scalability.

IOTA focuses on becoming the medium for secure transactions in the Internet of Things economy. Everything is uniquely identifiable with an embedded computing system that operates on the existing internet structure. The latest is that it has partnered with Microsoft which might be a big boost that will propel it to the top tier of the most promising cryptos to watch out in 2018.

NEO

Formerly known as Antshares, NEO is described as “The Chinese Ethereum,” with a high technology infrastructure that benefits from the cultural roots of the Chinese as a “home made” altcoin.

It is expected that Neo will explode if China eases its restriction on ICOs and Bitcoin. China is one of the biggest players in the crypto market. Its economic structure is filled with restrictions and often prevents emerging and innovative cryptocurrency. In such an environment, it is surprising that NEO has managed to scale through the handles and still succeeded in generating a significant profit for itself and its traders. It offers multiple programming languages including Java, C#, and Go. It’s such a versatile platform that investors are quickly realizing its value.

Noam Lenderson, a blockchain investor, indicated that the objective of NEO is to be the ultimate platform for smart economy.

NANO

Nano, formerly Raiblocks, is an altcoin that has gained ground as a trusted cryptocurrency famous for its efficient architecture. It has increased in its value thanks to the innovative approach it utilizes to process payments and transactions. Rather than settling on one blockchain for all the coins, Nanotechnology allows for a block-lattice structure. It’s also infinitely scalable such that many people can use it at a go.

As the crypto market continues to improve, developers are working hard to developers unique systems to offer scalability and network efficiency. Although most of these ideas go through intensive pitching and years of work, Nano doesn’t have these issues. The zero-cost transaction fees are enough to convince investors to make the move.

Nano’s rebrand may come as a surprise, but the change is worth as the name is friendly and easy to remember. That’s what the Nano team wants. As most crypto coins have to deal with the high-energy consumption issue. But Nano strives to present a light and friendly alternative with great benefits for the customer. The roadmap also features impressive expansion updates that will boost the adoption of this altcoin fast enough.

Stratis

Stratis is another promising crypto coin built as a blockchain-as-a-service platform. It can be done in C# programming language with tools to create customized blockchains. Its main goals are to deliver simple and low-cost solutions for financial, medical, and technological entities that need to deploy apps for their business.

After their latest announcement on a new partnership with Gluon, an automotive platform, and the entrant of Mahesh Chand, Microsoft’s Regional Director, Stratis is set to scale new heights as it strives to address some dissatisfaction within its community. The current roadmap contains some key progress. Including smart contracts, a full node Mainnet beta release, sidechains, and a developed ICO platform. All these to try to improve user experience on their platform. That can entice additional organizations to adopt Stratis as their main decentralized platform. More customers mean more token exchanges which will increase of Stratis.

Conclusion

Blockchain technologies have much to offer regarding reduced transactions cost and a way to conduct business easily. But they are not an overnight success. These cryptocurrencies are not flawless and just like the situation now, the market is so volatile that it’s hard to predict what might happen to these crypto coins tomorrow. Most of the time, it’s just investing time and money to see what works. But with the basic information available on the probable direction some of these crypto coins are headed. It is a great tip to keep you updated on how they might fair. However, no prediction is accurate and there is a variety of different ICOs in the market that you could decide to pick any and hope it hits the jackpot.

So, keep watch of these big movers that are expected to make a huge impact in the cryptocurrency market in 2018?