one of the few who still reads these?  
I don't have to be PC so let me just say it how it is:
Young naive writer https://twitter.com/AlyssaHertig gets handed narrative by the paper. Writes some stupid shit, gets paid by VC indirectly for protecting the portfolio (because IOTA is a threat to the entire portfolio). Slap a graphic on top of it. Done.
I agree that there is no "grand conspiracy" to damage the IF. It's regular business for coindesk at this point.
https://www.coindesk.com/iota-2-7-billion-cryptocurrency-developers-love-hate/
 
Attacking IOTA on a scientific level ended with self inflicted academic fraud (allegedly), exposing bad actors and destroyed reputations, while educating the IOTA community about the protocol itself. If the media didn't spin the DCI/IOTA incident, it would have been an absolute PR bloodbath for DCI. The new angle is: hurt the IF by making it look like a toxic environment for developers.
That's why month old screenshots are being digged out. This is FUD with surgical precision because developers engaging with the IOTA protocol is one of the more underrated but really fucking important factors.
Thanks to the first steps in making the IF more transparent however, we now know over that 1300+ developers/creators are part of the Ecosystem. https://ecosystem.iota.org
 
Yes, you should boycott Coindesk. No, it's not childish. You should generally avoid all bad press as it's a waste of time.
 
If the first newspaper you’ve read was on an iPad you might not know this: Serious newspapers label articles, in which the writer states his/her opinion on the topic he/she is reporting on, AS SUCH. Those are often referred to as “Opinion Pieces” or a “Comment”. However...
 
Most crypto news sites are simply a vehicle to push undisclosed native advertisement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_advertising
[Native advertising is a type of advertising, mostly online, that matches the form and function of the platform upon which it appears.] ...
[a clear disclosure is deemed necessary when employing native marketing strategy in order to protect the consumer from being deceived] ... [According to Federal Trade Commission, means of disclosure include visual cues, labels, and other techniques.[8]]
 
here is a good example of a native advertisement: https://www.coindesk.com/circle-adds-zcash-crypto-investment-app/
 
If a news outlet is NOT even labeling opinion pieces as such - it’s not worth your time. It will add more confusion than clarity. Because that’s what it’s designed to do.
Let's see if we can spot the difference between professional and fraud:

1. https://www.finder.com.au/fujitsu-showcases-iota-cryptocurrency-as-new-automation-standard    
2. https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2018/04/28/iota-university-college-london-ucl/

see how finder.com.au is very clear about everything? Opinion and disclosure? TNW not so much...
ok, let's never talk about this again! Let's finally move on.
 
We should stay healthy skeptics towards corporate adoption. Friendly reminder the IF exists mainly to push back on corporate agendas.
For all we know, some just do it for the extra likes on twitter because of a #IOTA hashtag. Rarely do corporate SM accounts enjoy this kind of attention.
If you think i'm being anti-corporate libtardish, consider this: Industry 4.0 needs IOTA more than IOTA needs them. https://twitter.com/Schuldensuehnestatus/989738856298659841 Not only to stay competitive but also to not get hacked and shut down by “insert country”. Bosch, Fujitsu and DXC are maybe the first to realize this. SO PLEASE stop begging on social media and tweeting at Elon Musk about IOTA. It’s not a good look.
 
that being said:  
Institutional money and regulation is the hot topic right now. And most likely will be during 2018. BTC Futures showed a recent spike in Volume hinting at smart money flowing in: https://twitter.com/CryptoKinky/status/989569263383011328 (dont judge me for my resources i cant afford nice looking charts)
There are several news articles about WS traders moving to crypto and so on. Looks like things are starting to get rolling in the institutional world, as infrastructure is being set up.
Contrary to popular tinfoilery belief (aka. "The Cartel" Medium Article, that all of Bitcoin is 100% manipulated already based on future contracts), futures had relatively small volume compared to the global btc volume - most likely not important enough to justify manipulation of the entire market.
https://bitcoinaverage.com/en/bitcoin-price/btc-to-usd (global volume)
 
Even the SEC Chairman Jay Clayton stated that futures market is "quite small" in his public statement before the february hearing:
https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/SpeechesTestimony/opagiancarlo37
It is important to put the new Bitcoin futures market in perspective. It is quite small with open interest at the CME of 6,695 bitcoin14 and at Cboe Futures Exchange (Cboe) of 5,569 bitcoin (as of Feb. 2, 2018). At a price of approximately $7,700 per Bitcoin,15 this represents a notional amount of about $94 million.
 
