Edited: Only a few of these coins did well in the previous bull run but most of them fared badly during the bear market. What we learnt is that people tend to buy new shiny coins each bull run so maybe bagholding isn’t the way forward.
Altcoins may actually be the future of cryptocurrencies rather than Bitcoin for various reasons including transaction speed and fees. As Bitcoin is priced really high, entry is hard for those new to cryptocurrencies, and altcoins are much cheaper alternatives. To add to that, they are pretty advanced technologically and some even boast a 3 second transaction speed (Steem). Here’s a list of top altcoins with high potential in 2019 that you may want to invest in.
There are plenty of high potential altcoins out there and no doubt many are just pump and dump. Look for those with great fundamentals and not just because they are cheap. Here are some of the best altcoins that you can look at (in my opinion).
Disclaimer: This is merely my opinion and is not to be taken as an investment or financial advice. Always invest what you can afford to lose and do your own research.
1. Steem
As always, my favorite altcoin that I recommend day and night is Steem. Why Steem? So many reasons!
First of all, Steem has a transaction speed of 3 seconds and ZERO fees! It has reached 1 million transactions yet it didn’t even slow down, unlike Ethereum with their Cryptokitties. Steem only used less than 1% of the bandwidth.
Steem is the currency that is used on Steemit, a social media cum blogging platform that rewards content creators. There’s also Steem Dollars (SBD) which is basically supposed to be pegged to 1 USD but the price these days is crazy! It went up to $16 which has never happened before. I guess the crypto world can never be predicted.
You basically earn Steem and Steem Dollars on the platform. Steem can be powered up to Steem Power, which basically influences how big your vote is and how much your vote is worth. For example, someone with 100,000 Steem Power can probably give out more than $10 worth of votes and someone with 500 Steem Power barely gives 10 cents. As more content creators join this platform, more investors will want to come in and gain more influence on the platform.
Think of how big Facebook is and that’s how much potential Steem has. Most people on Facebook or other social media platforms earn nothing from posting. Steemit on the other hand rewards you for it.
Besides that, Steemit is also introducing Smart Media Tokens next year. This means anyone can create their tokens and do crowdfunding or raise funds in some way. It will also help existing businesses to further monetize their websites. Ethereum’s network that allows people to use the Ethereum blockchain to create tokens is worth so much these days, i.e. over $600 per piece. Steem is only at $2.50 and it has a transaction speed of 3 seconds. I believe the potential is there.
2. Ark
Ark brands themselves as the platform for consumer adoption. What stands out for Ark is basically their attempt to bring the SmartBridge technology to life. Think of it as a technology that links blockchains together, i.e. Ethereum with Steem with BitShares and so on.
Ark is also a pretty fast coin (around 8 second transaction speed). It allows you to stake as well. Staking means you generate more coins from what you have. It’s also decentralized like other cryptos and the voting weight in Ark is divided across all votes. It also has an ArkShield program that provides additional protection to Ark.
As they plan to be an ecosystem of its own, with their own physical card system that can be used in malls or restaurants, it’s one of the top altcoins in my opinion. It rose from $3 to almost $9 recently but has since gone down.
Ark also has plans for optional privacy that may compete with Monero, and a storage function which will compete with other coins like Siacoin and Storj.
3. IOTA
IOTA may be one of the top altcoins and is modeled after the Internet of things (IoT). It has come a long way in its price as well. It used to be so cheap but now it’s already at $3 – $5. What’s different with IOTA is that it’s not based on blockchain technology, unlike the other coins mentioned here.
IOTA also uses a public ledger called Tangle so the function is quite similar in a way. It uses addresses that are constantly changing every time you perform a transaction, which means it’s quite secure. To create an IOTA wallet, you need to first generate a seed (password) of 81-characters long.
IOTA has also zero fees, no miners and has an unlimited transaction rate which means scalability is not an issue here. Furthermore, their recent partnership with Microsoft has caused the price to shoot up and I believe it can go higher. Apparently they have a bigger announcement up their sleeves.
Prior to this, they have already partnered with big brands like Bosch. Who knows how high they can go?
4. Stratis
Among all of the coins, Stratis kinda confused me the most. What do they do actually?
Looking at their official website and other blogs, Stratis seems to be a blockchain-based platform which makes it easy for development, testing and deployment of C# applications on the NET framework. In other words, they provide a service to corporations and institutions to implement blockchain technology.
