Tier 4

OriginTrail

OriginTrail enables seamless data sharing along any supply chain. The decentralized, blockchain-supported network protocol ensures trust, transparency, and security. It helps companies exchange relevant data seamlessly and in a secure way to build accountability, protect their brands and increase efficiencies.

Po.et

How do you take an open, trustless and decentralized system that anyone can write to at basically no cost and determine what information is useful, trustworthy or accurate? What’s to stop someone from copying a famous work, timestamping it to Po.et and claiming it as their own? How do you filter the “good” from the “bad”? Facts from “fake news”? The answers to these questions, these problems, can be crowdsourced by aligning economic incentives of content creators, publishers and curators via competing token-curated marketplaces, using the Po.et token — POE.

EVE

HPB

ITC

XBY

BIX

PFR

DNA

Tier 2

NAV

 Tier 3

REQ

SUB

LINK

NANO

Tier 4

BNTY

TAU

WISH

PHR

LOCI

How to read this portfolio: Ticker: Contains the ticker code for the coin. You can search this ticker in Coinmarketcap to learn more about the coin. The color denotes the risk tier by our evaluation. Dark Red = T1, Dark Green = T2, Dark Blue = T3, Light Blue = T4 (Colors in the Ticker column do not interact with the colors in the other columns) Cost Basis = Our average purchase price for this coin. Current price = The average price of the coin based on the exchanges it is listed on. Strategy = What we plan to do with this coin. Staking is receiving dividends for that coin. Master node is also staking, but with a higher return rate for having a (large) number of that coin. Stop = Our exit point, if it exists What do the colors mean? The colors in the ticker column represent the risk profile of that coin. The colors in the other columns reflect what sector(s) that coin belongs to. Some coins belong to multiple sectors, which is indicated by multiple colors. The colors correspond to our 7 categories in the graphic below

Tier 2 coins are those coins which have performed extremely well, we have a large amount of assets with, and we believe will continue to operate with high marks. What separates these coins from our Tier 1 status is a flaw or they haven’t yet proven their defining feature, though we believe they will.

OmiseGO

OmiseGO ($OMG) is classified as a Dividend and Utility coin. OmiseGO is a Southeast Asia-based company creating an e-wallet that will make transfer of assets and currencies possible. Merchants and users of the wallet can transfer whatever asset or currency they desire. For example, you could use your ethereum, bitcoin, international fiat, or even your airline points to buy groceries using the e-wallet app on your mobile phone. Transfers can happen across borders, or even while traveling abroad. Unlike Western Union or PayPal for example, the fees are almost negligible, and the transfer is instant. Because it’s based on a blockchain, there are no intermediary banks necessary and users don’t need bank accounts to access those funds. This is especially good for migrant workers who send money home and often don’t have bank accounts and are forced to use expensive wire services instead.

NAVCoin

NAVcoin ($NAV) is a Privacy coin with upcoming Platform features. NAVcoin has been around for 3 years. It is not minable, instead being based on a Proof of Stake system in which stakers earn 5% annual returns. Theoretically this means there could be 5% inflation on the supply, however, that would require every coin holder to stake, so likely there will be very marginal inflation between 1 and 3% year over year. It is a currency originally based off of Bitcoin version 0.13, which should tell you it’s got a good foundation from which to build its feature set. Being based off Bitcoin, it currently is a method of transaction, with notable upgrades in the form of Segwit (with possible lightning network integration in the future) and 30 transaction times with extremely marginal fees. That’s great but a lot of coins have that going for them, so thankfully we’re just getting started with the real interesting pieces of NAV. The first and currently only implemented feature, NavTech is a unique dual blockchain technology. Essentially, NAV runs on these two blockchains in order to completely disconnect the sending wallet (your wallet), to the receiving wallet (where the money is getting sent). Think of it like a VPN, NavTech completely strips the sender’s details so the transaction is completely anonymous. The anonymous transaction space has really gotten big lately, with Monero’s recent price action and Ethereum’s implementation of ZKSnarks being two big examples that come to mind.Moving on to the roadmap, there are two big upcoming features for NAV:

• The first is Polymorph, which is a really cool blend of Nav’s anonymous transactions and Changeally’s instant exchange. What this means is that, for example, I wanted to pay someone in Bitcoin but I wanted to do it anonymously. Polymorph would take my bitcoin, turn it into navcoin in order to be processed and sent anonymously using the Navtech dual blockchain, then turned back into bitcoin at the to be sent to the receiving wallet. This will certainly set NAV apart, as it guarantees anonymous transaction for all of the coins on changeally. This is huge for exposure, and a great opportunity for NAVcoin to gain trust, which is absolutely critical anonymous transaction coins.  
• The second big upcoming feature is ADApps, or Anonymized Decentralized Apps. This is also a huge potential win for Nav as there is already a huge amount of interest in the crypto space surrounding Dapps, such as Ethereum and Omni. Adding in the anonymous layer would attract projects that would value the anonymity. Nav is still in the planning stages for this project so it could still be awhile before it comes to fruition, but we should see the whitepaper for it soon, and if they could be first to market with ADapps that could prove to be a killer feature for them as it would give them first access to the interested demographics.

ICON

Simply put, ICON ($ICX) is a massive scale blockchain Platform that allows

• Decentralized Application (DAPPS) – Build DAPPS on ICON Platform like on Ethereum and NEO. Yes, soon, you will see ICOs happening on ICON platform for different DAPPS
• Interchain (Interoperability with Blockchains) – Allows different blockchains connecting to one another through their protocol. ICON is fully compatible with traditional blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum and in future can bridge other public blockchains such as Qtum, NEO and many others to achieve their mission statement – “Hyperconnect the world”
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) – Use of AI to ensure all nodes contributing to ICON Republic/platform are rewarded fairly and not to have certain powers over distribution policies. AI will continue to learn a variety of variables to determine optimal distribution policies and achieve complete decentralization.
• Decentralized Exchange (DEX) – ICON will integrate different DEX protocols on their platform to facilitate exchange of ICX and other future ICON platform currencies. Bancor protocol will be their first DEX protocol when mainent launches this month end and Kyber and others will follow. Not just throwing Kyber’s name out there, it was confirmed they are working with each other, official partnership yet to be announced.

Ripple

Ripple ($XRP) is a real-time Payment protocol for anything of value. It’s a shared public database, with a built-in distributed currency exchange, that operates as the worlds first universal translator for money. Ripple is currency agnostic and has a foreign exchange component built right into the protocol. Ripple acts as a pathfinding algorithm to find the best route for a dollar to become a euro or airline miles to become Bitcoin. It will look at all the orders in the global order book. The case for XRP comes down to the following: 1) Payment systems work best with bridge assets to focus liquidity. 2) There are good reasons to expect a cryptocurrency to be the most popular bridge asset. 3) There are good reasons to expect that cryptocurrency to be XRP.

• Open, decentralized payments will have lots and lots of assets, including national currencies of all kinds and cryptos. A significant fraction of payments will be among assets that aren’t the most popular. Using intermediary assets to settle those payments concentrates liquidity and reduces spreads.
• National currencies are always tied to jurisdictions and can’t be universal. Systems built around them will never be as open and inclusive as systems that aren’t.
• XRP settles faster than any other major crypto. It higher transaction rates than other major cryptos. It is beat by others only by the amount of liquidity available today. And, most importantly, XRP has a company that is devoted to making sure XRP succeeds for this specific use case.

Tier 3 coins are those coins which we have moderate investments and we believe have a possibility of high performance in the future, but as of yet have not shown enough performance to reduce their risk profile. Tier 3 coins are coins which are moderately risky, but due to our risk analysis of the project and team we believe have minimal chance of failure. 

Tier 4 coins are coins which we have minimal stake in, are highly risky, and we are contributing no more than 2% of our portfolio to. These coins represent the outer fringe of our risk analysis, in that we have little information to work with, have little insight into the coin’s performance, and at the very best we are making an educated guess that they will be successful. If a coin performs well and proves that it has a commitment to its compelling feature, it will be moved to the Tier 3 status.  

 

We made two additions today.

The first is EncrypGen ($DNA).

They use Blockchain to allow individuals to easily and securely upload their raw genetic data file from a company like 23andMe. This data is then anonymized and pair with a smart contract to enable organizations and individuals to access it. For example, a researcher from Germany searches the Genechain for people with Glaucoma. The result is 1,000 people from 4 different continents and 25 different nationalities. This majorly simplifies the data aggregation and acquisition process so real research can happen and it’s very exciting. EncrypGen was just featured in the New Scientist magazine today, so there’s certainly interest in the scientific community.