If you believe in a paradigm shift, this means we are still early.
 
Recent regulatory voices and twitter drama led to this piece by https://coincenter.org/entry/no-ether-is-not-a-security
Why is this important? Companies in the US most likely are patient about making an investment into any crypto token as there is regulatory uncertainty.
DXC TECHNOLOGY COMPANY, showcased a PoC with IOTA. At Q4 in december, DXC has stated:
213 Million in Net cash provided by (used in) investing activities. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1688568/000168856818000007/dxc1231201710-q.htm
Just some food for thought:
If you are already spending opportunity cost on IOTA, why wouldn't you leverage that with the token. Bosch invested into the token as well, most likely because there is more regulatory certainty in germany. Fujitsu wants to roll out IOTA as an industry standard (as it seems). This is not your regular Shitcoin. There is a reason dumb money is called dumb. Last time i check Verge had 10x the volume on binance compared to IOTA.
 
There are no fundamentals yet in evaluation, it’s purely speculative - but with more institutions moving into the space this might change. As such, CCs with industrial use could likely see a reevaluation. But, looking in from the outside, there seem to be some hurdles.
this twitter account is one of the more resourceful ones, he lets out some numbers to boost his SM traction (god bless him) https://twitter.com/joel_john95
as outsiders, this will be an extremely helpful resource. He tweeted out a quarterly report https://medium.com/outlier-ventures-io/state-of-blockchains-q1-2018-1efe284572c1
he writes: Over $1.8 billion has been invested into firms working with the blockchain ecosystem through corporate venture capital to date.
That’s not that much. Is it. For the entire ecosystem? Friendly reminder snapchat, after a 20% fall, is a 15 billion company. Just to get some perspective.
 
Especially if you consider the crypto market is still in the hands of leveraged daytraders on bitmex and whales, who got big stacks in a coin early on.
Imagine you want to invest 3M into IOTA as a CVC, you would’t spin up Binance and hit marketorder. You contact the IF and see if you can buy some, or outlier ventures might want to part with some, or even the founders i imagine hold quite a substantial amount.
I often see people asking for more exchanges - that's kinda missing the point. What you want at this point is more institutional interest. That's the kind of demand we want. Thats what you would call "organic growth" i guess.
Ripple holders, thinking a coinbase listening would make XRP go to $10, fail understand that Ripple itself holds a substantial amount of tokens where VCs can go and buy in bulk. And that’s why XRP is such a Shitcoin in the first place.
 
Cool thing about open ledgers is that you can look at them. Go figure. https://arewedecentralizedyet.com/
 
Ripple and XLM look extremely bad with over 90% of coins held in the top 100 addresses (shitcoins confirmed). TRX and EOS don’t even have a mainnet yet to really track it - so you can imagine the numbers are likely shit too. ADA is looking way better than IOTA in terms of wealth distribution. But 60% for whales, IF and Founders is probably better than what most projects can show for.
Thing is, the small guys got in on crypto first. Not the banks, not a selected silicon valley investor boisclub either. While this is good for us, it's a nightmare for investment banks and such.
JPMorgan admitted that in their “BTC Bible” saying:
Ownership is highly concentrated. The opportunity set around direct CC trading appears relatively limited for banks
(Think about that for a second.)
CVC investing into the token could be, in my speculative opinion, the most likely catalyst for the price of IOTA, as its industrial adoption can build a synergy for entire sectors. As the main argument for Bitcoin is price uncorrelation to legacy assets, IOTA might be an interesting pick for the smart money, as it could be one of the few CCs with actual fundamental impact on different industry sectors. Something Blockchain, after 10 years, has failed to do.
Let me summarize because i was a bit all over the place. Things i will look for going forward:

1. Institutional infrastructure is being built as we speak as regulations get more clear
2. 2018 might see the highest investments into the blockchain ecosphere
3. Financial talent from legacy market is switching to crypto
4. Retail investors are the early adopters, not exclusive silicon valley boiclubs
5. Liquidity is really bad, its hard to buy a lot of crypto for institutions
6. The real FOMO and bubble might come with the “smart” money
7. IF addressing wealth distribution and being more transparent

(i do not have a finance background as you can see and i write these to offer some interesting links and resources you might find useful in your own research.)

