Long lived the king. 2018 will be the year of platform and utility coins. The 2018 market opened with a big rise of financial coins such as XRP and XLM. These coins are the coins that make block chain technology come into real life. XRP replacing some functions of Swift is now reality. More and more blockchain technology will come into life and this will lead to the rapid growth of platform coins.
1st and 2nd generation coins such as BTC, BCH and LTC will slow down their growth. It does not necessarily mean these coins will be dumped. Other coins will grow faster than these and take over their rank. It might not be true for Bitcoin since Bitcoin is still main currency in cryptomarket. However other traditional coins with function limited to "currency" do not seem to have big cap to grow.
To be honest, the only growth cap for these coins is to beat real world cash. I don't think that's going to happen. Analysts have different views on cryptomarket. Some say the market reminds of .com bubble. Others say it is a core technology for 4th generation industry so the coinmarket will last long.
However, even people with skeptical stance acknowledge blockchain technology is great. It is just that blockchain technology is not "coin". In my point of view, they just got half of the point. The key for blockchain technology is the nodes and people around the world run nodes for coin rewards. At this point, there is no better reward than the coin so I can't imagine blockchain technology becoming core technology while coin market declines.
Back to the main topic, crowd are being smarter to look for bigger profit. 1st and 2nd generation coins are too big in size to serve as real world cash. While platform coins such as ETH could take part as a "currency" as well as a platform coin. Yes the platform coin can be a "currency" that delivers asset and a platform.
Why will platform coins emerge? The blockchain got attention from governments, institutions and companies last year. It is just the matter of time for these companies to work on with blockchain. This example might not be exactly the same but might give you some hint. If a company/ government wants to make certain app, would the institute start from building an OS? My bet is no. They will design the app on Apple/ Android instead off building their own OS. This is what platform coin does.
ETH as the biggest platform coin, holds many interesting tokens/coins on their platform. NEO and QTUM has strong regional background. China and South-east Asia. ARDR works with Austrian government and has strong EU background. ADA claims to be more functioning and has big support from Japan. Other new platform coins are being designed and will be launched in future.
Platform coins with successful ecosystem will thrive long and who knows? These coins might be the next Google or Apple.