2019 Coin Radar Part 2/2
In Part 1 of my 2019 Coin Radar I wrote about a handful of cryptos I’ve been following closely in 2018 and will continue to do so in 2019. In this Coin Radar Part 2, I’d like to highlight some serious small cap cryptos that have the potential to make a lasting impact on the crypto space and offer very marketable tokenomics.
TL,DR: I’d like to buy VEO / BIS / COV / PASC / POLIS / HNS / VBK / KMD / TRAC
Amoveo (VEO) 0.021 BTC MCap: n/a Rank: #2600
The Amoveo platform is trying to fix prediction markets on the blockchain with a smart contract and lightning enabled platform that allows its users to, bascially, bet against each other. I noticed VEO because its Founder Zack Hess is followed by some influential people, like Naval Ravikant and Nic Carter on Twitter. I then noticed he’d been in an upheaval with his previous employer Aeternity. I like that Zack is very hands-on with his project answering random user questions on telegram for example and giving up-to-date recommendations regarding his development and the technical specifications of VEO. I also think, despite the lackluster adoption of Augur, prediction markets will be a major use for blockchains in the future. Amoveo seems to be a hidden gem that might just capture, at least part of, this market through its grass-roots community building and conviction to develop a truly trustless system.
Bismuth (BIS) 0.00005 BTC MCap: 3 Million USD Rank: #500
Bismuth is one of those coins periodically hyped on crypto-twitter, and caught my interest when it was reviewed by Altcointrader Nik. I like that this coin is laser-focused on technical execution and is therefore actually lagging behind in marketing itself as the next Ethereum. I think being behind in marketing is not a bad thing while we’re in a bear market as it gives the dev-team time to focus on developing its tech and debugging everything they built very carefully. And Bismuth should have lots of technical challenges as it’s the first Python-programmed blockchain, potentially being very secure to code on and enabling so-called private smart-contracts, which should be in high-demand once blockchain technology permeates into mainstream usage.
Covesting (COV) 0.00006 BTC MCap: 4 Million USD Rank: #401
I tried day-trading crypto about 1 year back. I failed miserably at it. Yet I know that there a many successful day-traders reaping in daily profits consistently. Covesting is the platform where the average Joe like you and me can follow those professionals trade-by-trade. Professionals on the other hand charge a small fee to do the work, and will publicize their profile including their past performance. Covesting takes a cut in the middle facilitating the match and also offers an exchange platform to make the experience seamless. Platforms like eToro and copyfx that offer copy-trading for traditional stocks and bonds have increased in popularity over the past few years. I expect swiss-based Covesting will be no-less popular with traders in the future.
Pascal (PASC) 0.00005 BTC MCap: 5 Million USD Rank: #354
PascalCoin is a nerdy little coin that tries to out-Bitcoin Bitcoin. It’s name is derived from the programming language it’s written in: Pascal. The coin is fairly unique in that it’s very decentralized, with no pre-mine, no ICO, no dev-rewards (though that has recently changed), and purportedly higher transaction count, better anonymity and ease of use. PASC is a coin I don’t think will succeed in the long-term as a currency, but I imagine it to survive as a community product that will find lots of new enthusiasts if (ever) the market is going to pump again. I’m cautious concerning the claim that PASC has a “deletable” blockchain, which is a big warning sign in to me in terms of immutability. Nonetheless, PASC makes me curious and I will keep monitoring the price action as well as the community and development over the course of the next year.
Polis (POLIS) 0.00025 BTC MCap: 5 Million USD Rank: #363
Polis is a Masternode coin that is a little over a year old now and has consistently delivered an ROI of 140%. Of course, the fiat value of the coin has seen significant volatility with the ATH being a stunning $45 in January of last year. The anonymous team behind Polis markets the coin as having a decentralized governance, which you can follow for yourself with the votes going on at polispay.org. Most impressive about Polis is that they have actually managed to push out crypto-enabled credit cards, while projects like TenX is continuously falling short of delivering anything substantial in their quest to issue crypto-cards. Should Polis continue to maintain its value and eventually release information on the team behind the scenes, it is definitely a coin I will consider loading up on.
Handshake (HNS) pre-ICO
Handshake is an open-source project with the not-so-small goal of changing todays internet infrastructure. In a nutshell Handshake is supplementing DNS and the way our computers interact with domain names nowadays. If successful, Handshake will make this interaction more secure and decentralized. Handshake came on my radar by way of the very smart Eric Melzer. Looking at the list of sponsors at handshake.org should immediately make it clear to anyone in the crypto-space that this is a high-profile project, lacking no funding to possibly realize its goal of changing the internet.
Veriblock (VBK) pre-ICO
VBK has just recently come to my attention when James Lopp tweeted about it, and I find the idea behind it pretty genius. VBK provides a solution for smaller blockchain projects to remain secure from 51% attacks through Bitcoins massive hash power. VBK uses the Bitcoin op_return function to store hashes of ALT-blockchains in the proof-of-work done for Bitcoin. An attacker would thus have the impossible task of re-writing the Bitcoin history in order to overwrite the ALT-blockchain. Lopp pointed out that VBK already uses 20% of the op_return transaction output of the bitcoin network and this number is expected to rise even further, showing the existing demand for “proof-of-bitcoin” use cases.
Komodo (KMD) 0.00018 BTC MCap: 71 Million USD Rank: #57
Similar with VBK, Komodo also offers “proof-of-bitcoin” on its blockchain to help itself and other smaller blockchain projects to protect against 51%-attacks. In addition to VBK though, KMD also offers other platforms features like coin issuance, cross-chain interoperability. I think KMD has an edge at being laser-focused on b2b scenarios to increase the value of its platform. The team behind Komodo is working hard to offer blockchain as a service in a modular fashion for any business that might deem this new technology useful. A great example of this is the recent on-boarding of GIN for their “proof-of-bitcoin” technology.
OriginTrail (TRAC) 0.000005 BTC MCap: 6 Million USD Rank: #327
There is existing consensus in the space that supply chain management will be hugely inter-twined with blockchain technology in the future. Wallmart, IBM, Maersk, VeChain are all working towards a future where you can trace and verify your daily consumer goods on the blockchain with ease. I think these use cases are not just hope-driven, but have real-life impact and a value and think will indeed be big for consumers and companies alike. OriginTrail is a European project aiming to bring the future about early, and it is team who delivered tons of good news in 2018. I’ve only discovered TRAC when they launched Masternodes on their network, but the progress TRAC has made in the whole of last year is impressive: discuss with European Parliament Members at the European Commission in Brussels, launching the TraceAlliance and signing up over 50 businesses, work on EU-funded project with the University of Wageningen and partnering with Oracle in blockchain technology. Once OriginTrail moves out of testnet, this is a coin to keep close attention to.