2017 has undoubtedly been the year of greatest growth for the cryptomarket. A year full of revaluations, historical highs and new currencies making their way into the top of cryptocurrencies with the largest market capitalization. However, there are certain specific cryptocurrencies that stand out for their surprising revaluation and, in this sense, for being the best cryptoinvestments of 2017. In this article we will review those cases.

Ripple takes the crown as the most prized cryptocurrency of 2017, which is evident after having dethroned Ethereum and Bitcoin Cash in the ranking of cryptocurrencies and having reached second place in the ranking of major-cap coins.

On January 1,2017, the XRP unit was traded at an average of $0.006523, as shown in the following graph:

Many were the events that drove Ripple's price during 2017. Many banks around the world tested its trading platform, including the Bank of England, BBVA and Thailand's Krungsri. I also managed to interconnect traditional and distributed accounting books before atomic exchanges began to be tested. He formed alliances such as the Ripple Net, made up of more than 100 companies - including American Express - and with the Gates Foundation. They blocked $55 billion of XRP to ensure predictable supply and build more confidence among their investors. But what made the last rally in the price of the XRP was the tests carried out between banks in Japan and South Korea - two of the most prominent cryptomarkets of today - for cross-border payments.

At its most recent all-time high yesterday, Ripple hit $2.85 per unit. This represents an increase of 438 times its price in 2017, making it the best cryptoinvestment of the year.

The silver medal in this count is won by the XEM cryptocurrency of the NEM blockchain, which was revalued 316 times in 2017. It began the year with a price of 0.0036 for XEM as evidenced in the following graph:

This year NEM launched its NanoWallet, a cold wallet for storing XEM cryptoactives, which later integrated Trezor into its services. It also launched its ioNEM platform, an integration between the Internet of Things with its blockchain and a new service for those forgetful clients to recover their private keys. Its XEM cryptoactive was also enabled for exchanges at the important ShapeShift exchange house. For the recreation of his community, he launched the world's first NEMBAR. But what pushed up its price this 2017 was that WeChat messenger service launched a NEM portfolio on its platform. Thus, in 2017, XEM grew from $0.0036 per unit to a historic high of $1.14.

Stellar is born as a branch of Ripple, offering a similar distributed payments infrastructure focused on international transfers. Its cryptoactive Lumens has often followed the market movements of the XRP. And although its appreciation this year was less than that of Ripple, it still takes the bronze medal as the third best cryptoinvestment of 2017. Started the year at $0.0024 for Lumen:

Stellar began this year a scholarship program in which it invested about $2 million dollars to promote application development in its blockchain. In addition, it signed an alliance with technology giant IBM to process payments in 12 corridors of the Pacific Asian islands. But it was the migrations to its blockchain - caused by the saturation of the Ethereum and Bitcoin networks - that pushed up its price in the last quarter of the year. Both SatoshiPay and the Canadian messaging application Kik decided to move their services to the Stellar blockchain. After all these events, Stellar Lumens grew 162 times to a historic high of $0.39 last Saturday.

Following Stellar Lumens closely is Dash, with an appreciation of 146 times its price. It began the year at $11.21 per unit and soon advanced:

2017 was the year of the Dash conferences, which held events around the world, highlighting their first global conference held in London. They also forked their blockchain to increase the size of their blocks from 1MB to 2MB to process more transactions. Similar to Stellar, it spent $2 million on developing 30 projects for its network. With regard to mining, 3 ASICs were launched this year to mine the X11 algorithm, typical of the cryptocurrency created by Even Duffield: the DR-100; the Antminer D3; and the A5 DashMaster. It also established alliances with the Uphold Bureaux de Change and Wirex debit card service. Finally, he established a blockchain research center with Arizona State University. In the midst of all these announcements, Dash closes the year with a record high of $1,642 per unit:

However, the gold of the cryptocurrencies will always be for Bitcoin, the mother cryptocurrency. Although it did not multiply its price as many times as much as the other crypts mentioned in this count, it has been the only cryptomonet that has reached $20,000 per unit and has remained unchanging in the 1st place in the ranking of cryptoactives with the largest market capitalization. It started the year at $963 per unit:

Since then, many were the favorable and unfavorable events that surrounded the evolution of the original cryptocurrency. With so many, it would take a long time to mention them all. But without a doubt, it is worth mentioning the different applications for investment funds quoted in Bitcoin, starting with the ETF of the Winklevoss brothers, which was refused by the SEC.

We cannot fail to mention the signing of the New York agreement, a scalability agreement that would deepen the discussions in the community and lead to the activation of SegWit, the threat of increasing blocks to 2MB by SegWit2x and the bifurcation of Bitcoin Cash. This first fork began the phenomenon of forks to get' free money', evidenced in the forks of Bitcoin Gold, Bitcoin Diamond and a lot of new forks.

But the last push that brought Bitcoin to the moon from $20,000 per unit was the launch of Bitcoin futures contracts by CME Group and Cboe. Thus, Bitcoin multiplied its price 20 times this 2017:

These were the best cryptoinvestments of 2017. Congratulations to all those who maintained and multiplied their savings this closing year. This year 2018 will surely come with much greater growth for cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.