Op-Ed Home Run or Swing and a Miss? Cryptocurrency Winners and Losers for the Week Ending April 22, 2018

As John F. Kennedy was wont to say, “a rising tide lifts all boats.” Essentially, what benefits one, benefits all. When Kennedy first uttered those words, it was in 1963 and he was talking about the economy. Flash forward 55 years and – as the cryptocurrency market appears to be recovering from a depressing Q1 2018 bear run – the same sentiment is applicable once again.

This past week has been extremely gratifying for crypto community members who weathered Q1 2018’s bear market and made the choice to ‘hodl’ when others were panic-selling. At press time, the total cryptocurrency market cap was just over $394.9 billion – a more than 18% increase from the same time last week.

With the total crypto market cap on the rise, how have Bitcoin and its altcoin brethren fared over the past week? Well, Bitcoin is up roughly 8% – landing at a respectable $8957.95, up from its 7-day low of $8286.88. As to the altcoins? Let’s take a look…

Top 3 Cryptocurrency Winners…

These are the top three best performing cryptocurrencies based on 7-day market activity and with a 24-hour volume of at least $750,000.

Game.com (GTC)

24-Hour Volume: $252,617,000

Gain: 592.80%

Game.com is an ambitious project that combines several elements into a total blockchain-based gaming environment. A combination gaming platform, digital asset wallet, crowdfunding platform, and instant messenger, Game.com is riding high on a rising swell of popularity.

This time last week, GTC was trading at around $0.05 and has climbed to just under $0.35 per token. The sudden spike in value is no doubt due in large part to their partnership with Tron and this week’s announcement that Game.com would be running for a super delegate position in Tron’s upcoming Super Representative vote. A win in this election could not only push GTC prices even higher, but it would give Game.com a seat at the table and a voice in deciding Tron’s future.

Pundi X (NPXS)

Volume: $7,257,560

Gain: 234.72%

Pundi X is a project that aims to make every day crypto usage “as easy as getting bottled water.” It is a POS (point of sale) solution for retail businesses that will make it easy for brick-and-mortar businesses to accept cryptocurrencies in-store.

Earlier in the week, Pundi X’s token (NPXS) was trading at just over $0.0014. On Friday it peaked at an all-time high of $0.0054 before settling down to around $0.0048.

So why the sudden rise in price?

First, the token was recently added to Korea’s Coinrail exchange, which currently accounts for more than 25% of the token’s trade volume. Next was a favorable review of Pundi X’s new POS terminal in this month’s issue of The Nilson Report. Finally – and probably most significantly of all – Pundi X executed its first NPXS token buyback of roughly 200 ETH worth of tokens at a price more than triple that of the then-current market value.

Prices continued to climb in the wake of the buyback but are slowly starting to settle back down. Whether it settles in at a price higher than that of its 7-day low remains to be seen.

XinFin Network (XDCE)

Volume: $899.141

Gain: 201.51%

XinFin is a hybrid blockchain network that combines the power and transparency of public blockchains with the security and speed of private networks. Designed primarily to serve the global trade and finance industries, XinFin has been met with enthusiastic response and successfully concluded their ICO last month.

Since being listed on CoinMarketCap in mid-April, XDCE has been holding steady at around $0.003 per token. Last week, however, things started looking moonish for the cryptocurrency. Trading at $0.0034 this time last week, XDCE reached an all-time high of $0.0168 on Saturday before settling down to around $0.0115 at press time.

The sudden spike in price is most likely largely attributed to XDCE’s upcoming listing on Singapore’s largest crypto exchange – COSS – as well as a 12.5 million XDCE trading promotion. That, coupled with growing interest in XinFin as well as project team that is absolutely doing everything right, could spell continued gains in XDCE’s future.

…and the Top 3 Cryptocurrency Losers

Unfortunately, not all altcoins were watching the crypto market through green-tinted glasses this week. These are three worst performing cryptocurrencies based on 7-day market activity and with a 24-hour volume of at least $750,000.

Octoin Coin (OCC)

Volume: $878,826

Loss: -28.96%

Octoin combines crypto trading, mining, p2p exchange, and multi-cryptocurrency wallet functionality into one easy to use platform. The platform’s token, OCC, has been steadily declining ever since peaking at an all-time high of $19.02 in mid-March, however, this past week saw a bit sharper of a decline than in previous weeks. Trading at $3.21 just one week ago, the price has dropped by nearly a third to $2.26 at press time.

As far as what factors could be influencing the price drop, there isn’t much out there that is concrete. The Octoin team are hyping the hell out their platform through a series of mini-conferences and meetups, but there is also a lot of speculation as to the legitimacy of the project. A quick search on Google turns up numerous ‘Octoin: Legit or Scam?’ type articles and their BitcoinTalk thread is rife with investor complaints as well.

Mind you, none of this has been proven, but if I were a betting woman, I’d bet against a recovery for Octoin.

Ormeus Coin (ORME)

Volume: $8,212,730

Loss: -27.56%

Ormeus Coin is a digital money system that is backed by a $250 million crypto mining operation that – according to a February press release – is one of the largest industrial crypto mining operations in the world.

Prices for ORME have been all over the map, ranging from a low of $0.56 in September of 2017 to an all-time high of $3.62 in December that same year. Presently, however, things look quite different. Last Sunday saw ORME trading at $2.58, followed by a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it spike to $3.38 ahead of Ormeus’ global launch party and subsequent Ormeus Cash airdrop. Since then, however, ORME has resumed its downward slide and currently sits at $1.90.

Considering that Ormeus’ crypto operation is reported to be pulling in $6.7 million per month, what gives with the poor token performance?

The decline could be FUD-related. There were allegations on Reddit about market manipulation, but nothing was proven. The more likely scenario, however, is that we’re looking at a selloff in the wake of last week’s airdrop.

Will it recover? Given the team’s active participation within the community and that the mining operation does appear to be legit, I can see this one going back up.

Dragon Coins (DRG)

Volume: $8,404,190

Loss: -26.80%

Dragon Coin (DRG) is the native cryptocurrency of the Dragon Platform, which connects VIP gamer with “junkets”, casino VIP rooms across the globe that host private games and have a system of transferring funds via junket agents.

DRG has slowly been declining since it first started trading in late March of this year and that downward trend appears to be continuing. At this time last week, DRG was trading at $0.975 and it just kept meandering downward to a price of around $0.704.

I honestly can’t pinpoint any one single reason for the decline. The Dragon Coin team seems to be doing everything right, so perhaps it is just post-launch malaise and/or whales dumping.

One of Dragon’s milestones is to launch their own branded junket in Macau. If that happens, I can absolutely see prices going back up to previous highs – and higher.

Do you think that these tokens will continue their current price trends? Let us know in the comments below!

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