Introduction and request to readers!

Hey guys,
I'm very new to the platform here at Steemit, but have been following the action in the background for a bit.

Who am I?
Just a casual guy working in the IT industry who loves travelling.

Random picture of me sitting at the top of Mauna Kea in Hawaii

I love motorcycling, but living in the northern parts of the world, I can only do so for a limited time every year. The rest of the year, I find other interests to fill my spare time with..Like Cryptocurrencies :D (Or skiing when I need to stay active)

As mentioned, I'm relatively new, but still have a few Altcoins I'm keeping my eyes on (not necessarily investing in all).
The ones that have caught my attention are:

Steem ($0.888564) - DUH! The reason for this is the immense power social platforms have and the concept of combining social platforms like Steemit with making money really speaks to me.

Ripple ($0.202372)- Fills a massive need in the financial industry of inexpensive, simple cross-border payments. The fact that a lot of BIG financial institutions have already started using the service
speaks in the coin's favour. I think there is huge potential for Ripple, and as more financial institutions start marketing the service to their customers' I believe Ripple will skyrocket.
It's one of few altcoins that actually have real world customers and have initiated expansion through aggressive sales globally.

OmiseGo ($7.33) - Like Ripple, I think OMG has enormous potential and fills a real need in today's financial landscape. The fact that OmiseGo is also aimed for individuals, rather than solely institutions speak in its favour.
The hype around the token and the smart real-life use-cases makes me believe this is one to watch for 2018.

Ether ($315.87) - Think there's a lot more long-term potential in Ether than there is in Bitcoin. The smart contracts concept, a lot of other altcoins being built on this platform & the growing
adopters around the world makes me believe Ether is here to stay and despite seeing a tremendous growth this past year, I still think there's an enormous upside to the coin.

Ether Classic ($15.64) - I think we'll eventually see this go down the same road as Bitcoin Cash’s faith we saw this weekend. There are not as many fundamentals behind Ether Classic as there are behind BCH, however there are definitely speculative reasons. Ethereum classic is the original Ethereum and I think that as time passes by, a lot of people will play on this to push the price up for the short-term.

Bitcoin Cash ($1374.21) - after the fork this summer resulting in a split between Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash, where Bitcoin Cash kept the original properties of Bitcoin that Satoshi Nakamoto intended the currency to have, I think Bitcoin Cash will come out the victor.
Removing the signature out of transactions will ultimately result in more people moving away from Btc and shift sides to Bch which has kept the signatures in every transaction, but instead focuses on increasing the block size.

To the readers of this post – please post your coins/tokens/currencies that you’re keeping a close eye on and give a short explanation as to why. Also include the current market price so that we can look back on this post in the future!

Look forwards to getting to know you all!