The crypto market is a new, emerging market, that changes rapidly day by day. The ongoing transformation and journey toward mainstream adoption mean that businesses are seeking new opportunities to attract and appeal to more and more investors with varying levels of wealth and investment experience.

In such a fast-paced industry, the trends change as fast as the weather or tides. It can be difficult to keep up, so we’ve put together this list of the top crypto trends of 2019 to watch out for so no opportunities are left on the table.

IEO and the Death of the ICO Model

The 2017 crypto bull run was fueled largely in part by the ICO craze, or initial coin offering – the crypto counterpart to the IPO. ICOs were a way for startups to easily crowdfund projects and investors were able to get in on the ground floor of promising investments. It seemed like a win-win. However, assets born from this sort of crowdfunding are typically considered to be securities by the Securities and Exchange commission, and it put a damper on the entire ICO frenzy.

As ICOs fell out of favor, it was expected that the STO or security token offering would serve as a suitable replacement. A STO token represents an investment contract into an underlying investment asset, whereas ICOs didn’t entitle investors to any ownership of assets outside of the token itself.

Since then, the industry has shifted towards the IEO, or initial exchange offerings. With the support of an exchange, new projects are able to gain exposure to early investors and capital that otherwise may be impossible to rally. Businesses can once again gain invaluable investment capital to fund operations or more, and investors once again gain access to early investment opportunities – only now they get the added protections that the project has been extensively vetted by the exchange hosting the IEO.

These IEOs in recent weeks have performed handsomely for investors, with the likes of BitTorrent Token, Matic Network, and more exploding in value since their debut.

As more investors search for easy gains from early investments in IEO coins, and more exchanges build the infrastructure for similar crowdfunding launchpads, the IEO trend should only continue to grow.

Short-selling and Margin Trading

In 2016, investors flocked to Bitcoin awaiting long-term growth. In 2017, it was altcoins that lured investors with the promise of astronomical gains. Then, in 2018, as the bear market unfolded, traders began to learn what it means to short-sell assets in a falling market. Now, in 2019, short-selling is no longer new to traders and has graduated into a full-blown trend that is showing no signs of stopping in the crypto market.

Combining short-selling with margin trading, with as much as 100x leverage has become all the rage across the crypto industry, as it provides traders with opportunities to profit from prices whether they are growing, falling, or even trading sideways.

No longer are crypto traders stuck with simple spot buying and selling, where holding and hoping for the best is the only possible strategy. Short-selling and margin trading in crypto markets has created a whole new world of traders analyzing charts for technical analysis, hunting for the best possible entries and exits for their positions.

This new breed of crypto trader desires the most advanced trading tools, commonly found only in traditional financial markets. However, more and more crypto exchanges are emerging, including PrimeXBT, that provide such tools to crypto traders. PrimeXBT boasts short-selling, margin trading, a customizable user interface, and leverage up to 1000x across crypto, forex, commodities, and stock indices, from a single Bitcoin-based account, providing the most robust experience across cryptocurrency trading industry.

ETF for Institutional Interest

ETFs, or exchange-traded funds, have become one of the most popular ways to invest today. ETFs typically offer low-fees, and safe, stable returns for investors. Institutional investors find ETFs in the crypto market particularly enticing, as it alleviates the need for institutional investors to have actual exposure to the underlying asset and be required to store it.

Hype surrounding a Bitcoin-based ETF has taken the industry by storm over the last year, however, the Securities and Exchange Commission has repeatedly delayed making a decision on approving such an ETF, even despite proposals from the likes of CBOE, VanEck, and the Winklevoss twins.

Still, the crypto industry pushes forward towards launching an ETF, and some smartphone apps that provide exposure to crypto assets are now bridging the gap into traditional finance through ETFs. Abra, a crypto buying app, now allows its users to invest in Bitcoin-tied contracts for popular stocks, such as Apple, and ETFs.

Stablecoins and the Downfall of Tether

The future of money is upon us, as Cameron Winklevoss likes to call the emergence of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Alongside these traditional decentralized crypto assets, have arose a subset of digital assets that are tied 1:1 to fiat currencies, stabilizing their value in a market filled with volatile crypto assets.

That general stability being backed by and tied directly to fiat currencies provides has earned this type of crypto coin the term “stablecoin.” Investors trade Bitcoin and other cryptos for stablecoins when they expect the market to fall, protecting them from losses.

Among the first of its kind, and the most popular stablecoin dominating the market, is Tether. Much controversy surrounds the stablecoin closely associated with Bitfinex. The general mistrust in Tether has created an opportunity for other stablecoins to gain invaluable market share, and thus the Paxos Standard, the Gemini Dollar, USD Coin and many others were born.

These stablecoins all function the same, and outside of their aforementioned use as a stable, safe haven during falling markets, they’re also quickly becoming a digital version of the US dollar, which could have benefits in the future all on their own.