Now that 2017 is at an end, those who have been a part of the cryptocurrency whirlwind are either happy, upset, or a bit of both. There was a lot of money to be made during the storm, and there was subsequently a lot of money lost to those people who were not properly informed before sinking their life savings into cryptocurrency. So to help you avoid a mistake next year, here are some cryptocurrencies or altcoins you should take a look at investing into for next year's rally (in no particular order).
Oh, and I'm giving you the Easy Crypto 101 definition of each coin to make this simple!
ETH - Ethereum is a decentralized technology platform that uses smart contracts to make life easier. Basically you can use Ethereum in place of traditional paper contracts to say, sell your car, your home, hire a wedding band, and so on, without having to deal with lawyers, paper contracts, or bank / wire transfers. A smart contract does all the work seamlessly, quickly, and for an extremely low fee. Something people don't know (with a few exceptions), is that most altcoins are built on the Ethereum technology. So I guess you could say Ethereum is the father of most altcoins which is why I think it will be very valuable in 2018 and every year thereafter.
XRP - Ripple - The world’s only altcoin that helps banks and corporations (an enterprise blockchain) transfer money quickly and for a very low price.
SC - Siacoin - Decentralized (not stored on just one server owned by one company) cloud storage for a fraction of the cost of Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3, etc.
NEO - Neo - A smart contract blockchain platform also known as China's version of Ethereum,
ARDR - Ardor - Just like Salesforce sells Software as a Service (SaaS), Ardor offers a Blockchain as a Service (BaaS).
ADA - Cardano - An extremely advanced blockchain platform that evolved out of a scientific philosophy.
SYS - SysCoin - The cryptocurrency version of eBay or Craigslist.
XVG - Verge - A completely decentralized and private altcoin that is completely anonymous.
XLM - Stellar - Recently partnered with IBM to help banks transfer money around the world easily and affordably.
AEON - Aeon - Like Monero (XMR), Aeon offers a way to send funds to another party without any identifying information being released. Complete privacy.
CVC - Civic - An altcoin that helps people protect their identity in an age where Equifax was hacked.
TRX - Tron - A decentralized platform that allows people to freely share entertainment, such as music, movies and other content created by their owners.
BNB - Binance Coin - The coin used on the Binance platform, which gives users a huge discount when using BNB to pay fees to buy other coins.
FUEL - Etherparty - Just as Wix and Squarespace made it easier for people to build websites, Etherparty makes it easier for people to create smart contracts.
BTS - BitShares - Using a different approach, Bitshares provide the same freedom of other altcoins but with a value backed by the stability of the dollar.
ENJ - EnjinCoin - Built for the video game market, this platform helps people build websites, sell in game items, and much more.
SUB - Substratum - This platform lets anyone host content and get paid for hosting it in cryptocurrency.
IOTA - MIOTA - Acting as a medium for the Internet of Things, IOTA claims to offer the transfer of value without any fees.
XBY - Xtrabytes - Offers a platform that claims to make blockchains faster, safer, and scalable.
This isn't all of them, but you can do some research on CoinMarketCap and see what else you like!
There's also a bunch of marijuana based altcoins such as: POT, DOPE, THC, CANN that are making the news.
Here's a list of some other coins I am hodling: STEEM, EOS, DGB, ADX, SNT, XEL, ARK, BAT, FUN, POWR, and STRAT.
Hope you do your research and realize, that every single time you invest in an altcoin, you are actually investing in:
A technology that adds value to society
1. Infrastructure and a codebase
2. A team of developers and entrepreneurs that are building said technology and code
3. People using the platform to perform transactions and using the coins to pay for those transactions
4. A decentralized, free, safe, positive Internet