My Top 10 Crytpocurrencies

There's no dispute that Bitcoin spearheaded the cryptocurrency craze, but in recent months many many more have surfaced as legitimate alternatives.  For those still learning the in's and out's of the crypto market, please keep in mind that not all crypto currencies are competing against each other. Each coin offers a different set of benefits and setbacks, each with varying industry applications.  That being said, as I continue to review the industry and the various coin offerings, there are three primary elements I tend to review:

1. The technology - How sound is the technology, the transaction processing, mining process etc.
2. Industry application - What is the primary use for the coin/platform within a real world context.  What industry are they focused on, and what is the future potential of their solution? 
3. Development Team - Who created the coin, what is their background, and who else is involved with the development (partners, developers, investors, etc).

With that as the basis for my ratings system, I've started to embark on reviewing various cryptos in order to identify my list of top 10 favorites. There are so many cryptocurrencies on the market that it's impossible to review them all, but based on the dozens I've reviewed, here's a look at my favorites:

Foundational Coins

Foundational coins are ones that I believe to be setting the standards within the cryptocurrency industry.  These coins are dedicated the the overall growth of the blockchain technology and it's global implementation.  It's no surprise to see who I've listed here, as they are already recognized as the two largest players in this space.

Ethereum - I'm a huge fan of what Ethereum has done with their platform, and I consider it to be a building block for the future of the crypto market.  They've created a solution that can be used by a diverse number of industries, within the crypto space and real world applications.  This is primarily with their 'smart contracts' allowing for all kinds of transactions to utilize their back-end blockchain solution.  I strongly believe in the direction they are headed, as well as the leadership team.  The founder is a smart guy, and the supporting cast is second to none.  Get a glimpse of those invested in the development of Ethereum by checking out the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance.

Bitcoin - Bitcoin needs no introduction, as it's been leading the way in terms of media attention; to the point where many mistakenly believe that Bitcoin IS cryptocurrency.  I like Bitcoin from several perspectives, including core technology as well as the various 'hard forks' which allow for variations in the platform making it more applicable to specific industries.  The technology is sound, and the upcoming implementation of the Lightening network will be a big advancement.  I also like the fact that Bitcoin has a limited supply available, which will help the price continue to appreciate.  Although the found of Bitcoin is unknown, the team working on it's future development includes many of the brightest minds in the world.

International Bank/Transactions

The banking and high volume financial industries offer a huge market potential for cryptocurrencies that can stand up to the challenge of processing huge numbers of transactions.  As all crypto's continue to battle the challenge of scale-ability, there are two specific coins who have focused their efforts on the financial markets...

Ripple - A website I use frequently, Cryptocompare, explains ripple as follows: "Ripple positions itself as a complement to, rather than a competitor with, Bitcoin. Ripple is a distributed network which means transactions occur immediately across the network - and as it is peer to peer - the network is resilient to systemic risk. Ripples aren't mined - unlike bitcoin and its peers - but each transaction destroys a small amount of XRP which adds a deflationary measure into the system. There are 100 billion XRP at present."

Although some crypto enthusiasts don't consider Ripple to be a true cryptocurrency, I think there is definitely some potential and industry application.  The founders of Ripple, have strong backgrounds and track records, although one has since left (Jed McCaleb) has left to start Stellar.  Ripple has created a ton of great industry partners, many of which are currently engaged in test projects to prove the usability of the Ripple platform.  You can see many of these partners on their website.

Stellar - As mentioned above, Stellar was created by one of the founders of Ripple, and as such offers a somewhat similar solution.  Cryptocompare describes it as follows: "Supported by a nonprofit, Stellar brings the world together by increasing interoperability between diverse financial systems and currencies.

Stellar is a technology that enables money to move directly between people, companies and financial institutions as easily as email. This means more access for individuals, lower costs for banks, and more revenue for businesses. Help better the world’s financial infrastructure by participating in our community or by building on Stellar."

I like the technology, the folks involved as well as the market potential.  IBM has been one of the big-names who've also jumped on board with supporting and developing Stellar.

Future of Fast Transactions

IOTA and Cardano an in a unique category as they process transactions differently than the bulk of crypto currencies.  By eliminating the mining process, transactions are validated by the senders and receivers of the currency. This is an intriguing solution, that could make it more scale-able than other means.  Although it remains to be seen, I like what both these two coins are working on.

