Seems like the summer crypto-rollercoaster is on its way. According to the latest news Bitcoin soft fork is scheduled on August 1 and there could be another one on October 15 related to Bitcoin Unlimited. So it's obvious that we'll see high volatily and overall FUD atmosphere.
So here is my plan. As we know when people cash out Bitcoin some of them buy another cryptos. Of course, the first candidate is Ethereum. But I decided to pay attention to smaller projects with good teams and a well-defined niche because I see more room for growth.
I'm looking for projects that solve a particular big problem, have an active development team and catchy brand along with a clear marketing strategy. And of course such a project should have its own trump card, which distinguishes it from the rest. So, here is my favorites.
It is difficult to overestimate this project. I think this one has the real value. I see how people enjoy being on the platform and I can make prediction that SteemIt will be huge. 
Stratis is super solid project from UK. What I like about this startup that it has a business model and that's not common in the crypto space. Stratis is BaaS (Blockchain As Service). It's like Ethereum but provides the enterprise managed service. The second important thing, the development team never missed a single deadline. And the third is their community. Just enter the slack chanell and feel this great atmosphere. 
Factom in another BaaS providing an unalterable record-keeping system for various business sectors. It already has use cases in real estate and healthcare. So Its trump card is real world applications. It is worth noting that the firm received a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Now I want to list privacy-focused cryptocurrencies. The more regulation comes into the cryptosphere (for example this one), the greater the need for such projects. And I think PIVX is a flagman in this area. Born as Dash fork, It has more privacy and more thoughtful architecture. I like how they make promo material and how they push the project to the massmarket. Killer features are the governance system (when every participant can vote for important decisions on the project) and big staking rewards. 
Spectre is a project aimed at complete anonymity. It has great wallet (probably one of the best on the market), Tor support and several tough privacy algorithms. Note that the project has pretty low capitalization, at the time of writing about ~8M.
Remember, before making an investment decision do your own in-depth research!
CW