Whether it be blockchain or cryptocurrency, both are interrelated and part of momentous innovation. Despite a discouraging month of January this year, digital coins are speedily surging as techno-assets and customer products. February and March have been significant months for cryptocurrencies as analysts, investors or just about everybody else are interested to see cryptocurrency bounce and continue to grow.
With this in mind, here are four crypto trends to watch for this year.
Stablecoins
These virtual coins represent a fortune of potential utilizations for finance, and investors are preparing to look at the service of one of its much-debated applications. One of the blockchain technology’s first applications was its utilization as a virtual currency enabling protected and faster payment. The main problem confronting this is the latest level of market volatility that distribute most of the tokens to erratic store of value for commerce or say, everyday transactions.
Stablecoins have been launched to alter this fluctuating narrative by pegging the value of these tokens to fiat currency. Tether is presently the largest stablecoin. You may peg the Tether value to the US dollar while holding the USD privately, or swap back and forth as you need. However, Tether is now under strict inspection because of critical concerns over its transparency and legitimacy.
Platform investment
Investment in platforms is becoming a lucrative domain of cryptocurrencies in 2018. Last year, we saw Ethereum surge from USD8 in Jan to an all-time high of USD1,400 by December – a rise of 175x in the span of a year. In the experts’ opinion, this might have been possible because 70% of ICOs are operated on the Ethereum platform and ICO fever is hardly going to subside in the near future. In fact, it is growing, enabling investors to earn more from their platform investments.
While the ICO craze continues, the landscape is very likely to change
ICOs have evidently taken the world by storm, funding blockchain startups almost 3.5x more than VC. Technically, you can see the ICO model as a better form of capital model since here, both founders and investors win.
The scalability concern is about to heat up, while the Lightning Network leads the change
As the debate on cryptocurrency and its marketplace operations heated up, the world came to learn the scalability limitations of both Ethereum and Bitcoin. Their prices upsurge, and the confirmation of successful transactions began to take too long. The community generally agrees that scaling is the utmost priority and are thus looking for scaling solutions:
- Bitcoin is concentrated around off-chain solutions, for instance the Lightning Network
- Bitcoin Cash focuses on blockchain scaling solutions, such as augmented block sizes
- Ethereum is gradually converting to Proof of Stake and deliberating technologies, e.g. a layer 2 and sharing solutions to the Lightning Network, known as Raiden
- Altcoins are going to trial diverse consensus algorithms, including DPoS
Offering security tokens is likely to disrupt the typical financial marketplace
Lately, we divide tokens into several categories – utility tokens, security tokens and payment tokens. Utility tokens are for access leverage or buying services from an application. Security tokens, alternatively, are for tokenizing assets, which are to be possessed. This is comprised of, but certainly not limited to equities, debt, art and real estate. Payment tokens are for making payments for your purchases just as a currency.
Buying virtual assets has become seamless, because of progress in the Exchange space
The latest cryptocurrency exchanges are not yet ready to serve the growing demands of skeptics and investors across the world. All large exchanges (e.g. Binance, Bittrex, etc.) had to momentarily pull their shutters down to the fresh batch of investors. This is in fact a very good indication for the crypto market overall, but it also displays how the setup surrounding virtual coins has got a long way to go prior to adoption by the mainstream market.
Airdrop
Airdrop is the latest buzz in the cryptocurrency space. Who would not run if your favorite clothing brand’s outlet was offering free clothes? Airdrop is the free distribution of crypto tokens, with strict conditions. Airdrop, just like bounty and bonuses in the ICO, is a practice in ICO. It is actually closer to a marketing gimmick.
The difference between an ICO bounty and an ICO airdrop is that in order to collect rewards, ICO participants have to work or contribute a lot of work to the selected platform, while an airdrop requires participants to complete a certain task and then they distribute tokens to the participants who already hold cryptocurrencies.
Note*: ICO Marketing is a matter of proficiency. Unless it is performed by an experienced team with a proven track record of good business, the potential revenue level would almost be zero. So, if you’re holding a crypto currencies and seeking out how to invest in ICO, have a look at airdropalert.com to get latest airdrops.