IOTA - IOTA is an open-source distributed ledger protocol that goes 'beyond blockchain' through its core invention of the blockless ‘Tangle’. The IOTA Tangle is a quantum-proof Directed Acyclic Graph, with no fees on transactions & no fixed limit on how many transactions can be confirmed per second in the network. Instead, throughput grows in conjunction with activity in the network; the more activity, the faster the network. Unlike blockchain architecture, IOTA has no separation between users and validators; rather, validation is an intrinsic property of using the ledger, thus avoiding centralization. IOTA is initially focused on serving as the backbone of the emerging Internet-of-Things (IoT).

Cardano - Designed and developed by IOHK in conjunction with the University of Edinburgh, the University of Athens and the University of Connecticut, Cardano SL (or Cardano Settlement Layer) is a Proof of Stake cryptocurrency based on the Haskell implementation of the white paper “Ouroboros: A Provably Secure Proof of Stake Blockchain Protocol” by Aggelos Kiayias, Alexander Russell, Bernardo David and Roman Oliynykov.

Other Interesting Coins

The following are various other coins that have caught my attention, that I believe has value for varying reasons...

Steem - I first discovered Steem while I was searching for coins placing an emphasis on social media in some fashion.  Of the onces I reviewed, Steem is leading the way in how they've approached things.  They've launched their own social platform, Steemit, as a proof of concept, which rewards contributors for sharing content on the website.  Simply from a social media platform perspective, Steemit is lacking in a lot of ways, but once you incorporate the payment structure, it starts to show some real potential.  What I'm most curious to find out is what the end goal is for Steem... Is to to develop Steemit into a leading social platform or is it to implement their payment/reward system into other leading social platforms (wikipedia would be a great one!).

"Steem.it is a blockchain-based social media platform where anyone can earn rewards by posting relevant content, curating quality content by upvoting and by holding Steem based currencies in a vest fund, which generates interest.

There are three main currencies in Steemit: Steem, Steem Power (SP) and Steem Backed Dollars (SBD).

Steem is liquid and can be bought in an exchange and converted into steem dollars or steem power.

Steem Power is basically Steem that is locked in a vesting fund for 3 months. Users can use steem power to upvote content and get curating rewards.

When a user upvotes content his steem power gets depleted and then slowly regenerated. Steem Power holders recieve interest from their holdings. The more Steem Power a voter has the more revenue he'll generate for himself (in form of SP) and for the content creator (In SBD).

There is also an incentive to upvote content early, as the rewards are distributed according to time. The earliest votes gets the biggest share of the reward.

Steem Backed Dollars are there to protect content creators from volatitlity and can be traded for roughly 1 usd worth of steem, in order to cash out from steem. Converting Steem backed dollars into STEEM takes 5 days. Users also recieve interest from holding SBD. T

Steem is a proof of work currency with a scheduled blocktime of 3 seconds. Steem PoW mining is done in rounds of 63 seconds by 21 miners (witnesses). 19 of the miners are pre voted, one is the other with the most computational power, and the last one is selected from a queue of witnesses that did not get on the top 19 voted witnesses.

90% of the block reward is allocated to a vest fund to reward curators and PoW miners, the other 10% are made liquid in the form of steem and are used to reward content creators. Steem gets converted to Steem Backed Dollars and sent to the content creator."

EOS - EOS was created by Dan Larimer who is also the founder/developer of Steem.  He knows his stuff, and is in the process of launching the EOS platform as what appears to be a rival to Ethereum, using 'smart contracts". I'm intrigued to follow their progress.

"EOS tokens are ERC-20 compatible tokens distributed on the Ethereum blockchain pursuant to a related ERC-20 smart contract (the “EOS Tokens”).

The founders tokens represent 10% of the aggregate EOS Token and are currently held in Smart Contracts.

The ICO is divided into two phases, period 1 offers 20% of total supply and period 2 offers 70% to investors, Phase 2 is split into 350 consecutive 23 hours periods, selling 2 mln EOS tokens each period.. 10% is held by the team in smart contracts."

Monero - I like Monero for it's focus on security and anonymity, which is very similar to the initial focus of Bitcoin.  Although this tends to attract some shady applications, anonymity is a big part of the crypto space, and Monero is at the forefront of that journey.  They have some interested developments on the horizon to further enhance their solution.

