Tier 4

MyWish (added 1/23)

MyWish platform is an ecosystem of smart contracts accumulating a complex of blockchain solutions designed to integrate high technologies into the real sector.

TAU (added 1/21)

Lamden is a suite of developer tools that speed up the process of creating new and custom blockchains and apps. The Lamden Tau token connects these new projects together and with mainchain cryptocurrencies.

BNTY (added 1/21)

A decentralized bounty hunting platform enabling anyone to manage bounty programs, and bounty hunters to receive payment for completing bounty tasks.

Tier 2

 ELF

Based in Singapore, aelf is a crosschain blockchain protocol that intends to become the new internet infrastructure to support the next generation of digital businesses.

The team and its advisors have been advising numerous blockchain projects in the past and they see a few industries who could be the early adopters of aelf: financial services, insurance, digital identity and IPs, smart city, and internet of things.

Aelf will actively identify new business opportunities and dApps to be part of the aelf ecosystem. Below are some of the things that they are planning to do:

Interoperate with existing dApps on existing chains
Nurture new start-ups ideas
Educate and transform established companies to be blockchain savvy
As a “third generation” blockchain, aelf strives to provide a breakthrough in 3 areas: performance, resource segregation, and governance structure. We will explore these features in more detail below.

I am currently carrying no BTC; in the upcoming days I will detail my exit from this position in 2017.

 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.  

Today was a very important day for ICON ($ICX) as they released their Mainnet.

 

“The mainnet launch is a giant step towards achieving our vision — Hyperconnect the World. Clearly, this is exciting news for our team and community. However, we want to remind you that this is only the beginning, there is a lot more works to be done, and subsequent announcements will follow. The ICON Team will continue to perform tests and monitor the network until the official opening of ICON Mainnet for ICX Wallet release.”

For those unaware, a launching a mainnet means that a coin has “left the nest” of its parent blockchain, typically Ethereum, and is now running their own independent blockchain. This is especially important for coins like ICON whose goal is to be their own platform. Until now they have been an Ethereum ERC20 coin while they worked to build up their mainnet and make business connections. Of course, this news has long been priced in, as with the summit next week, but as ICON is opened up to Korean traders we could very likely see ICON go parabolic.

Another coin we are seeing absolutely burn up the charts today is WaltonChain ($WTC), as it was revealed just how big their upcoming conference will be. This Sunday’s conference will broadcast Walton’s strategy, mission, and capability to China and beyond. China’s largest media outlets will be there to relay this news.

This is the beginning of the next phase in Crypto — where things go from being a fun little slot machine where you put some money in, pull the lever, and hope for some high returns from a project you don’t even know much about . . . to serious real world adoption of advanced technology on a large scale. This is next level in the crypto world and the point when people will start to realize that some of this stuff isn’t a joke.

Today it was announced that TRON ($TRX) would be listed on Bitfinex. That is a very good sign as Bitfinex is one of the world’s largest exchanges, even though it’s very possible that is articifial given their continued issuance of their stablecoin, Tether, without letting audits of their reserve take place (spoiler: very shady move). Read more about what they’re up to here.

 

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:

BABB

When – Presale begins January 15th, 2018. The ICO begins Mid February

Token – BAX

Price – ETH price will be fixed two days before the token sale

Supply – A total supply of 50 Billion BAX tokens will be created, with a maximum number of 20 Billion BAX tokens to be sold

Platform – Ethereum

Accepting – ETH

Hard cap – $20 million

A link to the BABB whitepaper

Where to participate in the BABB ICO

  I would like to introduce you to a very powerful bullish pattern, the Cup-with-Handle pattern showing on WaltonChain. I discussed the bullish potential of this coin last week, but felt that it would require more consolidation at the current level. WTC is a great example of a coin that’s not waiting for the rest of the crypto market, and Mav has been overweight on this coin for some time. I got a lousy entry in late October and my stake is already up 490%.Please do not chase this one, there will be another entry down the road.

 

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.