They are also using a clone of Bitcoin’s main code with some modifications of course.
As far as real use cases are concerned, Stratis may impact many sectors including fintech, research, internet of things and so on.
It has gone up to around $13 the past few days.
5. Ethereum
Ethereum was dubbed to be the top altcoin and has traded over $700 a couple of days ago. It has risen so much in a few years, when it used to be only a few cents.
Ethereum is amazing because it introduced their own Ethereum network, in which other people can create tokens based on it. It made it easier for developers to create their own tokens, because they don’t need to create an entire blockchain from scratch. Some of the popular Ethereum tokens are OmiseGo and BAT.
It also introduced smart contracts which may well be used for businesses in the future. Bitcoin can be said to be a very simple smart contract as well. It sends and receive coins but that’s it. Ethereum is a higher level where it allows you to set conditions on when the tokens are to be released and so on.
It has already risen a lot in value so I’m not sure how much higher it can go. Do note the number of tokens in circulation and the maximum supply when you consider prices in the market.
6. Litecoin
Litecoin was created by Charlie Lee not long after Bitcoin came into existence. It was supposed to be the silver to Bitcoin’s gold. It’s a peer to peer decentralized crypto, meaning it’s supposed to be used for all transactions like buying food at a cafe or paying your bills.
If it can be adopted into day-to-day transactions, then the potential is there. Then again, most of the altcoins are aiming towards the same goal. To be mainstream.
Litecoin’s greatest feature is perhaps their lightning network and atomic swap which made transactions a lot faster. You don’t need to wait for confirmations unlike Bitcoin which is rather slow.
So far, cross-chain atomic swaps have only been done between Litecoin and Bitcoin. Whether it works with other coins in the future, that’s for us to find out.
It is also said to be much more scalable compared to Bitcoin.
7. Cardano
Cardano has been dubbed as the Ethereum killer and it’s always compared to Ethereum due to their features. Cardano allows for the execution of smart contracts like Ethereum, and their token ADA is the crypto part of it. Furthermore, the previous CEO of Ethereum is a co-founder of Cardano.
Cardano also aims to release a debit card which allows users to load funds and then use it anywhere, like you do with a regular debit card.
Cardano also came up with Ouroboros, which is basically their proof-of-stake mining algorithm. Steem uses a proof-of-stake system as well, i.e. delegated proof of stake. This means you don’t have to spend so much electricity mining for coins.
Apparently ADA has no fees as well, giving most tokens a run for their money. It has shot up in value from $0.02 to $0.40 in 2 months, but the supply is pretty huge, i.e. 31 billion ADA tokens. It does have a high potential if it can surpass Ethereum and similar tokens.
8. Monero
Contrary to popular opinion, Bitcoin is not really anonymous. If you want an anonymous coin, try Monero.
Monero has shot up so much, from $50 to over $300 in a span of a few months. The reason why it’s popular is due to its anonymity feature. It has a few methods to ensure that the coin is truly anonymous.
First of all, it uses stealth addresses. When you trade your other cryptos, you’ll normally have a destination address that is public. Anyone will know it’s you if they know your address. However, Monero only displays a cryptographic hash of the destination address to the public. This means only the recipient and the sender can decipher the hash.
Secondly, it uses separate transaction units. If you send 100 tokens, it will be split into different sums like 30, 40 and 30 tokens (XMR). They are also recorded separately so you can’t really track them.
Furthermore, it uses ring signatures to mix up the transactions and make it even more anonymous. Surely, the black market would love a coin like this.
9. Verge
Verge was designed to help people carry out everyday transactions. It was built on Bitcoin’s blockchain and it is supposed to allow businesses and individuals to transact in a quick manner while keeping it private.
It used to be called DogeCoinDark somewhere in 2014 but has been rebranded to Verge later in 2016.
Like Monero, Verge is supposed to be anonymous as well and it obscures IP addresses of users. Furthermore, it is decentralized like most of the other coins. Verge claims to be ready for mass adoption as well with their secure and private wallets.
It is considered to be very fast in carrying out transactions as well and the technology is called the Simple Payment Verification technology where the transactions are about 5 seconds. It’s still slower than Steem’s 3 seconds though.
10. OmiseGo
OmiseGo or also known as OMG was started by a Thai group and it has risen a lot in value the past few months. At one point it even hit $20.
OMG is an Ethereum based blockchain and it’s meant to be used for commercial transactions across jurisdictions. It’s both a blockchain and a payment platform.
