We are approaching the end of the current year, and it is high time to analyze and plan for the next year. While the 2018 Ripple and Bitcoin Cash Price Prediction gives us high hopes, what really awaits us in the year of the Dog? Here, we discuss the Top 6 Cryptocurrencies 2018 and look at their 2017 performances.
Thus, in this educational piece, we will go over the top 6 cryptocurrency picks for 2018. We will base our judgment on the coins’ performance during the year and the future plans of the teams behind the projects.
Bitcoin (BTC)
Bitcoin now is trading at $12,027.30, while its market capitalization stands at $201,116,445,373. In fact, this year Bitcoin has risen in value 1,000% year-to-date. Such a successful year made this cryptocurrency an attractive asset for the financial institutions and governmental organizations all over the world.
The Bitcoin miners are the key to Bitcoin security and miners are responsible for the creation of new Bitcoins. In fact, keeping your Bitcoin safe is the most important thing to do after buying Bitcoin
Ethereum (ETH)
Ethereum, the second biggest cryptocurrency in the world in terms of the market capitalization, now is changing hands at $464.68, while its market capitalization accounts for $44,678,905,662.
Litecoin (LTC)
Litecoin appears to be one of the best alternatives to Bitcoin. It was created to manage some of the flaws in the original Bitcoin protocol. In fact, Litecoin is one of the very first altcoins in existence after Bitcoin. As of now, one Litecoin trades at $103.43, and its market cap figure is at $5,599,290,398.
Zcash/Monero (ZEC/XMR)
Even though we have placed these two cryptocurrencies together here, yet there are very different technically. You can also study our Zcash vs Monero analysis for an in-depth look. Yet, there two promising cryptocurrencies are aiming to solve the same problem. This problem is anonymous transactions.
Zcash now trades at $324.77, while its market cap is totaling at $899,108,954.
IOTA (MIOTA)
IOTA has one of the biggest potentials to human life change, according to some industry observers. In fact, the cryptocurrency might become the fastest growing market in the next years. However, the most amazing thing is that the development in the linked fields is interconnecting.
This cryptocurrency is concentrated on Machine-to-Machine transactions. Its key purpose is to enable M2M payments via serving the machine economy. Sounds futuristic, isn’t it? It is – because it is really future. This cryptocurrency is quite different from other digital currencies since it does not even based on the blockchain system. IOTA uses the special new concept called the tangle.
Tangle is a special acyclic directed graph, which looks like a web different from a blockchain. Each of the IOTA’s transactions is confirmed by only two other nodes.
As of now, IOTA’s value stands at $2.99, with its market cap accounting for $8,317,744,372.
Cardano is a project that began in 2015 as an effort to change the way cryptocurrencies are designed and developed. The overall focus beyond a particular set of innovations is to provide a more balanced and sustainable ecosystem that better accounts for the needs of its users as well as other systems seeking integration.
In the spirit of many open source projects, Cardano did not begin with a comprehensive roadmap or even an authoritative white paper. Rather it embraced a collection of design principles, engineering best practices and avenues for exploration. These include the following:
Separation of accounting and computation into different layers
Implementation of core components in highly modular functional code
Small groups of academics and developers competing with peer reviewed research
Heavy use of interdisciplinary teams including early use of InfoSec experts
Fast iteration between white papers, implementation and new research required to correct issues discovered during review
Building in the ability to upgrade post-deployed systems without destroying the network
Development of a decentralized funding mechanism for future work
A long-term view on improving the design of cryptocurrencies so they can work on mobile devices with a reasonable and secure user experience
Bringing stakeholders closer to the operations and maintenance of their cryptocurrency
Acknowledging the need to account for multiple assets in the same ledger
Abstracting transactions to include optional metadata in order to better conform to the needs of legacy systems
Learning from the nearly 1,000 altcoins by embracing features that make sense
Adopt a standards-driven process inspired by the Internet Engineering Task Force using a dedicated foundation to lock down the final protocol design
Explore the social elements of commerce
Find a healthy middle ground for regulators to interact with commerce without compromising some core principles inherited from Bitcoin