Top 50 Cryptocurrencies
I thought this might be of real help for the ones that are just joining crypto and still want to read.
Let’s face it: there are a lot of cryptocurrencies out there, with new ones coming out almost daily and old ones disappearing seemingly just as fast as they appeared. It’s easy to get overwhelmed.
If you are new to cryptocurrencies, this is an excellent starting point to learn about each of the top 50 cryptocurrencies (by market cap). Even if you’re a crypto veteran, this is a great resource to reference if you ever get any of the top 50 confused, or if you want to read more about a new coin which has joined the ranks.
Our hope is to point you in the right direction, spur your interest to do more research, and steer you away from the potential scams out there (And yes, there are potential scam coins in the top 50!)
Here at Invest In Blockchain, we are obsessed with researching the internet for all things crypto. The information found in this post is the result of hundreds of hours of painstaking research by me and other writers on our team.
Note that this list is constantly changing and I will do my best to keep it up-to-date, but the top 50 moves almost daily! Please refer to coinmarketcap.com for the latest information on the top 50 cryptocurrencies and their prices.
Let’s get started!
(Information accurate as of May 23, 2018)

#1 – Bitcoin (BTC)

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The king of the crypto world, Bitcoin is now a household name; to many, it is synonymous with “cryptocurrency”. Its purpose is to provide a peer-to-peer electronic version of cash to allow payments to be sent online without the need for a third party (such as Mastercard).
The rapid rise in Bitcoin’s price has brought about an explosion of new Bitcoin investors. With the huge increase in interest has come a rise in merchants accepting Bitcoin as a legitimate form of payment. Bitcoin is fast moving towards its goal of becoming a currency accepted worldwide.
Bitcoin’s development is led by Bitcoin Core developer Wladimir J. van der Laan, who took over the role on April 8, 2014. Bitcoin’s changes are decided democratically by the community.
For an in-depth look at Bitcoin, including an explanation of Bitcoin mining, Bitcoin’s history, an analysis of Bitcoins’ value and a description on how bitcoin actually works, see our comprehensive guide “What is Bitcoin? Everything You Need to Know About Bitcoin, Explained“.
For a more detailed description of Bitcoin’s economics, what makes money and how Bitcoin works in the economy as a whole see: “Bitcoin Explained” and “Bitcoin is a Deflationary Currency”.

#2 – Ethereum (ETH)

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Ethereum is the revolutionary platform which brought the concept of “smart contracts” to the blockchain. First released to the world in July 2015 by then 21-year-old Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum has quickly risen from obscurity to cryptocurrency celebrity status.
Buterin has a full team of developers working behind him to further develop the Ethereum platform. For more background information on Buterin, read our article, “Vitalik Buterin: The Face of Blockchain”.
Ethereum has the ability to process transactions quickly and cheaply over the blockchain similar to Bitcoin, but also has the ability to run smart contracts. For future reading on smart contracts, see “What’s the Difference Between Bitcoin and Ethereum”; but for now, think automated processes which can do just about anything.
For further reading on Ethereum, including an analysis of the platform’s strengths and future prospects, read “What is Ethereum, Everything You Need to Know Explained“.

#3 – Ripple (XRP)

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Ripple aims to improve the speed of financial transactions, specifically international banking transactions.
Anyone who has ever sent money internationally knows that today it currently takes anywhere from 3-5 business days for a transaction to clear. It is faster to withdraw money, get on a plane, and fly it to your destination than it is to send it electronically! Not to mention you will be paying exorbitant transaction fees — usually somewhere around 6% but it can vary depending on the financial institution.
Ripple’s goal is to make these transactions fast (it only takes around 4 seconds for a transaction to clear) and cheap.
The Ripple team currently comprises over 150 people, making it one of the biggest in the cryptocurrency world. They are led by CEO Brad Garlinghouse, who has an impressive resume which includes high positions in other organizations such as Yahoo and Hightail.
Check out “What is Ripple” for more information, including a closer look at what they do, controversies and future prospects.

#4 – Bitcoin Cash (BCH)

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Bitcoin Cash was created on August 1, 2017 after a “hard fork” of the Bitcoin blockchain. For years, a debate has been raging in the Bitcoin community on whether to increase the block size in the hope of alleviating some of the network bottleneck which has plagued Bitcoin due to its increased popularity.
Because no agreement could be reached, the original Bitcoin blockchain was forked, leaving the Bitcoin chain untouched and in effect creating a new blockchain which would allow developers to modify some of Bitcoin’s original programmed features.
Generally speaking, the argument for Bitcoin Cash is that by allowing the block size to increase, more transactions can be processed in the same amount of time. Those opposed to Bitcoin Cash argue that increasing the block size will increase the storage and bandwidth requirement, and in effect will price out normal users. This could lead to increased centralization, the exact thing Bitcoin set out to avoid.
Bitcoin Cash does not have one single development team like Bitcoin. There are now multiple independent teams of developers.
Read “What is Bitcoin Cash” for more information. You can also check out their reddit and official webpage.

