We ended 2017 in the wake of a Bitcoin slump and subsequently cryptocurrency investors seem to have switched their attention back to the alt-coin market which has been doing well in the last few weeks. Since mid December, a number of well touted projects have seen phenomenal rises.

Colin LeMahieu’s RAI Blocks project for example is now valued at ~$30 — this DAG flavour of the month project came to our attention when it was below $1 so we want to see if we can repeat the trick and find some under valued projects to invest in at the start of January and perhaps we’ll see similar dividends in the future.

With Bitcoin briefly rallying again at the start of this week, there may be some brilliant opportunities to find discount entry points into these projects in the coming days.

Without further ado, here is our picks for January:

Nimiq (NET) — Browser-based Blockchain & Ecosystem

What is it in a nutshell? It’s a blockchain that runs in the browser. They want to achieve simple and fast transactions between users using web technology. Not a fork of an existing project but an entirely new implementation.

Current Price: $4.40

Website: https://nimiq.com/

CoinMarketCap: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/nimiq/

Reasons to be optimistic

We need to state the simplicity of this project. No apps to download. Nothing to install. You just point your browser to the right address and that’s all!

The team have implemented an entire blockchain project from scratch in high quality ES6 Javascript. This is not a fork of Bitcoin with a few values modified! Many people that bought the ICO sold because they were too impatient / lacked trust in the ability of the lead dev to pull the project together but they certainly have egg on their faces now as the team has produced a fully functional Testnet implementation (take note Verify.as developers!).

Also remember, 1,000,000 Nimiq tokens were available upon launch, 4,000,000 Nimiq tokens due to be released after 1 year. That alone has driven the recent increase in price!

Reasons to be wary

Previous concerns about this project (the association of “pump and dump” specialist WhalePanda as an advisor, lack of faith in the team completing the project etc) have been allayed but there are still potential issues we feel we need to mention!

Testnet implementation was completed recently but Mainnet which was scheduled to go live in December has been delayed. That’s not really a problem, you can’t work a development team at breakneck pace and expect there not to be some eventual pull back — but there are numerous issues the team actually have to address. They worked through a number of consensus algorithms to find the right match (in terms of transaction speed) and it seems a final decision has yet to be made.

Nimiq can handle more transactions than Bitcoin (1MB/min) so we’re looking at 10x more throughput however off chain scaling will need to be considered at some point.

Orphan Blocks Final Verdict: Nimiq had their token sale in June and at $4+, it’s not exactly “under the radar” as we would have liked but miss this exceptional project at your peril! You’ll have to brave the horrors of Etherdelta to stock up, but don’t fret, it means we can savour the moment when it hits an actual proper exchange!

With Bitcoin starting to rally, we might see a related drop in all alt-coin valuations which would make this a very attractive project to barrel into. But there’s really no harm in nipping in at the current price if you plan to hold for a few months.

We asked our technical reviewers to look at their code base and they came back with the words “exceptionally written”. Nimiq aim to achieve one singular goal: quick browser based payments. The slickness of the UI, shows that the brains behind this project understand what’s involved in achieving that goal and the exceptional quality of their Testnet implementation has only raised our expectations for Q1 2018’s Mainnet release.

Agrello (DLT) — Smart-Contracts made for humans.

What is it in a nutshell? AI powered smart contract execution. Legally binding. No technical knowledge needed. Very appealing for small businesses as it cuts back legal fees and creates opportunities that were not possible before because of the cost of creating contracts.

Current Price: $0.58

Website: https://www.agrello.org/

CoinMarketCap: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/agrello-delta/

Reasons to be optimistic

Agrello hails from Estonia, one of the most cryptocurrency positive nations on the planet. Whilst QTUM’s chief scientist who was briefly associated with the project has now left, the project lead (Hando Rand) wrote his thesis on the foundation of this project and has been working on the ideas that led Agrello for over a decade. Partnerships with Lisk, NEO, Metaverse, and QTUM prove the pedigree of this project. Agrello launched its KYC and Digital ID app on Google Play recently and seems to be working closely to their roadmap so we’re optimistic about the heights this legal blockchain project will reach in 2018.

