Cryptocurrencies in Q1 of 2019

Covering Mainstream Gems in the Top 25 in my last post, I am back as promised with my personal favourites. Stating that the 8 Cryptocurrencies I mentioned were something like pop culture, I will hereby list some innovative technologies that are both competitive and groundbreaking. Many of the ones I will enumerate here have a working product which is worth looking into. The tycoons in the game are receiving competition from new projects on the block that are providing faster and more scalable solutions.

Now wouldn't it have been great if you had invested in Apple stocks in the 80s or Amazon stocks in the 90s? In the crypto space we have different types of investors. Bitcoin created a wave of new age crypto investors, traders and brokers. This also reflects on how cryptocurrencies are traded on various exchanges. Market manipulation on some exchanges is really quite conspicuous. If your trading pair is BTC/Altcoin it becomes evident that traders want to buy their favourite Altcoins cheap. Do you believe that some Altcoins just serve as temporary dumps? Apart from that, the space is creating opportunities for anyone to buy and stake their coins to receive dividends or even run nodes with lucrative ROI's, provided one can afford the collateral.

For a currency like Bitcoin that is only 10 years old, there is no question that Bitcoin is great at making the headlines and catching the public eye's attention. There is a lot going on with Altcoins. Are we heading towards a future where the USD will replaced by a new reserve currency? Which one will it be? Maybe some governments are already issuing cryptocurrency bonds? Open source cryptocurrency projects also develop private blockchain solutions for corporations. I believe in the inevitability that one or more public and decentralised blockchains will gain mainstream adoption and one day become the internet of tomorrow.

Mentions

Ethereum

Firstly I would like to mention Ethereum. Once changing to proof of stake and implementing Quantstamp, a fully scalable security protocol, it will make Ethereum interoperable with all other systems. Living close to Cryptovalley one tends to encounter some Buterin devotees. Ether guys can often be very opinionated. I really admire Ethereum for what they are doing in the space. If it wasn't for Ethereum nothing would have been as it is today. The springboard they provided during the ICO craze in 2017 for various ERC-20 Project tokenisations was so overwhelming that it simply distracted most people from what was actually happening. From a strategic point of view, critics must consider Ethereum's position in maintaining an open source project within a highly competitive space.

Some great ERC-20 based tokens are: Golem, Basic Attention Token, Pundi X, Loom Network, Chain Link, Populous, MCO(Crypto.com), Maker, OmiseGo and OX Protocol, Wanchain and Raiden.
Of course Augur that migrated from Ethereum on the 10th of July 2018 also deserves to be mentioned here.

Exchanges

Binance, Kucoin and Huobi have their own coin. I am sure that there are many more to come. Apart from Bitshares and Komodo it is also a space one should watch out for when it comes to DEX(Decentralised Exchanges.

Cloud Computing and distributed computing

The following projects might deliver some great working products and are also worth looking into: Gridcoin, Golem, Sonm and Sparc.

Awesome underrated cryptocurrencies

Firstly and again I would like to point out EOS, that I clearly highlighted in my previous post. I compared the $ 2.1 Billion that Amazon got in investors money in the mid 90s. With more than $ 4 Billion raised in it's ICO, EOS is funnelling $ 1 Billion back into developers of dApps and quite frankly EOS is already live and very exiting. The nightmarish scenario that Ripple will become the next Bitcoin entirely depends on people understanding what is actually happening. I pointed out ripples inflation and anyone who knows Ripples service sector, will understand what they are trying to achieve.

^{Does a bird born in confinement know that it isn't free?}

If ratings suggest to hold Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Litecoin and Binance Coin as a safe bet it is wise to go ahead if you really think so. It also totally depends what one intends to do. I might be completely off course to you here, but lets be honest. What makes a cryptocurrency strong is also it's community. We are discovering a new kind of power of value as a world community giving us freedom for peer to peer exchange and financial consensus. If this goes beyond one global government, true values can grow from within these communities.

Check out this article: Cryptocurrencies with working products

1. Qtum

Co founded by Jordan Earls, Patrick Dai and Neil Mahi, the Qtum Blockchain project allows Decentralised Applications and Smart Contracts to execute as part of a UTXO (unspent transaction output). Since it's inception Qtum smells like an elect project and through further research I got more exited about it. Using a Proof of Stake(PoS) consensus, Qtum leverages a high performance account to abstraction layer to decouple applications. The scalability of smart contracts is thus improved. QtumX can reach up to 10'000 TPS. Qtum x 86 virtual machine supports C, C++, Rust and Python with standard libraries and native tool chains. I am so excited for upcoming Qtum based applications.