"Monero (XMR) is a cryptonight algorithm based alternative crypto currency. The coin is based on Proof of Work and has a block reward that varies smoothly. The difficulty retargets every block with a sixty second block target.

Monero uses a Ring Signature system to protect your privacy, allowing users to make untraceable transactions."

NEO - "NEO is a platform in which users can issue and trade assets. NEO has been rebranded from the original 'Antshares'. NEO tokenizes proofs of ownership of an asset and not the asset itself, thus taking into account all of the legal complications and obligations that may come with the transfer of shares, equity and assets.

NEO represent an ownership of the NEO platform and allows users to buy NEO (ANC) and to vote on protocol changes on the NEO blockchain. ANS are 100% premined and issued on the NEO's genesis block."

Concluding Thoughts

This, in a nutshell, encapsulates my 10 favorite cryptocurrencies.  I think the year ahead will be an exciting one as many of these coins will further establish their technology as well as the proof of concept with industry trials.  I look forward to continuing to  review new and exciting coins as I'm introduced to them and would love to hear about your favorite coins.

Thanks for stopping by.

Weiss Ratings Cryptocurrency Report

Weiss Ratings, an independent rating agency of financial institutions, today released grades for many of the top cryptocurrencies on the market.  They claim their ratings are based on several factors including price risk/reward, blockchain technology, security and real world applications and potential.

This was a highly anticipated report as it's the first of it's kind for the crypto industry.  After some alleged website hacks, and confusion Weiss eventually released the report and at first glance, I have to question the legitimacy of their analysis. It seems to me they've misjudged several of these currencies.  An example of this is Dogecoin... They gave Dogecoin a 'C' rating which suggests a 'hold' position. Doge was created as a joke coin, and is a platform that hasn't been worked on in 2 years. The founder of Doge was interviewed recently and expressed his shock at the raise of the Doge coin; so for it to get a 'C' grade, makes me question their ability to review the market properly.  My concerns continued as I read through the report.  Here's a look at their ratings, with the top two coins getting 'B' grades (Ethereum and EOS).

'B' Grades
Ethereum (ETH)
EOS (EOS)

'B-' Grades
Cardano (ADA)
NEO (NEO)
Steem (STEEM)

'C+' Grades
Ark (ARK)
Bitcoin (BTC)
Byteball Bytes (GBYTE)
Dash (DASH)
Decred (DCR)
I/O Coin (IOC)
Litecoin (LTC)
NEM (XEM)

'C' Grades
Aeon (AEON)
Asch (XAS)
Blackcoin (BLK)
Blocknet (BLOCK)
Burst (BURST)
Bytecoin (BCN)
Counterparty (XCP)
Dogecoin (DOGE)
Ethereum Classic (ETC)
Kommodo (KMD)
Lisk (LSK)
Monero (XMR)
NAV Coin (NAV)
Nebilo (NEBL)
Nexus (NXS)
Peercoin (PPC)
PIVX (PIVX)
Qtum (QTUM)
RaiBlocks (XRB)
Ripple (XRP)
Shift (SHIFT)
SmartCash (SMART)
Stellar (XLM)
Stratis (STRAT)
Verge (XVG)
Vertcoin (VIA)
Waves (WAVES)
XTRABYTES (XBY)
ZCoin (XZC)

Although I do believe in the potential of their top two coins, I wouldn't put a lot of weight on their rating system.  Regardless, it was interesting to see this type of review, and I expect more reports will surface throughout the year ahead.

I threw up a quick poll on Twitter to get a general impression of what the twitterverse thought about the Weiss Report - Valuable or Garbage. After only a few minutes and 200+ votes, the results seem overwhelmingly one sided 72% Garbage, 28% Valuable.  Let me know your thoughts and opions in the comment section below!

2018 Crypto Strategy

In my previous post I laid out my personal thoughts on the cryopto currency market and what we can expect for the year ahead, including some extreme volatility.  Less than a month into 2018 and volatility is already rearing it's head, as we saw a significant downturn in pricing last week, seeing many coins lose 40,50,60+ percent.  Most of them quickly bounced back and are now stabilizing again, for hopefully another push upwards; although that remains to be seen.  Regardless of which direction the immediate future takes us, I believe these types of swings will continue to present themselves throughout the year ahead.

