Hot Altcoin 🔥Monaco

Monaco has been sinking a bit harder than the rest of the altcoin market the past three months, but the team has been continuing to make solid progress towards their goal of getting cryptocurrency in every wallet. The Monaco card is positioned to be the first cryptocurrency card that will allow people to instantaneously exchange crypto for fiat and spend like a debit/credit card. The MCO tokens allow users to gain access to a plethora of benefits and cash-back incentives in the ecosystem.

In January, the team has announced they will include credit and invest products through their app. Recently, the Monaco app went live and already over 80,000 people have reserved Monaco cards. Another interesting thing to note is that the item that is currently up on the roadmap is the release of marketing spend. With Kris Marszalek at CEO alongside the likes of former VISA and Amazon execs as advisors at Monaco, look for a strong go to market for their cards and financial products. Currently, MCO trades at $5.90 on Binance and Bittrex

www.mona.co

The opinions expressed on Crypto Bull are in no way financial advice and are only opinions. We are not responsible for any losses incurred as a result of reading our blog.

Hot Altcoin 🔥VeChain

VEN (VeChain) - The VeChain Foundation is building to become the top distributed business ecosystem. The project is being headed up by CEO Sunny LU, who was most recently the CIO of Louis Vuitton China. Sunny has been busy building top-notch partnerships and VeChain has already partnered with PwC, Cisco, BMW, Kuhne + Nagel (Massive Global Freight Company), and China Unicom (Chinese Telecom operator w/ 4 largest mobile subscriber base in the world), and Chinese Government Tobacco arm.

VeChain is gearing up to launch their mainchain, which will be named VeChain Thor Blockchain. During this launch, all VEN tokens will be exchanged to become VET at a 1 to 100 payout. This is essentially like a stock split and is positive news considering the massive partnerships the team has built. The team has also been working to get new projects to build on the Vechain Thor blockchain. Plair, a blockchain backed gaming platform and community, has been announced as the first ICO to debut on the platform. It will be an interesting couple of week but VEN/VET definitely gives a lot of reason for excitement, VEN currently trades at $4.32 on Binance.

Image from Hackernoon

The opinions expressed on Crypto Bull are in no way financial advice and are only opinions. We are not responsible for any losses incurred as a result of reading our blog.

Top Reasons Ethereum is Prime for a Run

Over the past four months the cryptocurrency markets have been in a bear market, but let’s take a moment to put this in perspective. One year ago today, the total market cap of all cryptocurrencies was $25 billion USD, right now it is currently $245 billion USD - this is almost a 10x increase still. The run up in December was bound to come with a correction and no one is sure how long it will last, but here are some reasons that make Ethereum an enticing coin to hold right now.

Often times, people have referred to the market cap of Ethereum exceeding that of Bitcoin as ‘the flippening’, but this has not happened to date. When looking at the total market cap as a percentage of the entire market, we see some interesting divergences between Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Graph from coinmarketcap

ETH experienced a massive rise to a price of $390 USD in June of 2017, where it reached its closest to surpassing BTC as the largest market cap as a percentage of the entire market. Since that time, BTC continued to assert dominance in the market as it rose to a massive price peak of over $19,000 in December of 2017. Through April of 2018, ETH and BTC have both taken price hits, but the dominance in the market cap percentage has been rising for BTC, while it has been steadily decreasing for ETH. This is interesting considering the growing number of Ethereum dapps...

Ethereum dapps, which are many of the projects that you have seen ICO using ERC20 tokens, actually make up an astounding 85% of all crypto assets that have been issued under existing blockchains. All of these run on ETH as their ‘gas’ and rely on it to successfully operate, making Ethereum’s value crucial in the scope of smart contract projects. Because of Ethereum’s unique ability to cultivate and support deployment of crypto projects, it is in a great position to continue to thrive in this space. While there are cryptocurrencies that are building very similar functionality and even claim to have advantages over ETH, such as EOS and Cardano (ADA) - they have no working products at the moment. It will be important to keep an eye on projects like these, but ETH talks the talk and walks the walk.