2. Steem

Founded by Ned Scott and Dan Larimer, a revolutionary blockchain was build that draws in a lot of creative people from content creators, publishers, artists, cinematographers to photographers and the list is never ending. What sets Steem apart is that it attracts the producers rather than consumers in our society and makes them migrate from outdated social media pop culture. Although Steemit still has a raw feel to it, it gives us all the sentiment that we are the decentralised community that creates and governs it together with curators and witnesses that share a common goal. It comes with no surprise that I came to the conclusion that Steem has huge potential to be the game changer. Steem enables publishers to publish their content and receive tokens if the community votes for the content. Using delegated Proof of Stake(dPOS), earning actual Steem tokens relies on a community system that requires mechanisms for establishing and evaluating a content’s social value. This in itself goes beyond impressionistic or subjective values. Steemit calls this “Proof-of-Brain.” Let us not forget that community is important within the blockchain space and Steem has a huge community. The SP, SBD and STEEM VESTS measures allow for an expansive economy to grow on top of this beautiful blockchain. It truly matters what we @steemit make out of it. Taking up 22% of the BAT market share of rewarding publishers for their content, Steem is venturing into every possible field of service Dapps. Created by it's community's developers, Steem has an unprecedented push forward into a new kind of internet. With graphene Steem can reach a potential 10'000 transactions per second. The Steem Blockchain is one of the most underrated Cryptocurrencies out there. With applications like @dtube, @dsound, @actifit, @steemgigs, @fundition, @partiko, @musing, @actifit, @dlive, @appics, @ulogs and many more, Steem wil surely prove to become very powerful. I'd like to share the follwoing Mobile Dapps if you are looking for steem Dapps on the go. I suggest Partiko or APPICS (currently available on Testflight).

3. Nano

Formerly known as Raiblocks, Nano was founded by Colin LeMahieu and focuses on the scalability issue with a design architecture that offers unlimited scalability. With it's revolutionary DAG (Directed Acyclic Graph) based block-lattice architecture, Nano allots every user with their own Blockchain. Each of it's user's has control over their individual Blockchain which makes Nano operate asynchronously to every other blockchain. Nano secures it's ledgers through delegated proof of stake (dPos). I picture Nano as a micropayment solution and if you need to pay a coffee, The Natrium Wallet is probably a great solution for mobile phones already. Nano has build a powerful decentralised ecosystem of truly instantaneous and feeless transactions. With it's peak being at 306 TPS, Nano still has the potential to reach 7000 TPS.

4. Waves

WAVES is a decentralised blockchain platform founded in Switzerland by Sasha Ivanov. It allows for the creation of custom blockchain tokens. The Wallet lets you to store different currencies, FIAT as well as crypto. Waves uses Leased Proof-of-Stake (LPoS), which reduces transaction time and increases transaction throughput. Currently being able to handle 100 TPS and has the potential to legitimately reach 700 TPS, Waves is something to keep an eye on. Waves allows for a lot of creativity from starting your own cryptocurrency, crowdfunding and offering huge flexibility for token creators.

5. Komodo

Founded by anonymous JL777, Komodo focuses on a decentralised exchange with 95% of all coins supported. The exchange will be powered by atomic swaps. Komodo is also working on dICO’s or decentralised initial coin offerings. Komodo uses a security mechanism called Delayed Proof of Work (dPoW). KMD blockchain retains privacy through both the zk-SNARK protocol and the ZCash parameters. zk-SNARK technology is the industry standard in private transaction protocols. Komodo can achieve 100 tps - 45.000 tps.

6. Lisk

Founded by Max Kordek and Oliver Beddows, Lisk has enormous potential. Similar to Neo or Ethereum, Lisk is a modular cryptocurrency that allows users to build their Dapps on the Lisk Blockchain using one of the most common programming language Javascript. Lisk already released their own SDK. Lisk uses Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) for it's consensus. Currently Lisk can handle 2.5 TPS, but its potential as an alternative to Ehtereum, Cardano, Waves, Stratis and Ark makes it a project with prospectives. Lisk is very active on Github. Thanks to it's side chains, Lisk can scale but the blockchain still has it's many issues. Lisk will probably have many Dapps build on top of it and I am excited to see them.
^{I was going to add ARK or Cosmos(ATOM) here instead}

7. Zilliqa

Co-Founded by Yaoqi Jia this Blockchain focuses on scalability. Through increasing their nodes Zilliqa has the ability to grow and scale according to demand. Launching their mainnet in early 2019, these guys are really up to something. With a combination of Proof of Work (PoW) and Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance for consensus (pBFT), Zilliqa is also one of the first projects to actually have implemented sharding and multiple sidechains. Already working on layer two solutions such as general state channels, side chains, and secure off-chain computations via zkSNARKS, Zilliqa already reached 2828 TPS on their testnet.

8. Holo

Co-Founded by Eric Harris-Braun and Arthur Brock, Holo is a Distributed Cloud and it's structure can also be used to build decentralised applications. Supporting Javascript and Lisp, which are both commonly used, Holo might attract many developers to it's chain. Instead of having a native currency, Holo is a “roll your own currency” crypto-accounting platform. Holo entirely eliminates the need of a consensus. Instead Holochain combines hashing, digital signatures, and DHTs to form a tamper-proof distributed ledger. Holo has the potential to truly build a solid web 3.0 if they succeed. Holochain's distributed Public Key Infrastructure and key management protocol, DeepKey, which associates keys with authorship instead of data. Since holo has no issue with scalability we are talking about TPS of 5-700 Million.