Their goal is to make it cheaper to make transactions (send and receive payments) and it may disrupt the financial institutions by being more efficient.
OMG has a partnership with McDonalds Thailand, which means they have at least done something outside the crypto world. Many tokens on crypto are just predictions and attempts to create something. The good ones are those who have a live product and are currently using it in the real world.
This is probably why OMG rose a lot in value over the couple months. They also plan to do financial transactions like remittances, deposits, business to business commerce, supply chain finance, loyalty programs and other services. They also plan to allow users to convert fiat to crypto easily.
11. Siacoin
Siacoin is basically dubbed as a decentralized storage coin that will compete with cloud storages like Amazon, Dropbox and other similar businesses.
How it works is that you need a certain number of Siacoin to use the service and you can also rent out storage space to others for a certain fee. As the coins are limited, perhaps the value may still go up.
Decentralized storage is also safer in a sense that hackers can’t hack everyone’s storage like they can with a centralized system like Dropbox. That’s simply the beauty of decentralization.
You do have to check out its competitors as well. Storj and MaidSafeCoin is also offering the same service and some coins like Ark and EOS are planning to create a storage feature as well.
12. Binance Coin
Binance is basically a popular exchange and I’ve personally used it. It’s popular because it usually offers discounted fees and they have plenty of coins listed.
Furthermore, the reviews are pretty good for the exchange as they seem to be quick and efficient so far. Whether it will hold that I do not know.
Binance coin is basically tied to Binance’s success as an exchange.
13. Basic Attention Token
Unlike most of these coins, Basic Attention Token or BAT is not a currency but a utility token. It works hand in hand with the Brave browser. It aims to be a decentralized digital advertisement exchange that runs on the Ethereum blockchain.
Furthermore, the Brave browser is said to load 7 times faster than the existing browsers.
As the name suggests, you’re paying for attention. It eliminated the traditional ads you see, and many of these ad networks have succumbed to click frauds and made losses. This will help both advertisers and publishers in terms of generating revenue for their websites.
14. Decent.bet
This is another ERC20 token like BAT and OMG. Decent.bet is actually a token used for online gaming (casino) and what’s different about them is that you can actually be “the House”. If the House wins, you win as well.
Furthermore, you can use it if you’re into online casinos. Many online casinos these days can easily scam their users and you won’t know what’s going on behind the scenes.
As Decent.bet is decentralized and has a public ledger, you know where the funds are moving. Transparency is easily one of the main issues with online gambling or basically anything that is done online.
As mentioned earlier, you can win as the “House”. You can use your tokens to buy Decent.bet house credits where you get interest in return.
15. Funfair
Funfair is also an online gaming (casino) platform. The token is called FUN and it was a pretty successful ICO that raised around 26 million dollars. It has risen in price like the other tokens in the market.
There are about 3 billion of these tokens in circulation and the total supply is supposed to be 17 billion FUNs.
What’s different with them is that they have their own showcase even before the platform launches. They have a live demo where you can even play their different games now.
It’s also based on the Ethereum blockchain and has a public ledger. Hence, the element of transparency is there.
16. Einsteinium
Einsteinium has a fancy name and not surprisingly is related to science. It’s basically a platform that crowd funds for scientific research.
They are also into education and internet technology developments, not just limited to scientific research.
It’s available for mining unlike the ICOs. If you’re into such a coin, then you should check it out.
17. Storj
Like Siacoin, Storj focuses on cheap cloud storage. It’s actually a cloud storage company and they launched their own cryptos.
The tokens are also based on the Ethereum blockchain and the goal is to provide cloud storage at a much cheaper rate compared to the current market rate.
The reason they launched their own cryptos was to crowdfund. They wanted to speed up their product development. Even though they are a cloud storage provider, they do not possess a single data center.
Users can then sell or rent their unused storage space in exchange for more Storj tokens.
At the moment they already have a few partners like Heroku and Microsoft Azure.
18. Enjin Coin
Enjin is my new favorite coin and may become one of the top gaming altcoins, and it’s basically a token I always wanted. It’s a gaming token for gamers! Rejoice gamers, in the future you can sell your awesome in-game weapons or items for Enjin tokens!
Once you’ve done that, you can probably use the said tokens to buy other in-game items in different games. Imagine selling an expensive item in Call of Duty and then buying something in World of Warcraft. There’s so much potential in this.