While BTC is certainly the king of crypto today, ETH is the king of dapps. You can view all Ethereum projects, including 515 that are live and actively earning profits at State of the dapps. This increasing dapp support, along with the recent slide in market cap dominance, could be an indicator of an Ethereum run to come when the bear market subsides. ETH trades at $363 USD today on just about all crypto platforms such as Bittrex, Coinbase, Gemini and Binance.

The opinions expressed on Crypto Bull are in no way financial advice and are only opinions. We are not responsible for any losses incurred as a result of reading our blog.

3 Altcoins With Real World Use Cases

As more and more Altcoins emerge, it can be hard to determine value when so many do not have even have a working product. This is a big reason that cryptocurrencies are considered a highly speculative investment. We wanted to take the time to highlight some projects that we think are addressing tangible use cases with specific applications and solutions! Here are 3 Altcoins that have real world use cases:

1. MTL (Metal Pay) - Metal Pay is building a payment app that is a lot like Venmo for cryptocurrencies. Using Metal Pay allows you to transfer money to anyone, any time, and rewards every transaction. Metal’s ‘Pop’ features automatically pays out 5% in MTL every time a payment is sent, and the app will support integrations with big banks such as Chase, BofA and Citi, offering an instantaneous bridge between fiat and crypto. MTL could push crypto towards the mainstream and would certainly be simpler solution to sending payment than the standard wallet address copy-paste method (which can limit non-technical folks). The team has been transparent in uploading Metal Pay demo videos to their youtube, and marketing is picking up around the upcoming app launch. it will be interesting to see how adoption of the app plays out and could be worth keeping an eye on as MTL trades at $3.60 on Binance currently.
2. PRL (Oyster Pearl) - Oyster Pearl is creating the future of website monetization and distributed storage, built on IOTA Tangle and Ethereum. Oyster enables a user-friendly way to implement both its revenue generation (only have to add a line of code). Website visitors contribute a small portion of their CPU and GPU power to enable users' files to be stored on a decentralized and anonymous ledger - In return, the website owners get paid indirectly by the storage users and website visitors can enjoy an ad-free browsing experience. PRL trades at $0.81 USD on Kucoin and Cryptopia. The PRL team will be performing an airdrop of SHL(Oyster Shell) in the near future, SHL will be used to pay for connectivity and Dapp operation across the Oyster meshnet and SHL will be paid out automatically to all PRL holders at a 1:1 ratio.
3. ELA (Elastos) - Elastos is the building the first internet operating system that uses the internet as the base-layer infrastructure rather than an application. Elastos will call this the SmartWeb, and Dapps will be able to run on a peer-to-peer network without centralized control.The goal of the team is to build a new type Internet community with honesty and without network attacks. Recently, the team posted a photo of an iphone running on the Elastos operating system to Twitter (see tweet here). There has been a lot of mystery behind ELA as the circulating supply has not yet been reported on coinmarketcap, and many believe this number will be low due to a variety of lock ins by the team and some early investors; which could send the price higher. Regardless, after forming the G3 alliance with NEO and Ontology (ONT), Elastos is a project that is in good company, and could be worth checking out as it trades at $37 on Huobi currently.

The opinions expressed on Crypto Bull are in no way financial advice and are only opinions. We are not responsible for any losses incurred as a result of reading our blog.

Hot Coins 🔥 WePower

WPR (WePower) - WePower recently finished up their ICO in February, during which they raised $40 million USD. The WPR team has set out to fix the problem of companies using dirty energy sources (think fossil fuel / CO2 heavy gas emissions). They are addressing this problem by empowering a more decentralized process of building green energy projects. The two main use cases are as follows:

1. Deploy smart contracts that enable participants to invest and finance green energy projects as well as acquire green energy in an efficient, secure and transparent way.
2. Provide access to live trade renewable energy across the globe, think of this as a green energy ‘secondary market’.

At its core, WePower is a lot like an independent energy supplier that is aiming to take power away from big oil money and put it into the hands of the general public, to help build a greener tomorrow. The team recently met with the European Commission, who was interested in learning more about the vision. WePower also announced a partnership with Elering, who is the main supplier of independent electricity and gas in Estonia.

