After 3 years of waiting, it feels good to be in cryptocurrency again. Alts are mooning left and right, Bitcoin and Ethereum are finally testing and pushing through limits. Adrenaline is pumping, sleepless nights, restless mind. I’ve missed this
I recently covered 4 “old generation” altcoins that I expect to reach their previous highs in the upcoming weeks. Today I’ll cover a few more crypto’s that I’m considering investing in.
Why Am I Researching Old Alts?
As I previously discussed, I believe that old altcoins have great potential to get back to their previous highs. It’s a good benchmark for people to aim for. A price they saw before.
On top of that, I’ve researched these projects in the past. So while I do my due diligence now, it’s sorta like catching up on the news I missed over the past period. I already know their fundamentals, team, use case, and all that stuff.
So it’s kinda low hanging fruit to look at this alts first. Of course, the new generation of coins is exciting too, and I’ll definitely cover those. I already hold some of them like DOT, LINK, UNI, and more. Just sign up for my newsletter or follow me on Twitter to get an alert on when I cover the new generation of Alts.
1. Bitcoin Cash (BCH or Bcash)
- Marketcap: 8.19 B
- Price: $438
- From ATH: -88%
- To ATH: 763%
Bitcoin Cash was founded after years of Bitcoin political drama that unfolded in the summer of 2017. Led by Roger Ver and co, the Bitcoin Cash hard fork occurred at block height 478,559. Bitcoin Cash created a new chain, split from Bitcoin.
If you had Bitcoins at the time, you got the exact amount of Bitcoin Cash for free. Which instantly brought great awareness to the BCH. Personally, I sold all my BCH immediately, which was ~15% of the BTC price at the time. It turned out to be a good move because now we’re closer to 1% of the BTC price. Which also means there is room for growth.
Let me state, I’m not a fan of Bcash. The way the drama unfolded over the years, confusing people by using Bitcoin.com as a platform to funnel people to BCH, spreading fud and all that. However, I like money, and if an opportunity is there, I should at least have a look at it.
If I have a look at their 2020 developments, it seems like they are building layers on top of the blockchain to compete with platforms like Ethereum.
DeFi, crowdfunding, derivates, these are all things that are important for other projects to use your blockchain as their technology.
Additionally, the Grayscale investment fund has over $ 100 Million in BCH, which is likely to grow over time. People look at BCH as a hedge vs Bitcoin. And psychologically they will look at the total market cap of BTC and ask themself “how much % of the Bitcoin market cap should BCH be at?”. This question automatically gives BCH room to grow, because we’re currently extremely low in that ratio.
In September 2017, BCH was ~23% of BTC’s market cap, and it shortly peaked at 42%. Since April 2018 this ratio has been slowly going down, and we’re sitting at 1.1% today.
They have a die-hard community, and big outlets (like bitcoin.com) supporting them. They are widely accepted by merchants and easy to buy for the masses. So when alt season really starts, this is one of the alts that can catch up quickly.
Will I buy it?
I hate to say so, but yes. We’re almost bottom out on the BCH/BTC ratio. With investment funds getting into it and people hedging their portfolio’s. The name Bitcoin Cash, sounds trustworthy and it will be one of the coins doing well in Q1 of 2021. I’ll park 0.5-1% of my holdings here and will make sure to have sells when we get close to ATH.
2. Stellar (XLM)
- Marketcap: 7.58 B
- Price: $0.34
- From ATH: -61%
- To ATH: 157%
The Stellar network launched in 2015. Since then it’s processed more than 500 million transactions made by over 4 million individual accounts.
Stellar (XLM) and Ripple’s (XRP) are two digital assets that share a common background, they were both created by the same person — Jed McCaleb (also the original founder of MtGox). Stellar XLM was a fork of Ripple’s XRP. While it originated from Ripple, Stellar developed its own code after its launch, which separates it from XRP.
The price of XLM already pumped this year due to the fact that a Ukraine bank chooses Stellar as an infrastructure for their stable coin.
Besides that, Stellar has also been working on a partnership with privacy messaging app Signal.
However, with Ripple getting sued by the SEC. Stellar could be a likely candidate after that. Jeb Caleb wasn’t on the list of people the SEC is after for Ripple, which makes me wonder if they are saving him to sue later with Stellar. This type of insecurity will cause a lot of volatility over the next weeks.
Will I buy it?
No. I’ve been holding XLM since 2017, even throughout the bear market. Due to the recent rise in price, XLM is currently 6% of my portfolio. Which for me, is way too high for any altcoin. I’m going to be patient a little longer for Stellar to catch up to its previous ATH and then reduce my position to 1-2%.
In general, I’m not a fan of holding coins that have regulators chasing them. And even though I’m not sure the SEC will take action against them, I rather allocate the funds to projects that are in the clear for sure.
3. Ontology (ONT)
- Marketcap: 527 M
- Price: $0.65
- From ATH: -94%
- To ATH: 1570%
Onchain is a Chinese tech company that’s been building blockchains and Distributed Network Architecture (DNA) for businesses since 2014. Co-founders CEO Da HongFei and CTO Erik Zhang created the NEO/GAS blockchain (more on NEO in my next blog) in April 2016.
Then in November 2017, Onchain launched Ontology. Which is an enterprise-grade blockchain project that provides secure and unique client chains, designed to protect data and systems. The platform is considered a ‘private room’ in a public blockchain, with the aim of bringing the distributed ledger to big business in a usable form. ONT is the Ontology cryptocurrency token, which is a NEP-5 token on the NEO blockchain.
Like several other coins, Ontology is trying to take marketshare of the DeFi space, by launghing Wing Finance in 2020. Which is mostly focussed on the digital asset lending space, similar to Compound or AAVE.