#5 – EOS (EOS)

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Billed as a potential “Ethereum Killer”, EOS proposes improvements that can challenge Ethereum as the dominant smart contract platform. One main issue EOS looks to improve is the scalability problems which has plagued the Ethereum network during times of high transaction volume, specifically during popular ICOs.
A perhaps more profound difference EOS has, compared to Ethereum, is the way in which you use the EOS network. With Ethereum, every time you make modifications or interact with the network, you need to pay a fee. With EOS, the creator of the DAPP (decentralized app) can foot the bill, while the user pays nothing. And if you think about it, this makes sense. Would you want to have to pay every time you post something on social media? No, of course not!
In addition to this, EOS has a few other technical advantages over Ethereum such as delegated proof of stake and other protocol changes. Just know that EOS has some serious power under the hood to back up the claim of “Ethereum Killer”.
EOS was created by Dan Larrimer who is no stranger to blockchain or start ups. He has been the driving force behind multiple successful projects in the past such as BitShares, Graphene and Steem.
For more information on EOS such as how and where to buy EOS tokens, EOS’s vision and potential challenges, see “What is EOS”.

#6 – Litecoin (LTC)

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Similar to Bitcoin, Litecoin is a peer-to-peer transaction platform designed to be used as a digital currency. Due to some notable technical improvements, Litecoin is able to handle more transactions at lower costs. Litecoin has been designed to process the small transactions we make daily.
Litecoin is sometimes referred to “digital silver” while Bitcoin is known as “digital gold”. This is because traditionally silver was used for small daily transactions while gold was used as a store of wealth and was not used in everyday life.
The Litecoin blockchain is a fork from the Bitcoin chain. It was initially launched in 2011 when its founder, Charlie Lee, was still working for Google. Well-known as a cryptocurrency expert, Charlie Lee is backed by a strong development team who appear to be achieving what they set out to do. They have recently achieved a very notable accomplishment with the first successful atomic swap.
For an in-depth discussion on what Litecoin does, how it is different than Bitcoin and the team backing up the development, see “What is Litecoin”.

#7 – Cardano (ADA)

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Cardano is a smart contract-focused blockchain. It was originally released under the name Input Output Hong Kong by Charles Hoskinson and Jeremy Wood, a few of the early team members of Ethereum, and later rebranded into Cardano.
Cardano is trying to fix some of the largest problems the cryptocurrency world which have been causing ongoing issues for years such as scalability issues and democratized voting.
They have the potential to challenge Ethereum’s dominance in the smart contract world. Cardano is developing their own programing language similar to Ethereum; however, they are focusing more heavily on being interoperable between other cryptocurrencies.
While some cryptocurrencies are all bite but no bark, Cardano is quite the opposite. They are quietly focusing on a strong software which will be completely open-source.
Cardano’s team comprises some of the best minds in the industry, and they seek to create a strong foundation which others can build upon for years to come.
For up-to-date information on Cardano’s status see their Reddit page or official website. You can also read our article “What is Cardano” to learn more about them.

#8 – Stellar Lumens (XLM)

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In a nutshell, Stellar Lumens seeks to use blockchain to make very fast international payments with small fees. The network can handle thousands of transactions a second with only a 3-5 second confirmation time.
As you may know, Bitcoin can sometimes take 10-15 minutes for a transaction to confirm, can only handle a few transactions a second and, in turn, has very high transaction fees.
If this sounds a lot like Ripple, you’re right! Stellar Lumens was based off of the Ripple protocol) and is attempting to do similar things. Some of Stellar Lumens’ main uses will be for making small daily payments (micropayments), sending money internationally, and mobile payments.
Stellar Lumens is focusing on the developing world and, more specifically, the multi-billion dollar industry of migrant workers who send money back to their family in impoverished countries.
The Stellar Lumens team is led by Jed McCaleb, who has worked in numerous successful startups in the past such as eDonkey, Overnet, Ripple, and the infamous Mt. Gox.
For more information on Stellar Lumens, including the history and what sets Stellar Lumens apart, see “What are Stellar Lumens”. You can also learn about the differences between Stellar Lumens and Ripple.

