Six Bitcoin Alternatives to Watch
Bitcoin may not be the hottest coin on the market today, but it’s certainly the one getting the most attention in the news cycle. People are selling houses and taking second jobs to invest in the crypto, all in hopes that they’ll be able to strike it big as they’ve seen others do as well. Such is the benefit of being first to market.
But you don’t have to invest in Bitcoin to hit it big in the crypto market. Just ask Mark Dukas Charlotte, who has counseled people in crypto investing for a long time. There are several coins that can reap amazing returns that you might or might not have thought about, such as those listed below.
1. Ripple
The coin listed on the exchange as XRP is one of the more recent darlings to sweep the media circuit as of late, mostly because of its unexpected rise at the end of 2017. It also is one of the coins that saw the most exponential gains over the previous year, shooting up over 36,000% in twelve months.
So what is Ripple? While it operates much like other coins on the market, it’s unique in two distinct ways. First, it is centralized, with a team of developers that set the rules and allow for more coins to be released on their schedule. Second, it helps facilitate transactions in the financial sector, doing so much quicker and more efficiently than even Bitcoin. It has decreased in value since it’s meteoric rise in 2017, but it’s still a viable option.
2. Litecoin
Even though Litecoin has been around since 2011, it hasn’t enjoyed the same amount of airtime as Bitcoin due to it’s smaller trading volume. It operates much the same way as Bitcoin but doesn’t have the same speed limits, making it much faster to send money and more efficient in a wide array of marketplaces. Still, the smaller volume means the price is subject to change much quicker, making it one of the more volatile coins on the market. Investors like Mark Dukas have called this coin the silver to Bitcoin’s gold, and the comparison is not too far off.
3. Monero
One of the benefits of Bitcoin (or disadvantages, depending on who you ask) was its claim to be completely anonymous, making it a favorite for black market dealers and deep web users who were engaged in rather illicit dealings, such as sex trafficking and the drug trade.
In truth, Bitcoin was traceable to a certain extent by being able to follow transaction records that were available on the Blockchain, so it wasn’t nearly as anonymous as expected. Monero’s claim to fame is that it promises complete confidentiality and security, leaving your actions on the web as invisible as possible. If that’s a market that you’re interested in being in, Monero is the coin for you.
4. Bitcoin Cash
A variant of Bitcoin, this commodity was created in order to scale transactions much easier; the block sizes on Bitcoin Cash are 7-8 times larger than those with traditional Bitcoins, enabling you to group various transactions together. While this may seem like a home run for investors who are needing to transport more cash at one time, it also comes with a fatal flaw: the inability to speed up transactions by paying more, called replace-by-fee. This creates the potential for investors to double-spend on their transactions, which, with the size that each investor sends, could be catastrophic. If you ask ten different investors for advice on this coin, like Mark Dukas Charlotte, you’ll most likely get eleven different answers, so the community is split on its advantages and disadvantages.
5. Ethereum
After Bitcoin, Ether is the biggest crypto coin on the market today, with a market cap of over $120 billion. This coin also exists to serve a specific market as Ripple does, but instead of financial systems, this coin is used strictly on a network of developers that are using it to power smart contracts. In recent weeks, Ether has become more organized, with the team behind it investing back into the network itself, and even though it doesn’t have the highest trading price today, it still remains a stable option for the future – or as stable as crypto can be. If you’re interested, there has emerged a crypto called Neo that has positioned itself as a Chinese version of this coin; it might be worth looking into if that market interests you.
6. IOTA
In short, IOTA hopes to be able to trade services – no matter what type – for other services across the entire world. It’s more of a bartering network than a strictly financial transaction, but the sheer scope of their mission makes IOTA an intriguing one for investors like Mark Dukas to watch.