It’s encouraging to see the founder of the project, Nikolaj Martyniuk, has over 10 years of experience in the green energy sector, and spearheaded the building of the largest power plant in the Baltics as CEO of Modus in 2016. The WPR project is still early days, yet it offers a differentiated approach, an extremely applicable use case, and strong ties to the industry leaders and bureaucratic powers that be(whether you want to admit it or not, this is important).

WPR currently trades at $0.21 USD on Huboi, and just barely missed out on winning Binance community coin of the month vote (Elastos won the listing). With a Market cap ranking of 165, this is a small-cap crypto project worth paying attention to!

The opinions expressed on Crypto Bull are in no way financial advice and are only opinions. We are not responsible for any losses incurred as a result of reading our blog.

Hot Coins 🔥 Elastos

ELA (Elastos) - Elastos is the building the first internet operating system that uses the internet as the base-layer infrastructure rather than an application, where Dapps will be able to run on a peer-to-peer network without centralized control. As a result, application programs are unable to access the network, which eliminates most viruses and attacks (especially DDoS attacks) on the internet. The team’s thinking is that network communication should be separated from application computing. Because Elastos is building an entire operating system, the final product will be a decentralized, open source, blockchain-driven platform with a robust economic infrastructure. On Elastos, running decentralized applications and turning digital content into transferable assets will be possible, and ELA tokens will serve as the base currency with a variety of crucial utilities. For instance, projects that are built on Elastos will distribute 20% of their token to the Elastos Foundation, and the remaining 80% will be airdropped to ELA holders for free.  

The Elastos project really began in 2000, when Rong Chen left Microsoft to build the world’s first internet operating system. Since then, the project has received funding from Foxconn and recently formed China’s ‘G3’ alliance alongside NEO(China’s largest crypto project) and Bitmain(largest blockchain mining company in China). With China’s growing commitment to embrace blockchain technologies and cryptocurrencies, Elastos is clearly a project of massive scale. ELA has remained relatively under the radar until recently, and currently trades on just one exchange (Huboi) at $76.69. This week, It looks like ELA is going to win the Binance Community Coin of the Month vote, which would be a big listing for the project. Regardless, the future looks bright for Elastos!

The opinions expressed on Crypto Bull are in no way financial advice and are only opinions. We are not responsible for any losses incurred as a result of reading our blog.

Hot Coins 🔥 Tierion, 0x & Ethereum

Week of December 31st, 2017

TNT (Tierion) - Tierion is building a universal platform for data verification. Tierion works by creating a proof that links data to a transaction on a blockchain, which is called anchoring. Anyone with this proof can verify the data’s integrity and timestamp without relying on a 3rd party. This project has wide spread use cases such as Audit trails for business processes, document timestamping and IoT data collection and provenance. They already have a working product with pricing available on website, and have partnered with Microsoft and Phillips… With ~500mn circulating coins and a market cap rank of 169, it’s only a matter of time before the project is recognized, and is a good candidate to shoot into the top 100 marketcap rankings in the near term. Tierion trades at ~$0.18 USD on Binance at the moment.

ZRX (0x) - 0x is an open protocol for decentralized exchange on the Ethereum blockchain. It is intended to serve as a basic building block that may be combined with other protocols to drive increasingly sophisticated dApps. The token serves two main utilities: 1) to solve the coordination problem and drives network effects around liquidity, creating a feedback loop where early adopters of the protocol benefit from wider adoption, and 2) to be used for decentralized governance over 0x protocol's update mechanism. Decentralized exchanges will be hot moving forward in the space, and ZRX is a should be a solid pick up, it trades at ~$0.70 USD on Binance right now.