9. Insolar

Founded by Andrey Zhulin, Insolar is a project that I highly anticipate. Supply Chain Management and Logistics without Blockchains are inconceivable in the near future. IBM's hyperledger offers a great solution to corporations. Insolar is a cloud based BaaS model that is working on tackling various problematic areas and taking existing models to the next level. Using sharding, Insolar is highly scalable. Insolar creates distributed business networks with multiple domains. Depending on the application scenario the standard can vary from networks, consensus algorithms, and encryption models. Smart contracts aren't deployed across a network but instead contained in certain segments. Insolar currently has the largest repository on Github. Insolar already claims 10'000 + TPS on it's testnet.

10. Singularity Net

Founded by Ben Goertzel, Singularity Net is a blockchain based AI marketplace that uses an open source AI cloud called OpenCog. As an open source project in collaboration with Hanson Robotics, Singularity Net brings benevolent AI to the world. I really anticipate having a conversation with a sentient robot about science and philosophy one day. To give all that power major corporations would be a fatal mistake, which is why this project is a beacon of light in the AI space. It being public and open source gives us back a lot of say into where AI is going. The better AI will become might show humans their true purpose, because we simply aren't machines. It will challenge us to become who we are truly meant to be as a species. The fear of being taken over by your toaster smells like musk gone bad to me. Specially when stated that the alternative is being chipped. The singularity Net will scale by using existing cloud computing platforms. The platform utilises various tools (such as the SingularityNET Daemon, CLI and SDK). Recently releasing their beta version I am very excited to find out what's next.

Other Projects

VeChain being deployed in the automobile industry for supply chains. I believe that Vechain could prove to be a very promising project., IOTA seems to be the choice for cryptocurrency in the automobile industry, powering machine economy, allowing for frictionless transfer of value and assets amongst vehicles and other machines.

Some great projects I anticipate are Cosmos, who are currently pushing hard, Bytom(used on searates.com), Stratis (deploys Block Chain as a Service for c# and .Net based applications) , Power ledger(peer to peer power), Ark, Enigma, Verge, Decred, Sirin Labs, DAI and Nebulas are really worth looking into. BaaS(Block Chain as a Service) projects listed here mostly have a vision to be service providers for corporations. I think it's important that their enthusiasm also lies within creating a decentralised and public platform. I will cover such projects in my next post on cryptocurrencies.

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[ NOTE: I animated the rotating coins using Adobe Flash. All the content I post is original. I like filming. In Video edits that I post on #dtube, I record my own voice overs. My posts on #dsound are original music composed in my studio. I post original art and illustrations, digital and analog. I use analog and digital cameras as well as my iphone for photography. Here are some Steemians that I highly appreciate. You are amazing and I love your content: @cryptoyzzy, @artzone, @frankcapital, @piotrgrafik, @agnikana @manisha.jain9, @aishwarya, @glenalbrethsen, @inu-jim, @andrianna, @dailysketches, @sultan-aceh, @arthurgain, @jenina619, @kurokikuro, @marya77, @roveana, @ferjart, @iansart, @juliocesardraw @alkor, @abrahmatan, @scrawly, @vermillionfox, @nastyakrasotka, @inber, @juliakponsford, @marcocosta, @oscurocactus, @teungkumerdu, @gclipse, @greencross, @homeartpictures, @imealien, @inesafreedom, @larriji, @li-art, @marcusmalone, @maxer27, @mrwalt, @nanocheeze, @natha93, @dobartim, @nonstop, @chbartist, @nupulse, @orhansarikaya, @qst, @ran.koree, @raah, @reconnectnature, @rezalhok, @originalworks, @mediaworks, @rushitan, @sagittarius, @scottcbusiness, @scottychams, @sohailahmed, @space-man, @tammyp, @tecca, @tayer, @tonygreene113, @treeky, @webresultat, @wentong-syhhae, @yumm, @nathanmars, @unterwegs, @adrianna, @amy-goodrich, @metametheus, @oendertuerk, @daltono, @firepower, @heiditravels, @exyle, @francisftlp, @thepollengardens, @alexaventuria, @elenasteem, @yetaras, @kennyskitchen, @chireerocks, @walkerland, @majes.tytyty, @marcocosta, @pinkspectre, @honeydue, @nmalove, @eco-alex, @tommyrobinson, @thepollengardens, @artemislives, @barbara-orenya, @hatu, @michael.thomale, @amy-goodrich, @riverflows, @streetstyle, @soyrosa, @chireerocks, @misan, @shaka, @obvious, @homeartpictures, @makinstuff, @gtg, @bewithbreath, @daltono, @vincentnijman]

^{"What is called economic power, while it can be an instrument of coercion, is in the hands of private individuals never exclusive or complete power, never power over the whole life of a person. But centralised is an instrument of political power it creates a degree of dependence scarcely distinguishable form slavery" - ( FA Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, Why the worst get on top)}

^{Disclaimer: @yangyanje and his or her view of the cryptocurrency market and his blog on the steemit.com blockchain is impersonal financial information. No consideration can be or is made toward your financial circumstances. None of the material presented within the @yangyanje blog is to be regarded as investment or trading advice, but for general informational and entertainment purposes only.}