Enjin has rapidly risen the last couple of days and shot up several times in price.
It is also currently the largest gaming community creation platform that is based in Singapore. They have millions of registered gamers, so the market is definitely there. As it’s only specific to gaming, it probably won’t rise like Bitcoin did.
19. OKCash
I bought OKCash because it is a community-centered coin. They have a very active Discord group which was how I first heard of it. You can gamble or even tip others on that Discord chat group. Pretty awesome eh?
They are also looking to enter the gaming market or those relating to entertainment.
OKCash allows you to create improvements on the token as it’s all publicly available. Whether it succeeds or not depends on the community itself. Too soon to find out.
20. EOS
EOS is basically the brainchild of Dan, also the co-founder of Steem. Dan Larimer is a pretty talented developer for sure and many believe that EOS has a bright future. Just look at how it shot up from $0.5 to $10 in a few weeks!
EOS is still in the ICO period and new tokens are issued weekly. EOS is like an operating system where developers can build new tokens on it. It’s similar to Ethereum in that sense, and soon Steem’s Smart Media Tokens.
Owning a portion of EOS is equivalent to owning a claim on the server resources. Some say that EOS will reign as one of the top altcoins because of its high potential in covering many areas including storage.
Edited 26th April 2018: EOS is now currently hyped up as one of the top altcoins because of a new social network. ONO, a new social network by Ke Xu, is going to run the platform on the EOS blockchain when EOS launches. That may be why the prices have gone up massively.
21. Lisk
I’m not too familiar with what Lisk does but here are some of its features. Lisk brands itself as the first modular crypto utilizing sidechains. It basically allows anyone to use its designing blocks to create decentralized apps. It uses Javascript as its language.
As blockchain can be loaded with too many fake transactions, the blocks get filled faster and slows down the network. That is what sidechains are for. It basically complements the main blockchain and it puts all of the high volume transactions without disturbing the main blockchain. Theoretically, it’s supposed to keep the blockchain fast.
Lisk also uses a delegated proof of stake model similar to Steem and its founder is one of Ethereum’s previous core developers.
22. BitShares
Bitshares is pretty special in the sense that it’s a decentralized exchange, meaning it’s different from your regular Bittrex, Binance, Coinbase and so on. It runs on the delegated proof of stake algorithm which is similar to Steem and EOS, as Dan is the founder after all.
It is based on Graphene which is an open source C++ blockchain that is based on consensus. What’s nice about Bitshares is that your wallet address is a username that you pick for yourself. This means you don’t need to keep your super long wallet addresses like you do with Bitcoin. You just create your own username like your name.
Owning Bitshares is like owning stock, rather than owning currency.
23. SALT
Salt is basically based on the Ethereum blockchain and is used as an access to lending services. The platform basically works as a lending service and members can actually use their cryptocurrencies as collateral to borrow cash.
The token is only used as an access to the service and they have about 120 million tokens in circulation. Members basically have to deposit their blockchain assets as collateral and they get cash in return. If they fail to pay, then their assets are sold off to compensate for the cash.
It may actually disrupt the banking industry since cryptos are easily transferable and many may want to avoid the banks for loans (due to high interest rates or other reasons).
24. NEO
Neo is usually dubbed as the Ethereum of China and it seems to have a strong backing in the market.
NEO started out as Antshares and after rebranding it shot up in value massively. It’s basically a platform for smart contracts and has a similar functionality as Ethereum. It supports future ICOs as well.
If you’re a developer, you can code using C, C#, GO or even Java with the NEO platform. This makes it easier for developers to create new tokens.
It has a big potential because of its current partnerships with several big companies and it’s led by a strong team with Da Hongfei at its helm. It also goes hand in hand with Gas coin which brings me to number 25.
25. Gas
As both NEO and Gas are capped at 100 million each, the prices of both coins have risen tremendously over the last few months. If you hold NEO, you basically hold shares in the market and get voting rights. Dividends are also paid in the form of Gas. Gas used to be called Antcoins.
This Gas is basically generated by storing NEO, and a very small sum of Gas is generated per processed block of NEO. Gas is used to control the NEO network. Companies who wish to run apps on the NEO system needs to spend Gas. The Gas spent is recycled back to the holders of NEO and also to newly generated Gas. This means it gets burnt from the supply in a sense. In a sense, the amount of Gas in the market will always be less than NEO.
