I believe that Bitcoin is to cryptocurrency as AOL is to the internet. It’s the first mainstream application of blockchain technology and has ushered in the blockchain revolution.

However just like AOL, Bitcoin is slow, not scalable, has unnecessary fees, and is old technology. There are hundreds of other digital coins that have not broken into the mainstream that have much more exciting applications of blockchain technology than just “digital gold.”

I will write about five coins which I believe have incredible long-term potential. These five coins are all utility tokens, meaning the coins have to be used to run the application. This differs from a security token, which is purchased to speculate on a company’s future growth, and a currency coin, like Bitcoin and Litecoin. I will go more in depth about these differences in a separate article.

DISCLAIMER: I am invested in every token I am writing about in this article. This is not financial advice, please invest at your own risk. I encourage all readers to do their own research when investing.

Ethereum (ETH)

To say I am an Ethereum evangelist would be an understatement.

What is it:

“Ethereum is an open-source, public, blockchain-based distributed computing platform featuring smart contract functionality.”

Explain like I’m 5:

Platform for anyone to build decentralized applications on top of.

Price of coin as of December 22, 2017:

The price of Ether (the native currency of Ethereum) is $711 at the time of writing this, and is the 2nd largest cryptocurrency by market cap behind Bitcoin at $68 Billion.

Why it’s a good investment:

Ethereum Enterprise Alliance: The largest open source blockchain initiative backed by over 300 companies, many of which are Fortune 500 companies like JP Morgan, Accenture, and Microsoft. They all believe that Ethereum is the best platform to create enterprise-level software on the blockchain.

2018 Roadmap: Ethereum has many technological upgrades relating to scalability, privacy, and decentralization coming to its platform in the next year. In particular, their upgrade Casper, will switch Ethereum’s consensus algorithm from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake, which will greatly reduce both the environmental impact mining has and the growing circulation of Ether, thereby making each coin more valuable.

Stellar Lumens (XLM)

My personal favorite blockchain project.

What is it: “Stellar is Open-Source, Distributed Payments Infrastructure. It connects people, payment systems, and banks.

Explain like I’m Five: “Move money quickly (~5 seconds), reliably, and for a fraction of a penny.”

Price of Coin as of December 22, 2017: Lumens (native currency of Stellar) are $0.22 with a $4 Billion market cap.

Why it’s a good investment:

Stellar is backed by IBM to facilitate cross-border transactions in a timely and inexpensive way. Institutional backing from a giant like IBM cannot be overstated. Stellar is also partnered with several banks in the South Pacific and Africa.

Stellar can theoretically reach 1,000 transactions per second with a billion unique users.

Stellar is also a platform for companies to build decentralized applications on top of. Ethereum is the most popular platform, but companies like Kin are moving from Ethereum to Stellar because Stellar is more scalable.

Stellar can empower immigrants to send money to their families in impoverished countries in less than 10 seconds for virtually zero transaction fees. That’s the use case that makes it my favorite project.

Request Network (REQ)

More than just Paypal 2.0.

What is it: A decentralized network for payment requests built on the Ethereum Network.

Explain like I’m 5: Paypal 2.0 with real-time accounting.

Price of Coin as of December 22, 2017: Request tokens are $0.26 and the market cap is $172 Million.

Why it’s a good investment:

Request Network is backed by Y Combinator, which is an early stage seed accelerator that funded companies such as AirBnB, Coinbase, and Dropbox.

Offers real time accounting and full identity protection because of the nature of blockchain technology.

No third parties taking commissions of 1.5–6%.

Real use case for the financial payments industry.

VeChain (VET)

VeChain just secured a national partnership with the National Government of China.

What is it: “The vision of VeChain is to apply blockchain technology to create a trustworthy, distributed business ecosystem that can be self-cycled as well as externally.”

Explain like I’m 5: Using the blockchain to increase transparency and trust in business processes.

Price of Coin as of December 22, 2017: VET tokens are $1.30 and the market cap is $350 Million.

Why it’s a good investment:

Vechain has many applications to business, such as preventing counterfeiting luxury items and making it easy to access records of specific items in retail.

VeChain has an extremely strong team and boasts incredible partnerships. They recently released details about their National Partnership with China, in which “VeChain will work closely with Administrative Examination and Approval Bureau of Gui’an New Area to provide a blockchain based information system to collect and analyze administrative data, offer privacy protection of data and apply blockchain technology to reform business registration and cut red tape.”

Quantstamp (QSP)

Making Smart Contracts Safer.

What is it: “The first security-audit protocol built on top of Ethereum, designed to find vulnerabilities in smart contracts prior to blockchain deployment.”

Explain like I’m 5: Quantstamp team makes sure there are no bugs in the code of Ethereum-based companies before they launch publicly.

Price of Coin as of December 21, 2017: QSP tokens are $0.15 and the market cap is $95 Million.

Why it’s a good investment:

Quanstamp protects users and investors from any bugs in the code that could result in loss of funds or breaches of privacy. Recently, there was a bug found in the Parity wallet, a popular wallet interface, and over $300 million was lost in ether. Quanstamp aims to formalize the process so nothing like this ever happens again.

Like Request Network, Quantstamp is backed by Y Combinator. Because Coinbase is also backed by Y Combinator, it isn’t a stretch of the imagination if Quantstamp was involved with helping Coinbase audit tokens that they want to list on their exchange in 2018.

Quantstamp boasts one of the largest online communities of investors, thanks to their innovative Proof of Caring model. They have over 18,000 members in their Telegram group, and reward their community for participating in focused discussions about Quantstamp.

How to buy smaller cryptocurrencies

To purchase coins other than BTC, ETH, and LTC, I use Binance, a cryptocurrency exchange for smaller market cap coins.

Create account on Binance Register, enable 2-Factor Authentication Transfer Ether from Coinbase or Gemini (which you should already have an account for) to the Binance Ethereum wallet, located in the “Deposits/Withdrawals” tab under Funds. Make sure you are sending Ether to an Ethereum (ETH) address or your funds will be lost. You can track the transaction on etherscan.io or on “History” under funds, it should take less than 30 minutes. After your Binance is credited with your Ether, you can purchase the coin you want. For example if you wanted to buy Stellar (XLM), you would go to exchange, advanced, then XLM/ETH pair. Buy the coin using a market order or limit order, depending on what you’re looking for and what percentage of your ether you want to spend. Continue this with other coins you want to purchase, and store them safely! I recommend a Ledger Nano S.

Happy trading, and feel free to comment which coins you like as well. If you liked the article, clap and subscribe! Thanks for reading and supporting, my Ethereum address is 0x38685F6b515350F4CA576f6292D11e15ab0051BC if you want to see more articles like this.