#9 – TRON (TRX)

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As stated in TRON’s whitepaper, “TRON is an attempt to heal the internet”. The TRON founders believe that the internet has deviated from its original intention of allowing people to freely create content and post as they please; instead, the internet has been taken over by huge corporations like Amazon, Google, Alibaba and others.
TRON is attempting to take the internet back from these companies by constructing a free content entertainment system. This will enable users to freely store, publish and own data, giving them the power to decide where and how to share.
The project is led by founder Justin Sun, who has been listed on the Forbes 30 under 30 list twice (in 2015 and 2017). In addition, Sun is a protégé of Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba Group, China’s former Ripple representative and the founder of Peiwo APP.
Sun has assembled a strong team with heavy hitters including Binshen Tang (founder of Clash of King), Wei Dai (founder of ofo, the biggest shared bicycles provider in China), and Chaoyong Wang (founder of ChinaEquity Group). Sun has also secured the support of a few notable angel investors such as Xue Manzi.
For up-to-date information on Tron and further discussion of the technology and team, see “What is Tron” and their website.

#10 – IOTA (MIOTA)

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IOTA has seen many of the issues Bitcoin and Ethereum have with the POW (proof-of-work) and POI (proof-of-importance) models and looks to improve them with their revolutionary transaction validation network simply called “tangle”.
When issuing a transaction in IOTA, you validate 2 previous transactions. This means you no longer outsource validation to miners which requires wasteful amounts of computing power and usually a large stake of coins. These required resources are, in effect, centralizing the currencies which many believe were created to be decentralized in the first place.
With IOTA, the more active a ledger is, the more validation there is. In other words, the more people who use it, the faster it gets. You don’t have to subsidize miners, so there are no fees on transactions. That’s right: zero.
The IOTA team has been actively developing blockchain technology since 2011, and created the IOTA foundation and company in 2016. Since its emergence, the team has been continuously growing, attracting exceptional talent from around the world.
For more information on IOTA’s team and their revolutionary“tangle” technology, check out “What is IOTA”.

#11 – NEO (NEO)

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A leading platform for smart contracts and sometimes referred to as “China’s Ethereum”. NEO (formally Antshares) hopes to digitize many types of assets which were formerly kept in more traditional means, and therefore make it possible to use them in smart contracts.
To imagine a potential use case of NEO, think digitizing the title to a house into a smart asset, and then setting up that asset to automatically transfer to another person after payment for the house has been received. This would be, in effect, a simple smart contract.
NEO founder Da Hongfei is a leading figure in the cryptocurrency world and has worked on numerous blockchain projects in the past. The development team consists of 6 in-house investors and a large community of third-party developers.
For a complete overview of NEO, including the team, history and competitive analysis, check out “What is NEO”.

#12 – Dash (DASH)

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Dash (which comes from ‘digital cash’) aims to be the most user-friendly and scalable cryptocurrency in the world. It has the ability to send funds instantly confirmed by “double-send-proof” security with the added functionality of erasable transaction history and the ability to send transactions anonymously.
Like Bitcoin, Dash is meant to be used as a digital currency but has some added values such as much faster transaction times and lower fees. For a slightly higher fee, Dash has the added function of “instant send” which allows transactions to be confirmed almost instantly. This is one of the main selling points of Dash because many believe that this feature would allow it to be used in brick and mortar establishments.
The Dash development team consists of over 50 members and is led by former financial services professional Evan Duffield.
For the latest on Dash, see their official website and reddit page. You can also read “What is Dash” to learn more about the project.

#13 – Monero (XMR)

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Monero is a digital currency designed to be used as a completely anonymous payment system.
A common misconception with Bitcoin is that it is completely anonymous. In reality, all payments processed on the Bitcoin network are recorded on a public ledger (blockchain), so Bitcoin is actually only partially anonymous or “pseudonymous”.
This means that you can, in theory, trace back every transaction a coin has been involved with from its creation. Though users aren’t able to inherently link the public key on the blockchain with the private keys used to store the coins themselves, there will always exist a correlation between the two.
Monero has solved this problem by implementing cryptonic hashing of receiving addresses, therefore separating the coin from the address it is going to. This can be hugely valuable for anyone wishing to conceal their purchases.
The Monero development team consists of 7 core developers, only two of which are publicly known. There have been over 200 additional contributors to the project and software updates are implemented every six months or so.
To learn more about Monero including its competitors and challenges, read “What is Monero”. If you’re thinking about investing in Monero, check out our opinion piece “Should You Invest In Monero?“.

