Which cryptocurrency to invest in now. How to invest in cryptocurrency and what projects are interesting for investment? Promising cheap cryptocurrencies

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Good afternoon, our dear visitors and readers! Today we will continue to consider the topic of cryptocurrencies and talk about which cryptocurrency to invest in in 2018. 2017 is already history, and 2018 is before us. Naturally, quite rationally, people are interested in the topic of cryptocurrencies and its future for the next year.

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In addition, the moment is also important, but in which cryptocurrency should you invest in the coming 2018? Accordingly, I decided to tell you which cryptocurrencies to invest in in 2018 would be the most appropriate. I want to say right away that my words are subjective.

I'm not going to impose anything on you, I'm just reflecting my own opinion, that's all! Many argue about whether mining will die in 2018? Here, of course, it is worth understanding that mining today is not what it was a couple of years ago - everything has become much more complicated. The fact is that industrial miners, which have huge capacities and resources, have massively entered the arena. Naturally, ordinary miners will not be able to compete with such giants. Many are wondering if mining will die in 2018? Personally, I think not, but here we must understand that the share and influence of the so-called garage mining is gradually being lost.

What cryptocurrency to mine in 2018?

It would seem that the answer to this question is very simple and logical. In theory, it is necessary to mine those cryptocurrencies that are most popular. However, not everything is so simple in our world and there are a number of nuances that must be taken into account. For example, if we talk about bitcoin, then it requires the introduction of more and more capacities.

And here I'm not even talking about the quality and high cost of the equipment that you will use, I'm talking here to a greater extent about the amount of electricity that this equipment will consume. Accordingly, if we talk specifically about bitcoin mining for 2018, then the cost of electricity is of particular importance. Roughly speaking, the less you pay for electricity, the more profitable it will be for you to mine bitcoin.

In general, you should understand that if you are wondering which cryptocurrency to invest in in 2018, then the world has not converged on Bitcoin alone. There are a bunch of calculators where you can quickly and for free calculate how much income you can get from a particular cryptocurrency through mining. In general, the most popular cryptocurrencies for mining now are Bitcoin and .

In general, the profitability of mining these particular cryptocurrencies will be high if their rate is also high, but there are big questions about this.

Which cryptocurrencies to invest in 2018

If we talk about the same bitcoin, then in the context of this issue, the world is divided into two opposite camps. Some say that the collapse of bitcoin is on the nose, while others give extremely optimistic forecasts, where there are simply sky-high figures for the value of this crypt.

You know, the forecast of the first does not look like something fantastic. You need to understand that the higher the value of the currency, the lower the probability of its jump. In addition, a number of countries are still actively expressing their dissatisfaction with the fact that bitcoin is often used for calculation by various criminal structures and corrupt officials. After all, his anonymity is just like a gift for these purposes.

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Yes, from the point of view of bitcoin capitalization, this affects it very positively. But, on the other hand, it will not be all that rosy if he gets banned.

In addition, the tangible cost of bitcoin further increases the possible risks that not everyone can afford. Let's be frank, bitcoin is now very expensive and few people will be able to invest significant money in this area so calmly. In general, many large investors look at bitcoin with general mistrust so far, for many of them it is a bubble. Here is a page about it:.

According to this, it seems to me that bitcoin is not yet the most profitable option in terms of investment. Still, investing big money here is scary enough, whatever one may say. Well, here we come to the most interesting thing, which cryptocurrency to invest in in 2018? Whose value is not overstated yet, but the tools have potential? In general, in this regard, I recommend taking a closer look at three cryptocurrencies:

But, of course, you must understand that in the context of this question there are also disadvantages.

• Expend. It is worth noting here that for some brokers the spread can be much higher than the commission when you trade on the exchange.
• No one cancels the fact that a broker may turn out to be a scammer. But here you need to understand that you need to choose a high-quality broker who has been working on the market for a long time. Thankfully there are now!
• Some brokers may not be able to trade bitcoin on weekends.

In addition, please note that brokers trade cryptocurrencies as part of CFD contracts. That is, you work with contracts for difference, and you are not a physical asset holder.

The analytical service Coinmarketcap is very popular among crypto enthusiasts all over the world. This is evidenced by the dynamics of growth in attendance of this resource, growing from month to month.

The Coinmarketcap service collects all cryptocurrencies that are listed on at least one exchange and that have a block chain, as well as open source code.

At the time of writing this review, the service has over 800 digital assets sorted by capitalization. The latter is the product of the current price of the cryptocurrency and the volume of its supply on the market.

The most trusted among traders and crypto-investors are the digital currencies presented in the top ten of the Coinmarketcap rating. This is due to various factors, the most important of which are:

• high liquidity,
• stable growth of the exchange rate,
• perspectives further development ecosystems,
• developer reputation.

It is also worth noting that in the world of cryptocurrencies, everything is changing very rapidly. Nevertheless, at the time of writing this review, the total capitalization of the top ten cryptocurrencies of the Coinmarketcap rating is $122.4 billion. popular digital currencies will be 88%.

List of cryptocurrencies worth investing in 2017

We will consider the most reliable and promising cryptocurrencies today.

Bitcoin (stock ticker - BTC)

Bitcoin is the first ever and most popular cryptocurrency in the world. Created at the turn of 2008-2009. Despite such a “venerable age”, the cryptocurrency is actively developing, developments are being carried out on the basis of the Bitcoin blockchain and various solutions are being implemented to improve it. It was the emergence of bitcoin that caused such a rapid development of the cryptocurrency market and the regular appearance of a wide variety of digital assets. Bitcoin is based on the revolutionary blockchain technology, which has been actively researched and developed by the largest companies in the world for several years, and is also used in many industries.