Our second acquisition was Payfair ($PFR). Payfair is a system which allows individuals to trade using a decentralized escrow service. For example, if Person A wants want to sell an in-game currency for ethereum and Person B wants to buy that in-game currency for ethereum, they can use PFR and be assured that neither party can scam the other. They are also working on system to directly convert between fiat and PFR.

Essentially, it allows decentralized trading between multiple parties through escrow service monitored by PFR.

What we like is that it’s a much more efficient and controlled version of LocalBitcoins.

Additionally, and why we made the acquisition today, is that Payfair will have masternodes called trust nodes. Currently it’s around $1800 for a node, which is a pretty cheap investment considering that nodes will pay out .8% of all transactions starting sometime after April (which is obviously subject to change). Unfortunately, in order to acquire PFR you must use IDEX, a decentralized exchange. Decentralized exchanges are safer than centralized exchanges like Bittrex and Binance, but they are also harder to use. Thankfully, IDEX is by far our favorite decentralized exchange and we don’t think it’s that hard to use once you figure out how to use it.

 

 

 

In this section we’ll feature a daily ICO or new coin we think you should check out. Based on your country, you may not be able to participate in the ICO, but you will be able to trade the coin once it is listed on an exchange following its ICO (usually only a couple of weeks). ICOs are where a lot of money in crypto is made. Here’s proof.   That said, we should warn you: ICOs are highly risky endeavours and you need to mitigate any potential losses. Treat it as money you’ve lost the moment you contribute to the ICO. We are not responsible for the ICO’s performance. Today’s featured ICO / New Coin is:

TE-FOOD

For flipping Good.

For long-term holding Good.

What is it? 

TE-FOOD is a farm-to-table traceability solution, covering all logistics and food quality activities and data management of the supply chain. It provides cost effective software and identification tools to make livestock and fresh food supply information transparent.

What is our verdict? 

What we like: Outstanding idea and solution. The team and development are above average.

What we don’t like: The team will have a hard time breaking out of their base country of Vietnam to interact with other countries’ food systems.

Website: https://ico.tefoodint.com/

Whitepaper: https://ico.tefoodint.com/te-food-white-paper.pdf

I am seeing the same old religious debate as to whether you should chart vs the USD or vs. BTC, with one camp fervently insisting that “thou shalt chart against BTC!” and the other camp not really caring what they chart against. Let me weigh in here for a moment:

 

First, my preference would be to chart an asset against the most stable currency possible. Two independent variables means that you have a see-saw effect depending on whether the stronger asset is in the numerator or the denominator. If I could, I would chart everything against the USD because it tends to move a lot less than does BTC, which means that I would be evaluating one asset instead of trying to figure out the relationship of the pair. But I understand the current realities that most coins can only be traded via BTC, so it makes sense to chart them in that manner. Besides, charting them in this manner forces you to evaluate whether or not the asset is outperforming BTC. If it’s not outperforming BTC, then you have opportunity cost.

 

Secondly, what is the trend? What will the crypto market be like in a year? I’d hazard a guess to say that brokers will find ways to expand alt-coin purchases via fiat…..or perhaps it will be that several coins will “grow up” and be listed by fiat brokers. I see that trend increasing, not decreasing. Remember, BTC was de-listed from Stripe for a reason.

 

     I am doing the majority of my Technical Analysis work on TradingView and Coinigy, and I have a BitFinex app on both my iPad and Android smartphone. All of these charting platforms call a TradingView API. TradingView is the 800 lb. gorilla in the Crypto charting space until the “established” players want to make a go at Crypto, like Ninjatrader, Tradestation, eSignal, Sierra charts, etc. My sense is that TradingView has such a head start that it will be very difficult for the big boys to make a dent in this space for a while. Until that point, TradingView has almost a monopoly in this space. If you have a particular tool that you think is superior, please let me know. You can access the BitFinex and TradingView platforms for free, however there are some paid features that you might want to consider depending on your needs, such as expanded watchlists, different study sets, account alerts, etc.

 

  Coinigy is a great tool for determining prices on each exchange, however I may not have access to the full suite of tools on TradingView charts. I am currently not using it as a front-end GUI for my exchanges, which it supports.I also use Blockfolio to give me a quick snapshot of my holdings, and find that it does an excellent job to aggregate all of my holdings into one easy-to-read snapshot of my cryptocurrencies, which are typically located in many different places.