Admittedly, I am later to the crypto-currency game than I’d like to be. The stellar rise in evaluation for almost all crypto-currencies has been amazing to say the least. This basically says it all, “$1,000 invested in 2010 would be worth $35 million today.” Obviously, that type of growth is almost unheard of in any market. But that begs the question: What crypto-currencies should I invest in if I want some of the pie? If you’re new to crypto-currencies in general there’s some really great beginner articles out there and some far-out TED Talks that will get your blood pumping. The big ideas to understand are ledgers, wallets, how that relates to blockchains, and why we’re even talking about it. This isn’t going to explain any of that, but I encourage you to check it out in order to educate yourself. Some really intelligent people are thinking this is going to be the new internet — Web 3.0 — with all the talk, investments, and hype if anything else it’s going to be a great bubble.

The currencies you can buy in USD right now are Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin on Coinbase. Coinbase is pretty much the default exchange market in the US. You can exchange your USD for any three crypto-currencies. After, I highly recommend checking out Poloniex. This is where you can buy different crypto-currencies all around the world. You’ll need to adjust your USD to BTC (Bitcoin) then transfer the balance in your BTC Coinbase wallet to your BTC Poloniex wallet. This whole process can take minutes or days, depending on how you set up your payment structure and what speed you set for your transaction fee. Setup two-step authentication on your accounts, even if you have nothing on there. These exchanges are notorious forgetting hacked. Once you have BTC in your Poloniex wallet you can go to town purchasing different crypto-currencies around the world, but what should you invest in? (ProTip: Download a wallet specific to any currency you want to buy, this will make you a node on the blockchain after you sync (this can take awhile). You can transfer your tokens offline making the likelihood that you will be hacked decreased tremendously.)

There are a ton of options out there and you can very easily get lost in the noise if you’re not careful. Constantly trading opens you up to a lot of transaction fees which will erode away at your investments — not good. Truthfully, you’ll want to pick your currencies and stay there. The buy low-sell high heuristic holds and with the massive amounts of investments being made from countries to financial institutions you’ll want to diversify and pick winners right out of the gate. If you’ve already invested in Ethereum I’d hold on to your investment. There’s a real, but bold, prediction that Ethereum will pass Bitcoin’s marketcap. It would certainly be in your interest to see if that comes true. If you haven’t invested in any currencies yet, or want to diversify, I highly recommend these three:

Siacoin: This is basically Silicon Valley’s “New Internet” idea. It’s also a lot like Ethereum, in the sense that it uses Smart Contracts to establish secure, contingent transfers of data/information. Siacoin is a cloud storage company, like AWS and Microsoft, except information is stored on a blockchain at a fraction of the price because there are no central serves (no serve farms). This makes it infinitely more secure to almost impenetrable. In the age of hacking, stored information on a blockchain that has no central location makes this very attractive. (This does not mean issues can’t arise. There are still issues that need to be solved with blockchain technology, but in theory this is the most secure option for almost all data.) Stratis: Stratis is a lot like Ethereum too, but with more emphasis on development for enterprise because you can program in a non-native language for a well-known business environment (C# and .NET — these power Microsoft and many other business applications). Stratis provides a full framework for enterprises to start building on blockchains (not just on Stratis’s blockchain). This B2B approach is unique, especially since it is built on a fundamental language already being used in the business world. Ethereum is fantastic, but programming is done in Solidity which at first glance seems like an understandable language with a fantastic development community, but learning a new language is always a barrier. From an investor standpoint, Ethereum is marketing itself as a P2P, B2B, and B2C blockchain/protocol , which makes it much more versatile. That flexibility makes it attractive, but I believe hacking will encourage companies to transition over to a blockchain type systems before consumers adopt the technology in mass (ask Target and Yahoo!). Ethereum is above $200 right now, while Stratis is below $20; so, if you’re looking for a bang-for-your-buck type scenario Stratis if your bet. Ripple: Fiat and XRP currencies can take advantage of the Ripple blockchain. This blockchain can be used for real time transfers of money from one entity to another — Ripple excels when the entities are in different countries. During the process of transferring money overseas a lot of entities touch the money before it is deposited into an account. Ripple speeds up the process from days to seconds. It accounts for the transfer on the blockchain and secures the payment for the recipient party in seconds. It’s much faster and securer than our current transfer methodology, so banks are flooding money into Ripple. There are genuine concerns for Ripple from its IOU payment option to the strong hold of XRPs by the founders, but it’s a long bet so I anticipate these concerns will be met with viable solutions.

I like all these because they’re unique enough and create a diversified crypto-currency portfolio for the average buyer. An AWS type service with Siacoin, a B2B blockchain with an emphasis on business applications for developers in Stratis, and a financial payment improvement for out-of-country transfers for money with Ripple. It’s unclear how blockchains will be used in the future, or how massive these changes will be, but hedging your bets are always a good idea.

Disclosure: I own these currencies right now. I wouldn’t recommend buying something without having bought it myself. With that said, I do have a financial incentive for you to purchase these on an open exchange. I wrote this article myself and this is an expression of my opinion. I am not getting compensated for this post.