The current capitalization of bitcoin is $71 billion, which exceeds the value of many large world-famous companies. The supply of the first digital currency is strictly limited to 21 million BTC. On the Coinmarketcap website, you can see the current volume of supply of bitcoin on the market - 16,506,412 BTC, the daily exchange trading volume, as well as various useful links to official sources of information, social media, block explorers, exchanges where this cryptocurrency is presented, etc.

Ethereum (ETH)

It is a digital currency of a platform for creating decentralized blockchain-based online services (Dapps) based on smart contracts. If bitcoin is often called “digital gold” (due to the complexity of its production, limited supply and excellent investment qualities), then Ethereum is sometimes called the “digital analogue of oil”. This is because the ETH cryptocurrency is a kind of “fuel” for smart contracts and Dapps created on their basis.

In the crypto community, disputes about which investment object is more attractive - bitcoin or Ethereum - do not subside. Despite the relatively young age of the latter (the Ethereum network was launched on July 30, 2015), rather well-known personalities of the cryptocurrency world prefer “ether”. They are convinced that the popularity of Ethereum will soon overshadow Bitcoin.

The rapid growth in the popularity of Ethereum is evidenced by the following graph, which reflects the share of the most popular cryptocurrencies on the market:

So far, the volume of the market capitalization of “digital oil” ($28 billion) is less than the corresponding indicator of bitcoin by about two and a half times.

At the same time, the potential of Ethereum is high and attracts the attention of major software developers such as Microsoft and IBM. There are many ICOs (Initial Coin Offering) on ​​the Ethereum platform, and many crypto tokens are created on the basis of the ERC-20 standard underlying it.

Ripple (XRP)

This cryptocurrency is used in the real-time gross settlement system, as well as for currency exchange and money transfers. The Ripple protocol was launched in 2012. Its goal is to provide "secure, instant and near-free global financial transactions of any size without chargebacks." According to some crypto enthusiasts, the Ripple payment system may become an “alternative to SWIFT” in the future.

The largest companies and banks in the world cooperate with Ripple, including BBVA, Mizuho, ​​Mitsubishi UFJ, UniCredit, UBS and Santander. Ripple investors include names such as Accenture, Andreessen Horowitz, Google Ventures, and Seagate.

The rapid rise in the price of Ripple (XRP) occurred in the first half of this year and allowed the cryptocurrency to confidently gain a foothold in the top three of the Coinmarketcap rating. At the moment, the capitalization of the XRP cryptocurrency is approaching 7 billion. There were times when the capitalization of Ripple exceeded the total market value of the digital currency Ethereum.

Bitcoin Cash (BTC)

This is the “alternative to bitcoin” that appeared as a result of the hard fork. So, on August 1, the bitcoin blockchain split into two chains and a new digital asset appeared - Bitcoin Cash (sometimes - Bcash), which has a common history with bitcoin, but is traded under a different ticker - BCC (less often - BCH).

After the hard fork, many exchanges and wallets gave the holders of “digital gold” a great opportunity to get a certain amount of Bitcoin Cash tokens, which should correspond to the balance of Bitcoin in a 1:1 ratio. For example, if a user has 1 BTC on his wallet, he will receive 1 BCC after the hard fork.

Immediately after its appearance on the exchanges, the new cryptocurrency was in third place in terms of capitalization, leaving behind such “veterans” of the market as Litecoin and Ripple. However, shortly after the exchanges made Bitcoin Cash I/O available, the “alternative to Bitcoin” began to plummet in price. So, if on August 2 the price of BCC reached 0.485 BTC (about $1300) on the Bittrex exchange, then two days later its weighted average price slightly exceeded $250.

Not everything is going well with the new cryptocurrency. Bitcoin Cash is not as attractive for mining as “regular” bitcoin, and its network is constantly experiencing various problems. Apparently, the new cryptocurrency owes its capitalization of $4.8 billion only to the popularity of bitcoin, nothing more.

IOTA

Cryptocurrency of the exchange network project for the Internet of things. It is based on the unique Tangle consensus method. The main feature of the latter is the absence of miners. In addition, there are no commissions for transactions in the network - the latter are mutually confirmed by the nodes of the network.

The uniqueness of IOTA also lies in the fact that network participants are not divided into users and transaction validators. Each node both sends and confirms transactions that are not packed into blocks (which distinguishes IOTA tokens from the vast majority of other digital currencies). The throughput of an IOTA network is proportional to the number of nodes and their activity.

IOTA tokens are traded primarily on the popular Hong Kong exchange Bitfinex. It is noteworthy that other trading platforms are not yet in a hurry to include this innovative cryptocurrency in the listing. On the other hand, IOTA is slowly gaining mainstream acceptance. So, last month, SatoshiPay, a service specializing in micropayments, announced its intention to abandon the use of bitcoin in favor of the IOTA cryptocurrency.

If we consider the global prospects of the new cryptocurrency, then they seem quite interesting. So, according to research by TechNavio, from 2017 to 2021. the compound annual growth rate of the global Internet of Things (IoT) market will be 4%. This means that the global IoT market will reach $1.37 billion by 2021, with 81% of the market growth coming from a variety of electronic gadgets.