As both NEO and Gas work hand in hand, the value has risen a lot and may continue to rise.
26. Asch
Asch is a not so well known platform based on blockchain that aims to rival NEO.
It’s much cheaper in the market and is aimed to make it easy for developers to create their own blockchain assets like tokens. They use JavaScript as well.
Basically the gas that fuels their network is called XAS. I’m not too familiar with this one though.
27. Decentraland
Decentraland is basically a virtual reality platform and the token that is used for it is called MANA. If you’re not familiar with virtual reality platforms, think of Second Life or Entropia. Some people pay a lot of money for virtual items these days. A virtual land was sold for a few hundred thousand dollars!
Users on Decentraland can purchase land with the Ethereum blockchain, and it proves ownership since it’s all recorded on the blockchain. You can also go for casinos, do businesses, attend live performances and so on in the virtual reality itself.. You can either use a browser or even use a VR headset to play this “game”.
The difference with Decentraland and other virtual reality platforms is basically ownership, and that’s their selling point. The users basically own the platform, rather than belong to a single corporation.
It’s an interesting concept and I’m hoping it takes off.
28. Kin by Kik
The messenger app Kik has started their own token called Kin. It’s also based on the Ethereum blockchain and the plan is to monetize their chat app.
It is to disrupt traditional advertising methods that affect user experience. This means you can now gamify chatting via tokens and make money from it. Pretty cool eh?
29. Steem Dollars (SBD)
SBD and Steem are both used in the same platform Steemit, and as mentioned above, Steem has a lot of potential in my opinion. Think of Reddit or Facebook but monetized. It puts the money in the people rather than in the hands of a corporation.
Steem Dollars are supposed to be pegged at $1 according to the White Paper but lately it has shot up to over $16 and now hovers around $10.
These SBDs will be used to create new tokens via the Smart Media Tokens that will be introduced in 2019. Perhaps that is why it rose in value. SBD can only be earned from post rewards on Steemit. It has only about 3 million tokens in circulation.
It’s interesting to see how it develops.
30. Musicoin
As the name suggests, Musicoin (MUSIC) will definitely help to fund the music industry. Many musicians are struggling financially and perhaps Musicoin will provide a solution for it.
Perhaps the number of views equals to a number of coins and it rewards musicians that way. It also allows you to tip the artists.
It would be exciting to see if this goes mainstream as there are many struggling musicians out there.
31. Nano (Raiblocks)
Nano used to be called Raiblocks, a token that would have made you super rich if you had invested earlier. $100 in early 2017 would have transformed to over $600,000 this year, according to a Reddit post.
Nano is aimed at becoming one of the best payment platforms. Transactions happen instantly on Nano, which means it can be used for day to day transactions.
Additionally, it has zero fees, which means a lot of people may potentially adopt it as a method of payment. It is also scalable, i.e. it can process over 1000 times more transactions per second (compared to Bitcoin).
For those running nodes, Nano claims that it costs almost nothing to run a node since the protocol is really lightweight. It may be one of the top altcoins in the future.
32. Gifto
Gifto as the name suggests is related to gifting. It aims at becoming one of the top decentralized universal gifting protocol.
For those who’re into live streaming, Uplive will be using Gifto for their platform and about 25 million dollars worth of virtual gifts are transacted a month. They also claim to have 20 million users on the platform.
Gifto uses blockchain tech to manage the buying and giving of gifts. It may be one of the top altcoins in the online streaming industry.
33. Zilliqa
It is claimed that Zilliqa is the world’s first high-throughput public blockchain platform.
Their main feature is scalability, as they claim to be able to withhold thousands of transactions per second at the minimum.
The features of Zilliqa includes scalability, data-flow smart contracts and strong security guarantees.
Top altcoins of 2019?
There are plenty of altcoins to choose from, and even more in 2019. Many have high potential to succeed and it’s definitely hard to pick a winner. You can choose to diversify your investment if you wish to buy different coins for different purposes. There is no best cryptocurrency or best altcoin to invest in, but a couple that will stand out. If we knew which crypto would “go to the moon”, we would all be rich.
Disclaimer: This article is not to be taken as an investment advice or a financial advice of any sort. Always do your own research before investing and you should read the white paper of each coin to determine the function of it. You can also check out Reddit or Steemit for cryptocurrency predictions, news and analysis. Furthermore, the information of this article has been extracted from various sources and may not be accurate. Do let me know if there’s anything incorrect with the information.
