As we move into the final month of the year, 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. Ethereum (ETH)

Ethereum is an open-source distributed blockchain that has smart contract functionality, and operates as a decentralized virtual machine that can execute scripts and be used to transfer ether between different nodes. Ethereum retains the status as the principal smart contract provider and platform for hosting ICOs with a number of leading projects operating ERC-20 tokens on the Ethereum network.

Why Ethereum?

The Ethereum network is scheduled to progress with its long-awaited Istanbul upgrade with the next stage taking place this week. The upgrade will happen at block number 9,069,000, which is likely to occur on Saturday, December 7, 2019, although the exact date may change depending on a number of variables. The majority of people using the Ethereum network will not be required to do anything but node operators and miners will need to download and run the latest versions of their Ethereum client in order to remain compatible with the upgrade. The Istanbul upgrade is an important part of the move to Ethereum 2.0 and to find out more, please read the Ethereum blog post.

2. Kyber Network (KNC)

Kyber Network is an on-chain instant payment and exchange service with its own KNC token. The platform is designed to facilitate the exchange of digital assets and the platform has a reserve of tokens of all kinds that provide high liquidity, enabling tokens to be traded instantly. Kyber Network is compatible with existing smart contracts and can integrate with other blockchains such as Ethereum.

Why Kyber Network?

In preparation for the upcoming Istanbul hard fork on Ethereum the Kyber Network team is migrating their smart contracts from 7:00 - 7:30 pm SGT (GMT+8) on December 2. No trading will take place during this time and operations will resume in full once the migration has been completed. KyberSwap users (website/Android/iOS), and users of dApps integrated with the Kyber protocol such as MEW, Trust, Nuo, and InstaDapp do not need to do anything. Other individuals and teams who are interacting with Kyber Network in various ways should read their official blog post in order to make sure that they will remain compatible after the switchover.

3. EOS (EOS)

EOS was developed by Dan Larimer, the man behind BitShares, Steemit, and Graphene technology. EOS is a high throughput consensus blockchain operating system that aims to operate as an alternative to the Ethereum network and provide databases, account permissions, smart contracts, and a high TPS rate for projects and dApp developers.

Why EOS?

The team at OKEx exchange has announced that they plan to launch EOS futures trading this week. The EOS/USDT futures trading pair will launch on Dec 2 at 6.00 (UTC) and will feature weekly, biweekly, and quarterly contract expirations as well as leverage from 0.01x to 50x. Contracts will be settled at 8.00 (UTC) and the launch adds to the current BTC and ETH futures trading pairs already available on the exchange. Full details of the launch can be found here.

How did the coins perform last week?

The seven day period led to mixed results for last week's coins to watch across the market and XMR improved by 4% and in value and is currently trading at around $52.78. DGTX had a tough time and fell back by 25% over the week, and is currently trading at $0.04. IOST was the strongest performer and jumped by 11% in value and is currently trading at $0.005. Over the course of the week, the market moved from $190B to $200B.