I've allocated a certain amount of funds to invest in this industry and have broken it down into three categories:

- blockchain stocks that trade on the stock market
- crypto currency coins purchased on the open market via crypto exchanges
- mining rigs for producing coins and supporting the blockchain infrastructure.

Blockchain Stocks
It's no surprise that companies are coming out of the woodwork release press statements attaching themselves to cryptocurrenies and blockchain in general.  I'd offer words of caution when reading these announcements, as many of them tend to be a lot of smoke and mirrors, discussing the huge potential of blockchain tech, but fail to provide significant information about how their company is using it as a revenue generator.  Just because a company implements or gets involved with blockchain tech, doesn't mean their revenue is going to skyrocket.  Do your own due diligence.

Similar to the .com boom and bust, many companies announcing internet associations took off simply because of the hype and band wagon investors.  Companies like Pet.com went to ridiculous highs, and then rode the rollercoaster right back down.  At the end of the day, we want to be left holding the 'Googles' of the industry, not the 'pet.coms'.

In terms of publicaly traded companies, I've identified only one, that I believe to be tried, tested and true within the crypto/blockchain industry, and that is HIVE Blockchain Technologies.  HIVE sets up and manages crypto mining farms at strategic locations around the world, including Iceland and Sweden, where cooler temperatures are ideal for mining as well as energy costs are low.  Furthermore, Hive has several facilities up and running, and as such has established a track record and a roadmap for an expandable business model.  What further strengthens HIVEs long term model, is the back-end proprietary technology they've developed for managing a crypto mining farm.  Without going into too much detail, this is a huge stumbling block for new companies expecting to launch a competing business. HIVEs backend software manages equipment, monitors performance, temperature levels, equipment technicalities and more.

One of HIVEs biggest partners (and investors) is Genesis Mining, the worlds largest crypto hashpower producer.  Genesis is working along side HIVE in the growth and development of more facilities and in advancing the mining technology.  Here's an interesting video introduction to the Genesis and HIVE solution:

I believe HIVE has a solid foundation and has already worked through the growing pains involved with the expansion of large scale tech companies.  I love their structure as well as the future potential.  As their farms continue to open and expand, we'll start to see the related revenues included in financial quarterly reports.  

Crypto Currency Coins
I've spent a lot of time reviewing dozens of coins along with their technology, infrastructure, management team, partnerships etc.  Admitedly, it's an overwhelming amount of information to review, and it's tough to stay on top of it all as there are so many new coins hitting the market on a daily basis.  As I mentioned above, my goal in review coins is not just to find a coin with a clever application, but to find the ones that will be the foundation of the future of blockchain technology.  In my (amateur) opinion, I strongly believe Ethereum is the most sound technologically and offers the largest potential to emerge as the industry leader.

From the research I've done, if I had to select one coin to back, it would be Ethereum. They are proving to be the foundation of the industry. With the use of their technology and 'smart contracts' Ethereum can be implemented into many transaction based industries, including the recent announcement from the Canadian Government to conduct a trial project based around the implementation of the Ethereum platform.  Many of the new crypto coins hitting the market are actually based on the Ethereum network, meaning their transactions on the back end go through the Ethereum blockchain.  It is these types of scenarios that makes me believe that Ethereum is currently and will continue to be a trend setter in the industry; providing the blockchain building blocks for companies to use.

All that said, there are many other crypto currencies worth reviewing and evaluating. Too many for me to get into in this post, but some to consider are: Ripple - Stellar - IOTA - Bitcoin - NEO - STEEM - DASH - Monero - EOS - Bitshares


Mining Rigs
Rigs are the lifeblood of the blockchain technology.  Not only do rigs generate crypto currency for their efforts, but they are responsible for processing all transactions put there all cryto networks. I believe this to be one of the most commonly misunderstood pieces of the industry.  Rigs earn their income by processing transaction. Every transaction processed through a network has an associated transaction fee attached.  By solving these equations, that is how rigs are rewarded.  Without rigs, the blockchain doesn't exist.

As such, with this type of investment, you're not strictly tied the price of coins. Regardless of the raise and fall of currency pricing, your rig will continue to produce coins. So, if you believe in the longevity of the industry, this is (in my opinion) the best option.