Recently, the IOTA cryptocurrency has been showing steady growth and the price of one token has reached $0.88. IOTA's market capitalization has passed the $2 billion mark.

Litecoin (LTC)

A popular fork of bitcoin, often referred to as “digital silver”. Litecoin was one of the first to activate support for the SegWit protocol. However, even before the activation of Segregated Witness, Litecoin was distinguished by a significantly faster transaction confirmation time than the same bitcoin. Currently, the project continues to actively develop under the leadership of its famous creator Charlie Lee.

For several years, Litecoin has been “in the shadow” of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, trading in the region of $3-$4 per coin. In March of this year, on the eve of the implementation of SegWit, the price of “digital gold” began to skyrocket. Now the price of Litecoin is approaching $50 per coin and, according to many analysts, this is far from the limit. Cryptocurrency is presented on most exchanges and exchange platforms, and is also accepted by many companies as a means of payment.

The maximum supply of Litecoin is limited to 84 million tokens and currently 52.4 million LTC are circulating on the market.

NEO

The NEO digital asset platform (formerly known as Antshares) is often referred to as the “Chinese Ethereum.” Recently, the representatives of the project have completed the complete rebranding. In particular, the Chinese startup announced an upgrade of blockchain nodes, an update of technical documentation, social media, an official website, a change in the stock ticker, and a successful transition to the NEO 2.0 smart contract system.

The NEO coin has been showing impressive growth for a long time, which allowed the cryptocurrency to take the 7th Coinmarketcap rating in a short period of time. In just the last three months, the price of the cryptocurrency has increased by about 20 times and now NEO is trading around $45. The supply of NEO is fixed and limited to one hundred million tokens, of which 50 million coins are in circulation on the market. The volume of market capitalization of “Chinese Ethereum” exceeds $2 billion.

It is also worth noting that the project is developing very actively and has already established cooperation with well-known blockchain startups, including Bancor, Coindash and Agrello. Chinese blockchain startup Red Pulse has announced the creation of a financial research platform that will be built on the NEO 2.0 smart contract system. Also, in collaboration with the NEO project, a blockchain operating system called Elastos is being developed. According to the developers, it is designed to “explore the technological value of using blockchain applications in new Internet operating systems and further develop the Smart Economy.”

NEM (XEM)

This digital currency gained notoriety in early 2015. It differs from many other digital currencies by its original open source code and a number of interesting innovations. For example, the XEM cryptocurrency is based on the POI (Proof Of Importance) algorithm, a modification of “proof-of-stake”. However, unlike PoS, in POI, in addition to proof of storage of a certain amount of funds, user activity is also taken into account - the number of transactions carried out by him. Receiving a block reward on the NEM network is called “harvesting”.

A major update called Catapult is expected this year, during which NEM will move from Java to C ++. A new version private network has been tested for stable operation at a speed of up to 3000 transactions per second. The update will take place first on the private Mijin blockchain and then on the public NEM chain.

Also, on the basis of NEM, a new COMSA platform is being developed, which is designed to support projects in conducting transparent and orderly ICOs. According to the representatives of the project, the new solution will greatly optimize the process of attracting investments in digital currency.

The capitalization of XEM exceeds $2 billion. The coin is popular not only in its native Japan, but is also actively traded on a number of major exchanges, including Poloniex and Bittrex.

Dash

• transactions anonymized thanks to the Darksend mechanism;
• a combination of several cryptographic algorithms is used;
• Mining Dash requires less energy than Bitcoin;
• decisions about the development of the system are made not by individual programmers, but by all members of the Dash network through a decentralized management mechanism.

The so-called masternodes operate in the DASH network - special nodes that ensure the operation of the PrivateSend transaction mixing mechanism. To stimulate the work of masternodes, a reward is provided, which is 50% of the miner's reward for the found block. The DASH system also implements the InstantSend instant transaction service. Another feature of the DASH cryptocurrency is the use of the X11 hashing algorithm.

The DASH cryptocurrency has many supporters. Since its inception, the price of the cryptocurrency has risen several hundred times, and Digital Cash is currently trading in the region of $200.

Ethereum Classic (ETC)

Introduced in 2016 as a result of a hard fork, the “twin brother” of Ethereum (ETH). In other words, this cryptocurrency is the same Ethereum, before the hard fork. The goal of the project is to keep the original Ethereum decentralized, immutable and uncensorable.

A year ago, many considered Ethereum Classic “stillborn”, but this turned out to be far from the case. ETC is still in the top 10 list of cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. An ardent supporter of Ethereum Classic is a well-known crypto enthusiast and head of the Digital Currency Group, Barry Silbert. Largely thanks to his efforts, the ETC cryptocurrency appeared in the Bloomberg Terminal professional computer system.

In general, the growth of Ethereum Classic was strongly activated in the spring of 2017, after the launch of the Ethereum Classic Investment Trust. Further growth of Ethereum Classic is expected to be stable, if only thanks to the balanced monetary policy of the project, which provides for emission limits and a reduction in block rewards. In particular, the total number of coins will be approximately 210 million, but not more than 230 million; As for the block reward, it will be reduced by 20% after block number 5,000,000 and will decrease by 20% thereafter after every subsequent 5 million blocks.

Monero (XMR)

Monero is an anonymous bitcoin. “Isn’t bitcoin anonymous?” - you ask; and the answer will be - "Unfortunately, not at all." Highlighting the wallet address in BTC will allow anyone to see all incoming and outgoing transactions for the entire period.