Reasons to be wary

As mentioned earlier, the science advisor to Agrello (Alex Norta) who wrote the project’s whitepaper had a disagreement with the team. The issue was over transparency of the project, the advisor expected that the project would be made open source, Agrello wants their core tech to remain proprietary and only made APIs available on Github. It’s water under the bridge but caused a lot of bad PR for the project.

But more importantly, it’s important to clarify that “AI” is not being used to actually draft these contracts but match users to the contracts they might need. Our technical guys rolled their eyes when we first explained the project to them and then complained about “AI” being used as a catch-all buzz word on blockchain projects. They might have had something to complain about because it’s not exactly clear.

Orphan Blocks Final Verdict: We think Agrello suffers from a similar problem that the Qtum project did where the reputation of the project takes a huge hammering (the post ICO price battering hasn’t done them any favours) and until they can work out a way to get better PR — we think it’s going to be a tough sell. Having said that, the technical and legal expertise of this team is quite impeccable and we think this would be a good long term hold.

It’s worth bearing in mind that Agrello’s long term prospects, like QSP and other smart contract associated projects is based on whether smart contracts become a breakthrough technology in the business world. Those with low risk appetites or bearish outlooks on smart contracts might want to skip this one.

Verify (CRED) — Distributed Reputation Protocol.

What is it in a nutshell? Reputation system for buyers and sellers. Bad actors get flagged out and those that earn their reputation fairly get advantages such as advanced payments, credit etc. Developed on top of Ethereum.

Current Price: $1.33

Website: https://verify.as/

CoinMarketCap: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/verify/

Reasons to be optimistic

Charismatic founder Yazil Alirhayim is the lynchpin of this project and his previous experience gives us plenty of reason to be optimistic. Amazon acquired his previous payments startup (a competitor to Stripe). The advisory team has some serious star studded potential in the likes of Omar Kassi, Moussa Beidas and Mike Bailey.

The Dubai based platform seems to be making a lot of waves in the Middle East, they recently signed up their first partnership with “EAT” — a fast growing real time reservation platform for restaurants. The roadmap suggests that they’ll be concentrating efforts in partnership building later this year.

Having recently completed a token sale (and at a modest amount — $2.5m compared to competitors), they set out their goals for the future in a clear signposted article earlier last month: https://medium.com/@verify.as/token-sale-over-now-what-149fc109931b which we found quite reassuring. Yazil’s measured and strategic approach strikes a chord with us.

It’s also currently only available on Etherdelta which should really be a negative but there will be brighter news for CRED holders when it does make it to other exchanges. The project is unusually transparent about the status of their applications to other exchanges.

Reasons to be wary

The initial “tech demo” that the Verify team produced (as mentioned earlier in this article) is just a collection of mockups stitched together. Whilst the team have explained their reasons for this — that a low fidelity mockup allows them to explore the problem space, many investors are going to find the lack of any actual product to be a problem. In fact Ian Balina recently decided to pass on this investment for the very same reason.

Likewise, founder Yazin Alirhayim mentions this is a long term project and even pleads on the Verify homepage for people to support his project for the long haul but he might just find that the short term driven investors looking for gains on their investments might flip on the project. The roadmap looks a little flimsy and Yazin and his team will have to deliver constant updates to keep backers reassured of progress.

Orphan Blocks Final Verdict: We’d like to recommend Verify wholeheartedly but we do have some reservations about this project. They make two claims “instant payouts to USD” and “no chargebacks ever” which are refuted later in their site and the roadmap is not fleshed out. Having said that, the founder clearly has pedigree and the reasons we’ve highlighted to be optimistic are worth consideration so we give this a lukewarm thumbs up and suggest you invest some time reading up on it further.

Our more conservative readers might think there’s far too many similarities with Request Network and others might believe the eventual release of OMG will stop this project in it’s tracks. For those looking to back a solid team and well put together sales pitch, this might be an excellent short term move if you can time it right.