Key highlights:

The Fetch.ai team have announced the next round of their staking bidding phase

Genesis Vision will launch its demo account functionality on January 22

Zcoin holders should remint their unconverted coins to Sigma Protocol coins as soon as possible

Top cryptocurrencies to watch this week

As we move through the first month of the year, a number of projects are embarking on renewed roadmaps, and this week’s choices are set to benefit from significant developments and announcements that should strengthen their market positions and benefit their communities. The news should also result in increased amounts of attention to each respective currency over the coming weeks.

1. Fetch (FET)

The Fetch.ai project combines artificial intelligence with blockchain and DAG (directed acyclic graph) data structures to build a scalable and stable ledger. The ledger’s consensus algorithm is called uPoW (useful proof-of-work), which seeks to make the computational power that is used to secure the ledger also perform other useful tasks for the network’s participants.

Why Fetch?

The team have announced that the next round of their staking bidding phase will soon commence with the first bidding phase of 2020 taking place between 1pm-4pm UTC on January 20. Anyone can take part in staking by either bidding directly in the auction for validator slots (the auction starting price opens at 1,500,000 FET and falls to a reserve price of 200,000 FET) or by delegating/pledging tokens as part of a pool. For anyone interested in staking their FET tokens, the team outline the full process here.

Buy/Sell Fetch (FET)

How to buy Fetch (FET) on Binance?

2. Genesis Vision (GVT)

Genesis Vision is a private trust management platform that brings together brokers, traders and investors. It aims to create a decentralized financial market and makes use of the platform’s native GVT token that can be used to perform various functions.

Why Genesis Vision?

The platform is scheduled to open up its demo account functionality on January 22, and have also completed a partnership with B2Broker which improves the levels of liquidity available through Genesis Markets. The Genesis platform now allows traders to access crypto spot markets as well as Forex, Spot Metals, Indices, Spot Commodities and traditional stocks/share markets. Newer traders can now also copy trades using the instruments available through the latest GV Follow Forex copy trading feature. The team outline their platform’s enhanced features in their official blog post.

Buy/Sell Genesis Vision (GVT)

How to buy Genesis Vision (GVT) on Binance?

3. Zcoin (XZC)

ZCoin implements the Zerocoin protocol which is based on zero-knowledge proofs and helps to ensure transaction privacy. Zero-knowledge proofs enable an individual to prove ownership without having to specify exactly which coin is theirs and ZCoin is one of the primary anonymity-focused cryptocurrencies, together with the likes of Monero and Zcash.

Why Zcoin?

The team have announced that anyone still holding unconverted Zerocoins should convert them to Sigma Protocol coins as the conversion window is scheduled to end with block 234200. This is scheduled to occur around January 20, 20:00 GMT. If you have a wallet which contains any unspent Zerocoins, then a Remint tab will be displayed in your wallet and prompt you to convert them. The team outline their Sigma tech upgrade here.

Buy/Sell Zcoin (XZC)

How did the coins perform last week?

The seven day period led to positive results across the market, and this was also reflected with last week's coins to watch. BNB improved by around 11% and in value and is currently trading at around $17. WTC performed strongly over the week, and made a gain of around 36%, and is currently trading at $0.48. GRIN made a gain of just over 8% in value and is currently trading at $1.04. Over the course of the week, the total crypto market cap moved from $218B to $235B.