First, services appeared in bitcoin that mixed black and white cash (mixers) together, thanks to which the money that came from “it is not clear where” fell on the wallet. Simply put, you sent bitcoin to the site, it interfered with other bitcoins and sent one of the other bitcoins to the final address.

Such a site has become popular with the black market: sellers of drugs and weapons. However, the bitcoin-based implementation relies on you to trust the owner of the mixing service - and that he will not turn you in to the police.

What is unacceptable when life and freedom are on the scales. In Monero, this mixing is built in - usually transactions are mixed with each other, and in many cases it is not possible to trace them. This raises the currency's potential for the black market - which is how it got its first growth.

It also seems to me that the anonymity of transactions, aka banking secrecy, is a necessity for the acceptance of any cryptocurrency as a popular means of payment. The capitalization of the Monero market is now 1/100 of bitcoin, that is, the growth potential is great. Monero is the project where I put the most money.

How and where to invest in cryptocurrencies?

The easy way- buy bitcoin for real money on a cryptocurrency exchange, and then buy one of the selected coins for it. Or through an exchanger, but there, as a rule, the commission is a little higher, but in this case you can get coins immediately to a cold wallet (it is more reliable), without additional transfers.

Second way- extract cryptocurrency by mining on your equipment, and after transferring it to the exchange, you can exchange it for any other. You can assemble a "farm" for mining at home. The minimum amount required to purchase equipment is several thousand dollars.

Third way- cloud mining. There are a fairly large number of services that are ready to provide computing power for rent. They can be used to mine cryptocurrency. A smaller amount of funds will be required to invest, but experts, in turn, warn that against the backdrop of the growing popularity of digital currency and mining, a large number of scammers have appeared. If you are going to engage in cloud mining, we recommend this service:

After investing in any significant amount, it is better to send everything to a separate wallet - otherwise you risk losing your savings when the exchange is hacked. Make sure your vault is not connected to the internet - it's safer that way.

Get ready not to “drain” investments during the next market panic. Those who are ready for prolonged discomfort due to negative exchange rate fluctuations break the biggest jackpot.

Advantages and disadvantages of investing in cryptocurrency

Investments in any financial instrument have both positive and negative sides and cryptocurrencies are no exception. Before investing real money in cryptocurrencies, it is better to familiarize yourself with all the advantages and disadvantages. Let's start with the pros:

• state authorities cannot freeze the investor's account or restrict its activities; it is impossible to track payments, which means that the level of income is hidden from the tax authorities;
• good prospects for further growth;
• several investment options (mining or speculation);
• a large number of cryptocurrencies worth investing in.

However, there are downsides to investing in cryptocurrencies. Among the minuses it is worth noting:

• the inability to cancel the transaction, even if it did not occur at the will of the owner of the wallet; a large number of hackers who are trying to gain access to other people's wallets;
• high exchange rate fluctuations, which makes it difficult to predict the real income from mining.

Pros and cons of investing in bitcoins

To decide whether to invest your own money in cryptocurrency or not, you need to understand what financial benefits it will bring and what risks you will have to face. Here I will try to describe everything in as much detail as possible, but you will need to make a decision about investing in bitcoin on your own.

Pros of investing in bitcoin

1. Pretty stable growth. In the entire history of the existence of bitcoin, of course, there have been big drops, but this happened infrequently: on average, once every 2-3 years. The quadruple growth in 2016 significantly covers the falls: a successful investor can, having invested in the most popular cryptocurrency, not face a fall in its exchange rate in a year.
2. User trust. Bitcoin managed to become popular: even falling, it subsequently grew sharply upwards. Today, a huge number of bitcoin users acts as a kind of “guarantor” of its stability: several million literate people cannot trust an unreliable asset, right?
3. High liquidity. Selling bitcoin today is not a problem: bitcoin ATMs are opening all over the world, the number of bitcoin exchanges is increasing every year, even some outlets accept the most popular cryptocurrency.
4. Independence from external events. Probably only failures in computer systems can negatively affect bitcoin. Political, economic, social "trouble" - all this is nothing to bitcoin: it is completely decentralized, and events in any country or region, in fact, do not affect it in any way.
5. Low control. Bitcoin today is one of two means of payment (the second is cash), the control over the circulation of which is almost impossible. This is very convenient: the supervisory authorities do not know how much money you have, where you keep it and what you spend it on.
6. Low commissions. Maybe not the most important advantage of bitcoin, but I decided to talk about it. Today, although commissions are charged for storage, exchange and other operations with the most popular cryptocurrency, small size, which distinguishes them favorably from the money that is stored in banks. As financial institutions increase fees for their services more and more, this advantage of bitcoin will come to the fore.

Risks and disadvantages

1 Scaling issue. The bitcoin network grows over time as the number of bitcoins goes up. However, the bandwidth of the cryptocurrency network does not change, which is why today there are already problems with transfers.

The most important negative consequence is the increase in the time it takes to transfer bitcoins from the sender to the recipient. Often they just get stuck on the web. In addition, limited bandwidth has made small bitcoin transactions unprofitable.

The problem is now being solved by both Segregated Witness and Bitcoin Unlimited, but they still have not been able to completely eliminate it. This means that if the protocol remains old, then the system will pass less and less bitcoins through itself, which will lead to a decrease in the attractiveness of bitcoin for investors. Those bitcoin owners who prefer to store their funds not on exchanges, but on local wallets suffer the most from the problem: in order for their bitcoins to get into the system, they need to be transferred from their own storage, and today it takes a lot of time and takes a lot of nerves.