#14 – Tether (UDST)

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Tether is a cryptocurrency token issued on the Bitcoin blockchain. Each Tether coin is allegedly backed by one US Dollar. The goal is to facilitate transactions with a rate fixed to the USD.
Amongst other things, Tether looks to fix some of the legal issues which can arise when trading cryptocurrencies and it aims to protect people from market volatility.
Tether has faced controversy regarding their business model, and some consider it a scam. More info can be seen on reddit posts such as this.

#15 – NEM (XEM)

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NEM (New Economy Movement) is the world’s first proof-of-importance (POI) enterprise based on blockchain technology. With a focus on business use cases, the software was built from the ground up with adaptability in mind. NEM’s goal is for companies to use their “smart asset system” to implement customizable blockchains. A smart asset can be almost anything: a cryptocurrency token, a business’s stock or a company’s invoicing and records.
Some potential use cases for NEM’s technology include: voting, crowdfunding, stock ownership, keeping secure records, loyalty rewards point programs, mobile payments and escrow services. A list of NEM’s use cases can be found here.
The development of NEM is monitored by the Singapore-based NEM Foundation.
For more information on what NEM does and what sets NEM apart from its competitors, see “What is NEM”.

#16 – VeChain (VEN)

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As described in VeChain’s development plan, the organization’s purpose is to build “a trustfree and distributed business ecosystem based on the Blockchain technology self-circulated and expanding”.
They plan to do this by creating an efficient trustless business ecosystem to significantly reduce the wasteful information transfer systems of today.
Some of the areas and industries the VeChain platform is focusing on include eliminating counterfeiting in the fashion and luxury industry, food safety tracking systems, digitizing maintenance in the car industry and many other global supply chain processes.
For more information on VeChain, see their reddit and website. Read “What is Vechain” to learn about the project, and our investment opinion piece “5 Reasons to Invest in Vechain“.

#17 – Ethereum Classic (ETC)

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Ethereum Classic came about after a hard fork of Ethereum in 2016. The fork was a result of the infamous DOA hack where around 50 million dollars worth of Ethereum was stolen due to what was considered an oversight in the code.
The blockchain was forked in order to recoup the losses from this attack, but a small portion of the community did not wish to go back and change the original blockchain. Vitalik Buterin, founder of Ethereum, and subsequently the development team chose to go with the hard fork and work on what is now “Ethereum” today.
There is a lot of ongoing controversy with Ethereum Classic which can be better described on this reddit thread. For an in-depth discussion of Ethereum Classic, see”What is Ethereum Classic“.

#18 – Binance Coin (BNB)

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Binance Coin is the coin used to facilitate operations on the Binance platform, a cryptocurrency exchange that is capable of processing 1.4 million orders per second. The name “Binance” is derived from the combination of the terms “binary” and “finance”, referring to the integration of digital technology and finance.
The BNB coin is used to pay exchange fees, withdrawal fees, listing fees, and all other possible transaction expenses on the Binance platform. In order to incentivize new users to do their cryptocurrency trading on Binance, the team is offering discounts when BNB is used to pay fees. The discount will be 50% in the first year, 25% in the second, 12.5% in the third, and 6.25% in the fourth year before the discount ends.
Binance was primarily marketed to Chinese cryptocurrency investors at first, but they also have English, Korean, Japanese, French, Spanish, and Russian versions of the platform.
For a deeper look into Binance, you can read the whitepaper or check out the trading platform here.

#19 – Bytecoin (BCN)

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Bytecoin describes itself as “a private, decentralized cryptocurrency with with open source code that allows everyone to take part in the Bytecoin network development”. It is the first coin to offer untraceable payments, unlinkable transactions and resistance to blockchain analysis.
With Bytecoin, it is possible to send instant transactions anywhere around the world, which are totally untraceable and don’t require additional fees.
Bytecoin’s development is community-driven and a list of all of the different community websites can be found here.
For more information on Bytecoin, see: “What is Bytecoin“.

