This is a guest post by Henry Benjamin, he has been involved in technology, marketing and cryptocurrency for many years, he currently works for Skycoin. Outside of the cryptoworld he enjoys kayaking and spending time with his family.
Is there still time to invest in cryptocurrency?
In the news, there is much talk about investing in Bitcoin with many people saying to stay away and others saying there is still time to invest in the market leader. What many people are unaware of is the fact some other coins are outperforming BTC from a trading point of view.
There is still plenty of time to invest in this new form of money as long as you do your homework, choose wisely and make sure you understand all of your options.
What to look for
When you are deciding, what is the next big cryptocurrency to invest in, you need to do much homework. A great deal of new up and coming coins are still based on the same technologies as BTC such as the Blockchain.
Although these might be performing well at the moment, they will be surpassed by coins that bring something new to the mix and fix the problems that there is with BTC.
There are also coins that are business specific so their total impact will be thus limited. When you look at a coins background, they need the backing of reliable companies and the potential to fix a problem or fulfill a requirement in today’s market.
A brief example is Power Ledger. This has received a grant from the Australian government as the technology behind it allows end users to re-sell their unused electricity. Although this has the potential to revolutionize the way power is used, the market could be limited for the foreseeable future.
How to Choose the Next Big Crypto?
Market capital is a good indication of the coins performance as a whole. This is the value of this electronic cash that is in circulation in the mainstream marketplace. This, however, should not be used as a basis for what you decide on investing any money into the coin.
As mentioned a coin should come with solid backing, a good history and fix a problem or meet end-user needs. These along with an increasing market cap, when used together, will take you a step closer to finding which coins to invest in.
Why not only invest in Bitcoin?
When the concept of a decentralized currency was released, it was BTC that made the biggest splash. This by no way means it is a perfect solution as it is very far from that. The coin mining that is required uses massive amounts of electricity. Already governments have raised concerns about this one factor.
This mining also raises other questions which go against Satoshi’s original concept. The speed of transactions is becoming slower.
Transaction charges are being imposed when people want their transactions to be completed quicker. With this in mind miners have grouped into mining pools, and around the world, there are three major players. These mining pools have in all sense taken away the decentralized vision.
At present BTC can still be worth a small investment yet not all of it, the world still needs BTC as most altcoins are traded against BTC so that will show no signs of vanishing anytime soon.
What other Crypto Options are there?
When choosing your coin or coins to invest in you have all of the above to consider and more. Trying to guess which will be the next things means you need to look into the future, or at least ask yourself what you would want a coin to do that could make your life easier.
You might find the crypto you finally decide to invest in will not yet be one of the top cryptocurrency list leaders as this is by no means a basis of a profitable coin. There are numerous coins which are way down the rankings which are better investment opportunities.
Ada (Cardano) was developed to introduce smart contracts for the public ledger, this however still uses the same chain network. Ripple is another high performer who is looking to speed up payments across the globe and improve the real vision for the cryptocurrency.
Neo is also following on this trend and is based in China who have taken a back seat with regards to digital currency, so their impact has yet to be seen.
Does any Cryptocurrency bring anything new?
As many of these altcoins are based on the same infrastructure, there is the chance they will hit hurdles regardless of the benefits they bring. Mining is the main one. One coin stands out is Skycoin as it is not built in the same way.
There is no mining of coins, so transactions are as fast as any credit card payment. The infrastructure is still growing as it is about to not only decentralize cryptocurrencies as was envisioned, it will decentralize the internet as we know it today.
There are miners on the network yet these are responsible for the transferring of data from one node to the next. Rather than a few large ISP’s (internet service providers) controlling the internet, the internet will be split over these nodes, and a true P2P mesh network will be formed.
At present SKY is off the main radar, although it has strong backing, it fixes problems inherent with these other technologies, it will speed up the internet and electronic payments, and it eliminates the possibility of mining pools.
This third generation cryptocurrency might just be the one that brings a wealth of benefits to everyone and could be the best sleeper investment for this year.
This has been a guest post.