2 The possibility of the formation of a "bubble". Many investors have great doubts about whether to invest in bitcoin in 2017. The thing is that in less than five months, the rate has increased almost 2 times (January - $ 1,000, mid-May - $ 2,050).

Of course, objective reasons also speak for bitcoin, of which there are also many, so the current growth does not necessarily need to be considered as a “bubble” that will definitely burst. Of course, bitcoin’s volatility is very high (however, one shouldn’t expect anything else from an asset with such a yield), however, many analysts predict its imminent decrease due to the stabilization of the development of the most popular cryptocurrency.

Pros and cons of investing in altcoins

Altcoins are all digital currencies other than bitcoin. Investments in them today are also profitable, however, there are plenty of risks here.

Consider the main features of altcoins.

Growth prospects

Altcoins are young cryptocurrencies: most of them are not yet five years old. As I said at the beginning, DASH and ETH saw both 12x and 8x increases in value in 2016 (Bitcoin has “only” quadrupled in comparison). Other digital currencies also have the potential for almost unlimited growth: very few people know about them yet.

"Low Base"

The “low base” effect is something that can ruin inexperienced altcoin investors: knowledgeable players take it into account, but those who started investing in an alternative cryptocurrency after its multiple growth may face great disappointment.

What is the "low base effect"? I will not load the theory, but immediately move on to an example.

So, let's imagine a situation in which some cryptocurrency costs $2. Its popularity is not very high yet - investors do not consider such a digital currency a highly profitable asset and do not pay attention to it.

This is used by players “to increase”, starting to massively increase the rate of the cryptocurrency, and in a month its rate is already $32.

Growth by 5 times is huge, but it was not supported by any fundamental reasons, but only by the activity of the players, which tomorrow may turn completely in the opposite direction.

In addition, although in relative terms the increase was 5 times, in absolute terms the price of the altcoin increased by only $30. If the price of such a currency increases by $30 again, then its price will be $62. Not to mention that it will be much more difficult to “warm up” such growth, the relative increase will be much smaller: 62:32 ≈ 2.

A two-fold increase is, of course, not bad either, but inexperienced investors are counting on a five-fold increase!

That is why the “low base” effect should definitely be taken into account, paying attention to the positions from which the altcoin began to grow.

Free webinar on how to invest in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies with only 1000 rubles on hand -

Recently, we have experienced a huge boom in the cryptocurrency market.

More recently, only those who constantly work with technology were familiar with digital assets.

Already today, one of the most popular queries in search engines has become the question of which coin is better to invest in in 2018.

A couple of years ago, there were only a few dozen cryptocurrencies in the network, the choice was between the three main ones, and even now people simply cannot understand all this variety of assets.

It's about not getting confused and knowing exactly which investment will be profitable and which will lead to loss of funds.

The market has seriously changed within 2-3 years. Instead of amateurs, big investors are flooding it with huge investments. Along with this, the number of cryptocurrencies has also increased. Instead of several dozen, their number exceeded 1200.

On the one side, such diversity helps to diversify the investment portfolio, which is an important step for successful earnings on such shaky funds.

On the other hand, this seriously confuses the user in choosing one or another coin for investment.

So what are the best coins to invest in in 2018?

This is the main question of a beginner who has decided to invest in cryptocurrencies.

Everyone knows such veterans as bitcoin, litecoin, ripple, ethereum and relatively new players such as dash, neo, zcash and others.

Here is a list of the highest performing crypto assets by various characteristics. This list is in no particular order.

bitcoin

First introduced to the community back in 2009, it is the first implementation of a cryptocurrency network.

Satoshi Nakamoto, an anonymous developer or group of people, sent a bitcoin white paper to prominent cryptographers and programmers in 2008.

This is how this giant appeared, which still causes a lot of controversy among users.

The paper titled “Bitcoin: Electronic P2P Payment System” lays out all the details about the cryptocurrency and its plans. In January 2009, Satoshi mined the first block, often referred to as Genesis, for a reward of 50 coins. Genesis mining did activated the bitcoin network.

Unlike traditional currencies, which rely on government and corporate bodies, bitcoin is created in a completely different way.

And bitcoin can be seen as a direct implementation of this protocol. Instead of a private distributed ledger stored in a centralized system, Bitcoin's ledger is public.

The public ledger is called the blockchain. Bitcoin is created by the network's transaction verification system - using a proof-of-work algorithm and a process called mining.

Miners verify transactions by deciding computational task and adding a block.

In total, only 21 million bitcoins can exist, of which 1 million are assigned to anonymous developers. The Bitcoin Foundation currently develops and maintains the network.

What makes bitcoin interesting to invest in 2018?

What makes Bitcoin a good option for investors is its massive popularity.

Since its inception, cryptocurrency has always been a favorite among hobbyists. But recent price spikes have raised interest among large investors.

Of the 21 million bitcoins that will exist, 16 million are already in circulation. Bitcoin currently has a market capitalization of $115 billion with a value of $6,807 per coin. At some point, the price grew at an incredible speed, knocking down all record levels and shocking even the most experienced users. Bitcoin not only became the first cryptocurrency in existence, but also the first to set such massive records. However, more recently, the value of the coin began to seriously fall.