#20 – QTUM (QTUM)

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QTUM (pronounced Quantum) is an open-source value transfer platform which focuses on mobile decentralized apps or Dapps. QTUM is the world’s first proof-of-stake smart contracts platform.
QTUM is meant to be used as both a value transfer protocol, like Bitcoin, and a smart contract platform, like Ethereum. They have a number of technical innovations which some consider to make it superior to Ethereum, and they are focusing on mobile applications.
The platform itself is very new. It came about in March 2017, after a highly successful crowdfunding campaign raised them nearly 16 million dollars in only 5 days. QTUM has a small but strong development team and an impressive list of investors backing their ideas. QTUM’s development is lead by the Singapore based QTUM Foundation.
For further reading on the background of QTUM and what sets them apart, see “What is QTUM”.

#21 – Zcash (ZEC)

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ZCash is a value transfer protocol forked off of the Bitcoin blockchain. ZCash can be used like Bitcoin, with a few added improvements. With “zero cash technology”, ZCash shields both the amount transferred and the senders, making transactions truly anonymous.
ZCash is one of the new kids on the block in the world of “private transactions”.
An interesting note is that Ethereum is in the process of implementing some of ZCash’s technologies to enable transactions on the Ethereum network to be anonymous as well.
ZCash is being developed by the Zerocoin Electric Coin Company. They’ve had some great successes, most notably JP Morgan’s announcement that they would implement Zcash’s privacy technology to Quarum, a technology JP built on Ethereum.
Interested in investing in ZCash? Here’s the opinion of one of our writers: Should You Invest In ZCash?
ZCash was recently featured on the Radiolab episode The Ceremony.

#22 – OmiseGO (OMG)

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“Unbank the Banked” is the slogan of Omise’s online platform OmiseGo and that’s exactly what Omise has set out to do. Founded in 2013 off of the Ethereum blockchain, Omise aims to revolutionize the financial dynamics in Southeast Asia.
Omise is targeting individuals and businesses of all sizes by improving the current financial system which is slow, outdated, and inaccessible to most “everyday” people in these countries.
With their planned online exchange OmiseGO, Omise seeks to speed up the way money is spent and sent, both domestically and internationally in Southeast Asia and beyond.
They have a lot to celebrate too. OmiseGo has been building partnerships in the region and recently partnered with McDonald’s and Credit Saison.
Omise has established a strong team of over 130 staff members located in different countries. CEO and founder of Omise, Jun Hasegawa, has been involved in multiple startups and worked for Google for over 16 years.
The OmiseGO platform has been endorsed by some of the heavy hitters in the cryptocurrency world such as Vitalik Buterin and Gavin Wood, the co-founders of Ethereum.
For more information on what OmiseGO aims to do, see “What is OmiseGo”.

#23 – ICON (ICX)

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Fresh off a successful ICO, the Korea-based startup ICON is looking to provide a medium to connect all the different blockchains together. This puts ICON in the same field as Ark, which is attempting to accomplish similar goals.
The main concept of ICON is their idea of a “loopchain”. As stated in their whitepaper, a loopchain can be described as a “high-performance blockchain that can provide real-time transaction, which is based on enhanced Smart Contract.” Through ICON, participants will be able to connect to any blockchain without relying on the current centralized exchanges.
ICON has a relatively large team from various backgrounds. They have also secured the help of a few notable advisors such as Jason Best and Don Tapscott.
For more information on ICON and the work they’re doing, see “What is ICON“.

#24 – Lisk (LSK)

📷 Lisk is a decentralized network, like Bitcoin and Litecoin, which enables developers to deploy their own side chains off the main Lisk blockchain. These side chains are fully customizable blockchains which enable you to change the parameters you want to fit your own blockchain application.
This is similar to Ethereum and QTUM in some ways. With Lisk, the main difference is that the customizable blockchains split into their own separate side chains. This saves developers the grueling legwork of designing something from scratch. At the end of the day, side chains are only decentralized databases of blockchain applications.
Lisk is being developed by a small but quickly growing Berlin-based team. They are led by co-founders Max Kordek and Olivier Beddows who are veterans in the cryptocurrency and development world.
For a thorough look into Lisk including more on what Lisk does, its competitors, challenges and teams, see “What is Lisk”. You can also check out our case study of an accountant who invested all his life savings in Lisk: “Accountant Invests All in Lisk”.

