- Ether, MIOTA, VeChain could prove to be attractive buys in 2019
- The current market slump makes it an attractive time to buy and accumulate alts
- Crypto market could see major green sticks in 2019 due to increased institutional interest
2019 promises to be a watershed year for cryptocurrencies. After a tumultuous 2018, the digital currencies market looks a lot more consolidated and consistent today. Sure, the price of virtually all cryptocurrencies is not where the HODLers would have wanted it to be, but that could soon change as an increasing number of institutions foray into the nascent industry.
The launch of Bakkt, Fidelity Digital Assets and ErisX are few of the jolts that could rejuvenate the markets. Further, friendly regulations in countries like Japan, Korea, and others could also factor in for the rise. Even some of the US states like Ohio and Wyoming have shown a pro-crypto stance in recent times.
With that said, it’s important to plan ahead what bags of alts to hold when the candles go green. In that regard, BlockchainReporter has compiled a list of top five altcoins people could consider giving a thought to.
- Ethereum (ETH)
Naysayers of the project will claim that Ethereum has “lost its sheen” in recent times due to the surge of alternative smart contracts platforms like EOS, and TRON. However, it remains a fact that Ethereum has the largest and the most robust of all development communities.
Sidechain projects like the Raiden Network have already been launched on the Ethereum Mainnet. The smart contracts platform also surpassed 50 million unique accounts in December 2018, although the number of active accounts has taken a beating.
The continual delay of their Constantinople hard fork has left speculations brewing in the cryptospace regarding the legitimacy and determination of the community backing the Ethereum platform. However, tides could soon change in their favor soon enough. Today, ETH is undoubtedly a bargain at $124.
- XRP
The XRP community has got the infamous tag for pestering the rookies in the community to invest in the cryptocurrency. While the mindless XRP bots on Twitter might be a little too infuriating for some, there’s no denying that Ripple has been able to create quite some waves in recent times.
The San-Francisco-based blockchain startup entered into an array of partnerships throughout 2018. These include entry into the $69 billion Indian remittance market, the partnership with Japan’s MUFG Bank to develop DLT-based solutions for cross-border payments, and others. The company also claimed to have sold close to $263 million worth of XRP in Q3 2018. At the time of writing, XRP trades at $0.33.
- VeChain (VET)
The supply chain management centric firm VeChain took a few giant strides in 2018. Their VET altcoin is notorious for not budging much even after the number of spectacular partnerships the project has inked in recent times.
2018 saw massive adoption of VET from corporations the world over. In November 2018, rumors emerged about a possible partnership between VeChain and garments brand H&M. Although no official word came out of it, speculations are still ripe within the industry that the VeChain’s blockchain-based product is being tested by the apparel MNC.
In December 2018, BlockchainReporter informed its audience about the partnership between VeChain and Japan’s Fuji MARUMO to track the latter’s tea products. For the trial batch, a total of 100 products were embedded with VeChain’s NFC chips. Aside from serving as memorable limited edition offering, the trial will also serve as Proof of Concept for a bigger partnership upon completion of the project.
The project also inked a partnership with Japan’s largest telecommunications company NTT Docomo. It is speculated that NTT Docomo has major plans to integrate VeChain into its 5G Network which is slated to launch next year.
VeChain saw its mainnet surpass one million transactions in November, and was also awarded the “Innovative Blockchain Project of the Year” Award at World Blockchain Forum: Shenzen.
It’s fair to assume that soon or later all the feats achieved by the project would translate into an upward price action in their native VET token, and 2019 could very well be the year. At press time, VET trades at $0.004.
- Stellar Lumens (XLM)
Often compared to XRP, the XLM token differs in that it appeals to individual users rather than institutional investors. The altcoin’s basic function is in the cross-border remittance industry.
The Stellar Lumens project has been on an upward stride throughout the majority of 2018. The firm is looking to disrupt the multi-billion remittance industry and seeks to actively rival some well-established payment gateways like Paypal. What sets XLM apart from the traditional payment gateways is its near-zero commission fee, vis-à-vis Paypal’s five percent rate. In fact, the Stellar Blockchain can process as many as 60,000 transactions in a second for a minuscule fee of $0.01.
Unlike Bitcoin, Stellar does not use the PoW protocol. This means that it doesn’t have to deal with the energy consumption issue plaguing the premier cryptocurrency. Instead, Stellar uses, what it calls, the Stellar Consensus Protocol.
The firm has entered into an array of high-profile partnerships with companies like IBM and Keybase.
On a more recent note, on January 19, 2019, Greyscale Investments announced that they have officially added the XLM token in their digital asset portfolio to be made available to institutional investors.
- IOTA (MIOTA)
The IOTA Foundation has been burning the midnight oil and forging ahead in the race to real-world adoption of their Internet of Things-based solutions. IOTA doesn’t specifically work with the typical blockchain. Instead, the firm makes use of their Tangle technology.
Although the MIOTA token currently ranks 12th on the CoinMarketCap crypto table, it won’t be surprising to see it climb up the table by a number of ranks.
There exists an immense appetite for the MIOTA token among institutional investors. A major testimony to this claim is how Crypto Storage AG partnered with IOTA on January 9, 2019, to provide the first institutional-grade MIOTA token storage offering.
Further, interest from large corporations also seems to grow in IOTA. BlockchainReporter informed its audience on December 14, 2018, how the Audi x IOTA collaboration has successfully pushed a new use case into reality. While not much is not about this “use case” yet, people can expect an official announcement regarding the same in near future.
IOTA’s approach is what sets it apart from the majority of the blockchain projects on the block. Their Tangle aims to solve real-world problems which might not necessarily be covered under the utility of blockchain technology, thus providing huge upside potential to the project.
At press time, MIOTA trades at $0.30.