For 2021 the focus is more on cross-chain functionality with Ethereum, Polkadot and Binance smart chain. Another popular aspect they will be adding is privacy. You can check more on their 2021 roadmap here.
Their community is semi-active, but not spreading the word as much as I see with other coins, like XRP and DOGE. The power of community is very important with tokens that want adoption and price increase.
Will I buy it?
No. There is alot of upside potential to their previous ATH. However their previous ATH is a bit skewed. The ATH of $10 was reach right after their ICO. What I usually notice is that coins pump a lot right after fundraising and exchange listings.
After the pump, it dumps a bit and has an accumulation phase, in which the coin kinda stabilizes at a price for a while. Then it’s time to go up again to find a price somewhere between the pump and the dump.
This last part never happened. After the dump, ONT has been between 0.30$ and 1.60$ for nearly 3 years.
4. Nexo (NEXO)
- Marketcap: 626 M
- Price: $1.62
- From ATH: -26%
- To ATH: 36%
Nexo’s instant lending platform combines seamless user-experience with military-grade security and with 256-bit encryption. Client’s funds are held in individually assigned multi-signature wallets in cold storage, held with the only qualified audited and Goldman Sachs-backed custodian BitGo.
Personally, I use Nexo to lend out ETH and BTC for my long term hodl portfolio. This way I’m earning interest on the coins I plan to hold anyways. I’m also planning to order their credit card, as I’m not happy with my current loyalty program from American Express. Therefore, I’m kinda bullish biased on this project to start with.
The token recently surged, after they launched their own exchange. This is pretty exciting, because many people hodl their crypto on the platform to lend out, and now they can also trade it in the same place.
The Nexo token is used for paying interest on the loans. You get a higher ROI if you get paid or hold Nexo tokens on the platform. Which is a pretty good incentive to have the tokens.
Will I Buy it?
It’s a token with long term potential, a running successful business. Adding new functionalities and a loyal community. However, it’s not that far from the previous ATH, so I will look for other coins for my Altcoin portfolio. As my goal for this bucket is to flip coins in the mid-term (few weeks).
That being said, I will buy some Nexo tokens to increase the interest I’m earning on my crypto loans.
5. Siacoin (SC)
- Marketcap: 418 M
- Price: $0.009
- From ATH: -90%
- To ATH: 963%
Sia is an actively developed decentralized storage platform, dating back to 2015. Users contribute disk storage from their computers to form a decentralized network. Anybody with Siacoins can rent storage from this network, and hosts are paid for their contributions. A combination of smart contracts, erasure coding, and encryption ensure secure, private, and reliable decentralized storage.
Their biggest accomplishment from 2020 is the launch of Skynet. Sia’s Skynet is a relatively new content distribution network (CDN) that is able to serve content on the Sia network. Before Skynet, the way you share files stored on Sia was not so easy. I actually tried to become a host in 2017 and bought a bag of SC. However, after a few days of troubleshooting technical issues, I gave up and sold my bag.
For a project of 2015, the developments aren’t impressive at all. The community is a little active, but I can’t find clear signals that the project has any big things coming up. In the recent market of alts, it’s important to keep developing and moving forward, which SIA seems to be lacking.
Will I buy it?
No. I see no buzz or hype surrounding SIA. I already filled by bags with Filecoin yesterday, which is competing in the same space and I believe FIL is a better bet on the decentralized storage space.
6. IOTA (MIOTA)
- Marketcap: 1.44 B
- Price: $0.52
- From ATH: -90%
- To ATH: 890%
IOTA is an open-source distributed ledger designed to power the Internet of Things with feeless transactions and a highly scalable network.
IOTA is not a blockchain. In fact, IOTA aims to improve on some technical flaws of blockchain which IOTA believes are preventing adoption. The potential of blockchain is undeniable – decentralized networks can facilitate global transactions with low fees and no third-party intervention.
In 2020 they have been releasing several development updates. Most importantly IOTA 1.5 (know as Chrysalis) is live and moving forward. I’m not very familiar with the technical side of IOTA, but in their blog, you can find updates on Pollen, Bee, Hornet, and Smart Contract. I’ll take it as a good sign, that the team hasn’t been sitting still.
Their social media and community are quite positive. For a coin from 2017, they have remained active and engaging with their people. Which is a very positive signal for upwards potential.
Their 2021 roadmap is full of technical updates as well, like the Chrysalis I mentioned above. It should make IOTA ready for enterprise use, and it’s scheduled for the end of Q1 this year.
Will I buy it?
Yes, however, it will be a small allocation. The project has a solid community and great upwards potential to reach previous highs. However, the updates are very tech-focused and it’s difficult to estimate how excited that is for people. In addition, I cant estimate how important their updates really are for businesses.
Therefore, I’m placing a smallish bet of 0.25-0.5% and will ride it until we’re close to ATH. If the big release of Chrysalis doesn’t bring much hype, I’ll reevaluate my position.
Next Alts I’ll Cover
This has been more work than I initially planned, but now that I’ve started. I’ve got to finish it.
Next alts that I will research are:
- NEM
- NEO
- Zilliqa
- Ethereum Classic
- BAT
- Nano
- ICON
New Generation Alts
I’m currently also holding some exotic new altcoins like:
- 1Inch
- AAVE
- UniSwap
- SushiSwap
- REN
- Chainlink
- MakerDAO
- Polkadot
I will also cover these coins later this month or in March and help you find new hidden gems in the wild west of Altcoins 2021.
You can buy all the alts I talked about on Binance, and if you sign up through this link we both receive 10% cashback of your trading fees. Not bad right?
As always, be careful and don’t invest what you can’t afford to lose.
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