ETH (Ethereum) - Ethereum is an open-source, public, blockchain-based distributed computing platform featuring smart contract (scripting) functionality, which facilitates online contractual agreements. The value token of the Ethereum blockchain is called ether. It is listed under ETH and is used to pay for transaction fees and computational services on the Ethereum network. Ethereum is a top tier hold, the staple token issuing network, and thousands of dapps are already utilizing the network. As more people become educated in the cryptocurrency markets into 2018, the value of ETH will continue to rise, it trades at ~$715 USD on Bittrex as of today.

The opinions expressed on Crypto Bull are in no way financial advice and are only opinions. We are not responsible for any losses incurred as a result of reading our blog.

Hot Coins 🔥 RaiBlocks, Komodo, Bitcoin & Litecoin

Week of Dec 10th, 2017

XRB (RaiBlocks) - We've seen interest in XRB increase dramatically in the past few days, driven by recognition of IOTA (a very similar cryptocurrency). Although while IOTA target Machine to Machine transactions for the Internet of things, XRB target Person 2 Person transaction and is designed as a store of value for micro-payments. Instant transactions, no fees, infinitely scalable, and utilizing a Proof of Stake consensus method, we see XRB as finally getting the recognition it deserves.  The coin is expected to list on a fourth exchange in December, has a new iOS developer working on an iPhone app, and is still a relative newcomer to the top 100 coin charts. 1/20th the total coin supply of IOTA, but only 25% of the price, and with a new whitepaper/community guide written in the past few days. RaiBlocks seems to be undervalued in the short and medium term, trading at $1.15 at the moment on BitGrail.

BTC (Bitcoin) - Bitcoin has been down trending the past few days after a mega surge. With futures going live on NY exchanges this week, I'm not sure anyone knows exactly what happens - but I know traders like to 'buy the dip'. Furthermore, BTC is the grand daddy of crypto at this point and is worth allocating some of your portfolio to in any scenario.

LTC (LiteCoin) - After dropping off the past week, LTC has surged in the past few days, and it wouldn't surprise us to see it continue. What differentiates LiteCoin from Bitcoin is SPEED, while BTC takes 10 minutes to process a block, LTC network takes just a tad over 2 minutes. Another big factor is that Litecoin has the capability to produce a total of 84 million units, compared to Bitcoin's 21 million. Even thought the potential circulation of LTC is 4 times that of BTC, it is valued at 1/150th of the price at $95 right now.... If that isn't enough to convince you, did you forget it's way faster than Bitcoin?

KMD (Komodo) - Komodo draws comparisons to Monero, a project to build private and untraceable networks. Monero is focusing on its status as a privacy-based cryptocurrency, whereas Komodo is focus on establishing an open-source blockchain ecosystem, and it includes built-in privacy options. Komodo It's a bit of a long shot but has a lot of room to run if they deliver on some upcoming road map, and trades at $3.24 on Binance.

The opinions expressed on Crypto Bull are in no way financial advice and are only opinions. We are not responsible for any losses incurred as a result of reading our blog.

Hot Coins 🔥 Waltonchain, NEO and Cardano

Week of Dec 3, 2017

WTC (Waltonchain) - Walton has been on a ripper and it appears people have caught on to the value in the project. WTC is building an RFID blockchain that will empower micro chips to better track everything from clothing to drones. The team is strong and they already have backing from large corporations and the Chinese government. After a 100% run up in price this week, there will likely be a pullback, but crazier things have happened in crypto, and its trading at $9.10 on Binance.

NEO (NEO) has been fairly steady these past few weeks, but continue to have one of the strongest developer communities out there. NEO trades at $42 at the moment, but is extremely well established and any network positioned to be the premier blockchain ecosystem in China is definitely worth having in the portfolio.

ADA (Cardano) - Cardano has also seen a large burst in volume and a bit of a moon pump.  The market cap is now in the top 10 and it will be interesting to see what happens this week. The network promises unmatched privacy and is written in Haskell, which is enables code to be written in a more secure matter. The network also intends to issue an ADA debit card. Considering it was created by an Ethereum founder, it's worth considering. It currently trades at $0.10 on Bittrex.

The opinions expressed on Crypto Bull are in no way financial advice and are only opinions. We are not responsible for any losses incurred as a result of reading our blog.