#25 – Zilliqa – (ZIL)

📷
Zilliqa is a blockchain platform which focuses on solving the problem of scaling on public blockchains. With Zilliqa’s network, the number of transactions increases at a linear rate to the number of nodes.
This means that as nodes increase, so will its ability to handle high transaction volume. Zilliqa has already run a successful test on their network, where they were able to achieve 1,200 transactions per second with only 2,400 nodes.
Zilliqa also is the first blockchain to successfully integrate “sharding” into a public blockchain. This concept is extremely useful in improving the rate of scalability, bandwidth and performance in blockchains. Sharding, in effect, splits nodes into “shards” which can then conduct micro-transactions in each blockchain block.
In addition to this, Zilliqa claims to be more energy-efficient to mine. They also plan to implement dapps into their platform in the future.
For more information on Zilliqa, see their website and reddit. Our article “What is Zilliqa” can provide you with an overview of the project.

Source: https://www.investinblockchain.com/top-cryptocurrencies/

Taken from www.blockdelta.io
Where should I set up my new blockchain company!?
It’s true that not many countries are overly friendly to cryptocurrency companies right now. There are only a handful of nations which are openly attracting this fantastic new technology/sector.
Realistically speaking, there are 5 countries which ‘lead the way’ when choosing where to open up.
Malta
In early 2018, Malta’s government launched the Malta Digital Innovation Authority in order to provide legal clarity for organisations developing Blockchain technologies, cryptocurrencies, and Initial Coin Offerings (ICO). Malta is quickly becoming an extremely popular location for cryptocurrency businesses, and many companies are currently considering moving to this new blockchain haven. The small island is one of the global leaders in online gambling and is now attracting crypto startups by proposing guidelines on blockchain and cryptocurrency applications in the gaming industry.
During a recent political meeting in Malta, Prime Minister Muscat made it clear how he envisages the future of blockchain and cryptocurrency. Contrary to what people may expect, he is quite open-minded toward both industries. In fact, he is confident the country needs to take the first step to properly regulate these industries in the coming months.
Most people already know about Binance’s relations and aspirations regarding Malta and its evident Binance is not the first company to “migrate” either. There has been an interest from other companies as well, according to Muscat. However, none of them are on the same level as the popular exchange right now. These companies want to come to Malta because the island is ready to offer regulation. The country has a clear plan of action and this is a positive development for the industry as a whole.
Muscat is confident he can bring this industry on par with the financial and gaming industries in the country. Assuming that promise holds up, positive things are in store for companies such as Binance (and Monaco Coin). The jobs created by all of these companies will help boost the local economy as well.
Japan
Japan, claimed by many to be the motherland of Satoshi Nakamoto, the founder and creator of Bitcoin, has embraced its long-lost grandchild from the very beginning. One of the most technologically advanced countries, it is the first and only country that has a proper legal system regulating cryptocurrency trading.
Despite the Mt. Gox controversy, Japan is the largest Bitcoin market. According to a Nikkei report cited in a note by Masao Muraki, a global financial strategist at Deutsche Bank, around 40% of bitcoin trading in Q4 2017 was conducted in yen.
Switzerland
The world’s center for the wealth management industry, the Alpine country is striving to “become the crypto-nation” according to Johann Schneider-Ammann, Switzerland’s economics minister. This remark was made in the context of the “Crypto Valley” project, an independent, government-supported association inspired by the enormous advantages of global industry clusters. Crypto Valley, centered in and around the Swiss area of Zug, is now one of the world’s leading ecosystems for crypto, blockchain, and distributed ledger technologies. In addition, Switzerland is said to be one of the world leaders in the number of successful ICOs.
Estonia
This Baltic country has long been a a tech hotbed. Think of all of the successful tech enterprises of the recent past including Skype, for example. So, it’s no wonder Estonia is one of very few countries where digital currency adoption is thriving; the blockchain technology is used in the spheres such as national health, judicial, legislative, security, and commercial code systems. Besides, Estonia is the first country to offer e-Residency, a government issued digital identity that empowers entrepreneurs around the world to set up and run a location-independent business.
Singapore
After the recent Indian central bank’s crackdown on virtual money, a lot of Indian firms started looking at registering their companies in Singapore, as it is rightfully considered a global hub of blockchain revolution and one of the most crypto-friendly countries, largely due to its stable politics, reliable infrastructure, and favorable business environment. At the moment, Singapore is one of the last major banking centers that allow for unregulated cryptocurrency exchanges.
There we go. 5 locations to choose from. I’m a big fan of the Mediterranean sunshine and the beach. Malta, for now, is my location of choice.
Good luck!