Now the system generates 12.5 + 0.123 bitcoins per block. This reward is expected to be reduced to 6.25 bitcoins per block after 2020. The platform halves the block reward every 4 years to control supply.

Problems with bitcoin

Some experts believe that Bitcoin, which is a cryptocurrency that was created back in 2009, is based on outdated technologies.

Due to this, it is much slower than other altcoins.

That is why the Bitcoin Foundation is implementing an algorithm, better known as segwit, to solve some problems.

One of the most fundamental problems of bitcoin is the energy consumption of its production.

A lot of people are concerned that this cryptocurrency requires a lot of energy. This is somewhere around 23 terawatt-hours, which can provide the entire country of Ecuador.

Litecoin

Charlie Lee, a former Google employee, created Litecoin in 2011. - one of the first cryptocurrencies issued after bitcoin - .

Although it still stands next to bitcoin everywhere, there are some cardinal differences between the two. Litecoin is also an open source P2P cryptocurrency project under the X11 license.

Main differences between Litecoin and Bitcoin– higher speed of litecoin block generation (2.5 minutes), and the use of different hashing algorithms. Instead of the SHA256 algorithm, Litecoin uses scrypt.

In addition, Litecoin also has a maximum supply of 84 million coins, which is 4 times higher than that of Bitcoin. The rate of generation of tokens per block is similarly halved every 4 years.

The Litecoin development team was very quick to address scalability issues.

Litecoin was one of the first cryptocurrencies to adopt the Segwit protocol.

It also supports the lightning network, which allows transactions to be processed about four times faster than bitcoin.

What makes Litecoin a good investment?

Litecoin currently has a market capitalization of $6 billion and is valued at $118, well below the value of Bitcoin.

This is relatively cheap price opens the door for investment to both small and large investors. Litecoin has consistently shown good progress over the years and has never disappointed the cryptocurrency community.

Problems with Litecoin

The Litecoin Foundation is very active in improving the functioning of the platform. Thus, Litecoin has no major setbacks. But since the cryptocurrency also uses the PoW algorithm, it wastes a lot of resources.

Ethereum

Many experts believe that ethereum has no major problems, as the development team is always updating it to meet new industry standards. But, as always, frequent errors and inaccuracies in the system can be the cause.

Ethereum Classic

It is currently worth approximately $14 for a token with a $1.3 billion market cap.

Ethereum classic is a very promising project, and so far it shows excellent results.

Ripple

is a popular open source Internet protocol that supports real-time settlements, fast money transfers and currency exchange.

The developers created Ripple based on P2P.

Cryptocurrency is fundamentally different from other coins.

The Ripple network supports many different currencies and even digital tokens. Ripple is almost hundreds of times faster than Bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies. It can process transactions with its advanced consensus system within 4 seconds, whereas Bitcoin takes at least an hour.

According to the Ripple Foundation, they did not launch the project to compete with others.

Instead, they are developing a next-generation transactional system to counter the traditional one, which is very slow.

Why should you invest in Ripple in 2018?

The project is supported by several large banks and corporate organizations such as Santander, UniCredit, UBS, Axis Bank and others.

Many people do not pay enough attention to Ripple because the XRP currency is worth a penny.

But what they don't understand is that Ripple doesn't work like most other currencies. All coins have already been issued. That's why it's valued at $0.49 even though it has a capitalization of $19 billion.

XRP is also the third most popular and most traded crypto asset. Faster transactions and an extremely scalable platform help RippleNet grow continuously.

Problems with Ripple

Many experts assure that Ripple has no flaws. However, the distribution of Ripple tokens has been centralized and most of the coins are held by developers and other large companies that support it.

Dash

is an open source cryptocurrency that has been operating since the beginning of 2014.

At first it was called XCoin, but in 2015 it was renamed DarkCoin.

Finally, the coin was soon rebranded as Dash, a digital money purse.

dash is a user-friendly cryptocurrency network that is self-financed and self-managed. In fact, this is the first decentralized autonomous organization that is tested for the Sybil attack.

Unlike Bitcoin, which has a single tier network, dash operates on two tiers.

The first level consists of miners who mine new coins.

While the second level consists of Masternodes that perform various tasks. These tasks include managing the platform and performing critical functions such as InstaSend and PrivateSend.

Should you invest in Dash in 2018?

This is a promising investment. Dash is a promising cryptocurrency project that has an amazing business structure.

It's also very safe. Operations are fast and the platform provides unique scalability features.

At the time of this writing, dash has a market cap of $2.4 billion and a unit price of $304. According to Coinmarketcap, Dash has a 24-hour trading volume of around $90 million, proof of its ever-increasing popularity.

ZCASH

Very similar to Bitcoin, but with an added layer of security and anonymity.

Zcash also allows users to selectively disclose transaction and account balance information. This feature allows tax authorities to conduct audits.

Why invest in zicash?

Zcash has a price of $196 and a market cap of $754 million.

NEM

Completely developed using Java, it is a P2P cryptocurrency with revolutionary features.

Instead of the universal proof of work algorithm that is used in most other cryptocurrencies, NEM uses proof of importance.

NEM also supports various new features such as multi-valued accounts, the EigenTrust++ reputation system, and encrypted messages.

NEM runs on a commercial blockchain called MIJIN. MIJIN is currently being stress tested by financial institutions in Japan and around the world. Japan has become one of the first countries in cryptocurrency trading. So, NEM has a bright future.