There are several methods for mining various coins, which I'm not going to get into in this post.  As I mentioned above, my primary interest is the Ethereum network and as such I'm most interested in supporting that platform.  This will change however in the coming months as Ethereum changes away from Proof of Work over to a Proof of Stake algorithm.  When this happens, I'll have to look at an alternative coin to mine.

If you don't want to have a rig in your own house, you can alternatively look at cloud based mining, where you can lease mining equipment from large scale operations such as Genesis Mining.  As always, my recommendation is to do your own due diligence, as there are many companies popping up claiming to operate mining farms, with little proof of their operations. At this time, Genesis Mining is the only one I'm prepared to recommend.

Conclusion
So this in a nutshell is my approach to the crypto industry for the year ahead, including a combination of my own mining rigs as well as investments into blockchain industry leaders on the stock market (HIVE) and the accumulation of various coins.  As I've mentioned, always do your own due diligence when determining what opportunities are best for you.  This is an extremely volatile industry, and you've got to be prepared to ride the rollercoaster both up and down.

Post settings Labels Published on 1/23/18, 8:31 AM Pacific Daylight Time Permalink Location Options

2017 was a year of explosive growth for the cryptocurrency industry, with Bitcoin leading the charge.  We saw various currencies reaping over 1000% returns gaining the attention of the media and the general public.  Now, the big question is, what will happen to this industry throughout the year ahead. 

As more people start to wrap their heads around the industry in general, in the early part of 2018, I think we will continue to see the rise of cryto currency, including the mainstream coins (bitcoin, ethereum) as well as the various smaller 'alt coins' (reddcoin, dogecoin etc).  As the worlds population continues to flood into the market, I believe this will create an extremely volatile scenario. Crypto prices are very subjective in the first place, but add on the fear and greed from the general public and it could be the recipe for a steep rise and fall for prices. 

Although I am a huge believer in cryptocurrency and believe that it is here to stay, I can't say that it won't be without significant price volatility.  As this continues to be a trending topic gaining more media attention, the general public will continue to dive in head first.  Just like the stock market, more and more, pricing of cryptocurrency will be driven by human emotions such as fear and greed.

Because of the popularity, we're seeing new coins (ICOs) flooding the market all claiming to have huge potential and real world application. My belief is that may of these coins will vanish as quickly as they showed up.

Is Crypto Industry in a Bubble?

People often refer to cryptocurrency as being in a bubble, similar to the '.com' boom and bust. and I tend to agree. Although there is a revolutionary technology at play, the craze of the masses are inflating prices, and people are putting money into smaller 'penny stock' companies without doing the proper due-diligence.  This mentality is driving prices way higher than is technically justifiable. Wit that said, out of the '.com' fiasco, some of today's biggest companies emerged including Google, Apple, Microsoft and Amazon.  I believe the same will happen as we come out the other side of this cryptocurrency craze. Companies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple as well as others who solidify their place in the market will establish themselves as some of the biggest companies in the world.

There's a reason why Bitcoin and Ethereum are the leaders in this space, and I believe they are setting the foundation for the future of the industry.  The more I read and learn, the more I'm growing to love the Ethereum network, their technology, and what it is capable of achieving.  As it turns out, many of the smaller coins hitting the market are based on the Ethereum platform using what are called Ethereum 'smart contracts'.  

Throughout the year ahead, I look forward to continuing to grow my position in various cryptocurrencies.  Placing the bulk of my investment into a select few currencies I believe have long term potential to withstand a potential crash.  I'll also continue to evaluate some of the new, smaller coins in hopes of finding some diamonds in the ruff, and through a bit of money into them in hops of short term gains.

This is my two cents, and I'm excited to see how things unfold throughout the year ahead.  Good luck to all!

Welcome

One of my goals for 2018 is to build my personal network.  Although I'm extremely active online, it often takes place behind the scenes of various brands and companies, creating content, managing social media etc.  As much as I love that, I'd like to take some time to share some of my experiences, which will include sharing information on my various passions, branding, technology, drones, cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.  I've been fascinated and involved in these industries for a long time and I'm excited to share my thoughts and experiences with the www.  

Through this website I look to share my insight into various topics introductory information as well as more specific information about the technology, specific coins, trading platforms, available wallets and more.

If you have any questions/comments/suggestions, please feel free to post in the appropriate comment section below any post.