Monero has strong community, DASH has strong marketing, BCN has deep (dev) hodlers. STEEM is on its ways too!

Wonder why a currency with exorbitant transaction fee (0.01 XMR or $2.15) and relatively slow confirmation, still holds rank 13. It is Monero (XMR) which is claimed to be first true privacy currency. Their claim being the first CryptoNight currency is also ridden with controversy since Bytecoin (BCN) also claimed to invent CryptoNight. CryptoNight is very popular algorithm that provides decent privacy.

Another issue with XMR that it forked to four currency to fight against ASICs from big manufacturers such as Bitmain, Baikal etc. Interestingly, BCN developers claim that forking creates privacy leak too.

Therefore, XMR has such success. Since it is one of the earliest coins that won the heart of private usage of the coin, for example usage in Darknet. Initially, it had low fee but due to some attacks it raised the fee and never rolled back. Those early adopters still adore their coin though technology has evolved.

Interestingly, STEEM having lots of problems is making strong HODLers similar to Monero. One interesting similarity is that both STEEM and XMR hold a support level price due to these supporters. Another similar fact is both STEEM and XMR can be mined profitably though using different algorithm Proof-of-brain vs Proof-of-work. In one of earlier blog, I explained why proof-of-brain is more efficient energy wise.

Similarly, it is claimed that BCN devs holds 80% of the coins. They seems to have good trading prodigies too. Though it is recently added to Binance, it was only traded in HitBTC and Poloniex but had strong buy support probably from the shady devs. However, BCN has recently become ASIC friendly and has very low fee compared to XMR. However, BCN has very frequent wallet problems and do not have comparable community support similar to XMR.

On the other hand, DASH's privacy is little bit shady. But it holds very strong market rank of 12. It has a strong marketing campaign coordinated by the main devs and community leader. They have a interesting budget program to support side projects on DASH project. @jerrybanfield, one of the early campaigners for DASH, had brought similar concept to STEEM. DASH has Youtube and other social media campaign to bring in new users. It saw one of the biggest bubble during the last BTC bubble (e.g. each DASH costed $1600, now $425).

However, privacy coin market is overcrowded with new hyped entrants in every few days. Verge is one such hyped coin which claimed to bring all the goodies to its implementation (e.g. Tor network). There are more than dozens CryptoNight variation coins. There is several Zerocoin protocol coins such as ZCash, ZClassic, Bitcoin Private etc. There are six privacy coins on top 50 coins according to CoinMarketCap. It is to be seen how one of them can win the lucrative privacy market.

On the other hand, STEEM is the only social media based coin in the top 50 still it is ranked 31 and have small market cap of less than a billions. It has seven unique features (zero fees, 3 second confirmation, highest transactions, highest number of DApps, unique feature of delegation, and many others) among the cryptocurrency Universe.

It is probably due to relatively high inflation, skewed distribution, poor leadership or governance and weak marketing, STEEM has lower marketcap.

STEEM's economic parameters are similar to Rocket Science since there is no unique solutions. It will take time and lots of experimentation to find an optimum solutions. Smart Media Token (SMT) can help to accelerate those solutions. Moreover, distribution will take time. STINC is becoming smarter to use marketing (@ned's visit to Korea, Japan, interview in Bloomberg, attendance to Consensus conference). Moreover, it needs relatively high inflation since 99% users are still not there if we consider that STEEM DApps can sustain 100M user base in future.

Disclaimer: This opinion is not a financial advice, it my personal perspective and opinion. Please seek professionals for financial decisions.

Image sources: Most images are open sourced (e.g. Pixabay, Wikimedia etc.) with Creative common license. Some images are used with due courtesy to respected owners.

Thanks for reading.
@riseofth
Cryptominer since 2013, occasional trader and tech blogger