Should you invest in NEM?

Now NEM has a market capitalization of $2 billion and is ranked 15th.

The XEM token has a relatively low price of only $0.2. This makes the coin a good choice for people who want to invest small amounts.

Monero

Launched in 2014, it has become one of the most popular crypto assets.

It is built on the CryptoNote protocol and is mainly focused on providing a decentralized and scalable privacy-focused cryptocurrency.

Why is it profitable to invest in Monero?

Monero currently has a market capitalization of $2.8 billion.

This figure is constantly growing. Currently, XMR, Monero's native token, has a value of $179, just right for newbie investors.

Problems with Monero

Focused on privacy. A lot of information is encrypted, it can be hidden even from the system itself.

Monero experienced rapid market cap growth in 2016 when it was listed on AlphaBay.

Alfabey is a wide online marketplace specializing in the sale of illegal and smuggled goods.

It was tracked down and closed down by law enforcement in July 2017.

Monero is also relatively easy to mine. It can be mined using consumer grade CPUs and GPUs.

The developers of Monero are against ASICs, so they completely blocked access to these miners.

In October 2017, XMR made headlines because news of illegal activity surfaced. A site called Coinhive developed a javascript code that allowed websites and even viruses to mine XMR on the victim's computer without any consent.

Some sites that have implemented this javascript have been honest enough to add a disclaimer.

While other sites such as The Pirate Bay have faced huge backlash for not notifying users.

NEO

Often referred to as the “Chinese Ethereum”, NEO is an open-source P2P cryptocurrency that is a bit like Ethereum.

But this does not mean that NEO is a complete Ethereum clone.

Incorporated Ethereum features such as decentralized applications and smart contracts, but the development team also greatly improved them.

Unlike , where smart contracts can only be generated using specialized programming languages.

In NEO, contracts can be generated using popular languages ​​such as C, C++, Java and more.

The only plan of the NEO development team is to create a smart economy. And, according to them, this can be achieved by combining digital assets, and digital identities. NEO is quite interesting and can be considered as a serious competitor for Ethereum.

Investing in NEO

NEO is currently ranked #9 on Coinmarketcap with a market cap of $3.2 billion.

It currently costs about $48 per unit.

NEO problems

NEO has a lot of potential and the development team is fully focused on their goal.

But the only problem is that the development team lacks good marketing.

Unlike other cryptocurrencies that can be bought without too much difficulty, buying NEO can be a major hassle.

Currently, the only way to buy NEO is through exchanges like , Binance and others.

Output

So, the main goal of the investor was and remains earnings. It does not matter at all whether the user is a beginner or a pro, everyone makes mistakes.

In order to minimize risks, you need to understand which investment will be profitable and which will be disappointing.

That was the purpose of this article. Here are the top 10 cryptocurrencies worth investing in in 2018.

We hope that now users will have less doubt and fear about this. This top will help you make an informed decision.

Most fast way to earn is to buy cryptocurrency. No other investment products can compare with it in terms of profitability. In 2017, most crypto coins increased their value by several times, and investors received huge profits. Now is the time to consider which are the most promising cryptocurrencies you can invest money in in 2020 to get income. At the same time, you need to remember about portfolio diversification and take into account all the risks.

The most popular cryptocurrencies Bitcoin, Ethereum will not bring such great profitability as new and still little-known tokens. By investing in them, you can increase your capital several times and get a few X's.

In the investment portfolio for 2018, we have included and staked on the following new and promising cryptocurrencies: Tron (TRX), Stellar Lumens (XML), Cardano (ADA), EOS, Zilliqa (ZIL), Binance Coin (BNB), Vechain (VEN), Tezos (XTZ), Lisk (LSK), Ontology (ONT), 0x (ZRX) and others. Why these coins? Soon, most of them will launch MainNet (main network), which means the transition to their own blockchain. For example, EOS will launch on June 2, 2018; for TRX - May 31; Zilliqa - in the 3rd quarter. Stellar XML introduces Lightthing technology in the fall, in addition, the project cooperates with the well-known IBM company.

All the most promising crypto-coins can be purchased on the exchange - the largest crypto-exchange in the world in terms of turnover.

Update 2019. Separately, I would like to mention cryptocurrency. According to experts, this is one of the best coins for long-term investment. The BNB exchange rate increased several times in 2019 despite the market situation. Reasons for growth: the rapid development of the Binance exchange, the launch of the IEO platform and its own blockchain network in April. The capitalization of the coin has grown to 3 billion US dollars and is ranked 7th in this indicator. On the chart below: the growth of the exchange rate from $6 to $24 from January to May 2019.

The main ways to buy/sell, exchange and trade crypto coins:

1. . Let's imagine the top platforms for working with cryptocurrency: Exmo works with fiat (rubles, dollars, hryvnias, euros, lira, zloty), popular coins are presented there; on the Binance crypto exchange, both top and newest cryptocurrencies are traded, this is one of the most popular platforms in the world; - p2p-exchange for exchanging Bitcoin with the function of depositing funds; - a highly liquid exchange for cryptocurrency trading with leverage and the ability to open short trades to sell an asset.
2. . We use reliable online services: Prostocash, 60cek, Kassa, Xchange, Baksman.

For a cryptocurrency to be successful in 2020, it must by all means maintain its position and offer new opportunities for users, regardless of the difficulties that arise.

When evaluating promising cryptocurrencies for investment, you need to pay attention to the following indicators:

• High liquidity (this means that coins can be quickly sold at any time at a price close to the market price).
• course stability.
• Developer reputation.
• Clear opportunities for further growth and development.

And now we will consider and analyze each promising, top-end cryptocurrency that should be purchased and kept in a portfolio in 2020.

The past year has been a challenging one for the crypto world. Some of the investment instruments have lost all their value, but stronger competitors have taken the lead. Consider the top ten really promising cryptocurrencies that can make a profit in 2020.

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Alexey Russkikh

2017 can be deservedly considered the year of the cryptocurrency breakthrough. Bitcoin proved to the world that exchanging assets and making purchases abroad does not require arrogant banks with their high fees for transfers and requirements for customer integrity. Now you can transfer money to anyone, anywhere, without asking anyone for permission. Such an advantage over aristocratic financial institutions has made bitcoin attractive also as an opportunity to invest money. Its rate is growing and it pulls other cryptocurrencies with it. This is our article. Today we talk about cryptocurrencies suitable for investment in 2018.

Why it makes sense to invest in cryptocurrencies

A few facts that do not give sufficient reason to say that the cryptocurrency has no future:

• Cryptocurrency has already been buried.
• Japan is the first and not the last country to legalize cryptocurrency.
• Chicago CME Bitcoin futures contracts.
• The NASDAQ exchange has the same plans.
• The Russian government is discussing the launch of a national cryptocurrency.
• Amazon.com is considering using cryptocurrencies as means of payment (rumor).
• Bitcoin is a “bubble”, “pyramid”, “wrapper”, but this is still inaccurate (more details below).

With all this, for investing you do not need to be a trader three times or seven spans in your forehead. Cryptocurrency was originally conceived as a convenient payment instrument.

Bitcoin exchange rate in 2018: scenarios and growth limit

— Bitcoin is already worth more than $13,000, it’s too late to invest

This thesis can be looked at from the other side. At the time of writing, the cryptocurrency market capitalization was $0.370 trillion. The money supply of the world in dollar terms (the sum of all money on the planet) is $90 trillion. If we very carefully assume that the cryptocurrency will eventually supplant the Jamaican monetary system and national fiat currencies, then, apparently, electronic money has room to grow.

If we also assume that approximately 2/3 of the world's money supply will be Bitcoin, then the price to which it can theoretically rise can be calculated:

• the number of issued BTC coins on 12/06/2017 = 16,723,212;
• by the end of 2018, another 657,000 bitcoins will be mined, for a total of 17,380,212;
• 2/3 of $90 trillion = $60 trillion;
• theoretically, bitcoin could rise to $60 trillion in 2018 / 17,380,212 = $3 452 202 (excluding inflation, world GDP growth, etc.).

Of course, this is more of a fantasy scenario. At least in 2018. But let's see how much of the investment market bitcoin can win now. The entire gold market today is valued at $8 trillion. In terms of the number of coins, the cost of bitcoin will be $460 294 . Now, this is a very realistic scenario.

Other BTC exchange rate forecasts (expert opinions):

• Thomas Lee (co-founder of Fundstrat Global Advisors) - $11 500 by mid 2018;
• Clif High (halfpasthuman.com) - $13 000 by March 2018;
• Ronnie Moas (Founder and Head of Standpoint Research) - $20 000 in 2018;
• Michael Novogratz (CEO Galaxy Digital) – $40 000 in 2018;
• Tone Vays (LibertyLifeTrail.com) - $100 000 by the end of 2018;
• Mark Yusko (founder of Morgan Creek Capital) – $400 000 in the long run;
• John McAfee (founder of McAfee Associates) – $1 million by the end of 2020.

As we can see, bitcoin has already exceeded some of these forecasts.

Growth leaders among cryptocurrencies in 2017

In 2017, 146 cryptocurrencies ceased to exist and 406 new ones appeared. In total, 904 cryptocurrencies are known today, 303 of which have a capitalization of more than $1 million.

We present a list of the top 100 cryptocurrencies and a ranking of their growth this year.

Growth Leader – Bitcore (BTX):

Price: $21.37
Growth for the year: 4,078,244%
Capitalization: $38,638,888

2nd place - Pura (PURA):

Price: $0.65676
Growth per year: 2,855,478%
Capitalization: $112,936,667

3rd place - TransferCoin (TX):

Price: $4.28
Growth per year: 115 240%
Capitalization: $26,687,307

Table. Cryptocurrencies are the leaders of growth:

Among the "non-top" coins, KingN Coin (KNC) broke all records. It showed the biggest increase of 13,009,259%. In 2016, the coin price was $0.000108, now it is quoted at $14.05. Capitalization of KNC is $28,203.

What to do next and where to invest

Earlier we said that the best trading strategy is the formation of a long-term portfolio of cryptocurrencies. Based on the assessment of the technological component, the team of specialists, the proposed solutions, we believe that the following promising cryptocurrencies should be considered as investments in 2018:

Disclaimer: We do not in any way encourage you to invest in bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. You make any decision regarding the purchase / sale of electronic money at your own peril and risk.

Conclusion

• Bitcoin price of $13,000 is not the limit.
• In 2017, Bitcore (BTX) grew the best.
• The best trading strategy is a portfolio of cryptocurrencies.
• In 2018, we need to invest in technologically more sustainable projects.

What cryptocurrency are you planning to invest in in 2018? Write to us in the comments.