In the midst of all the bearishishness, controversy and FUD, it is important to maintain our focus on the longterm opportunity we are presented with. We find ourselves nearing the bottom of what could be shaping up to be the greatest wealth transfer in history.

The list

If you’re betting on Bitcoin going up, you may also be betting on alternative cryptocurrencies (altcoins) being dragged along with it. Crafted and curated, tested and battle ready, here the top 20 alternative cryptocurrencies of 2019 (and onward).

Number 1: Ethereum

Ethereum, the brain child of Vitalik Buterin was first introduced to the crypto space in 2015. The first cryptocurrency to allow the deployment of smart contracts while simultaneously fueling the ICO craze in late 2017 due to the easy nature of creating ERC-20 tokens. A powerhouse with maybe the most effect on the cryptocurrency market besides Bitcoin itself, Ethereum is here to stay.

Price: ~ $115 | Circulating Supply: ~ 105,000,000 | Marketcap: ~ $12B.

Number 2: Monero

Monero, the first legitimate privacy coin to enter the space was first introduced in 2015. The currency of choice of the dark web due to its innovative ring signatures and stealth addresses allowing for its transactions to be “untraceable” is one of the safest bets besides bitcoin to stick around. No pre-mine, just a currency by the people for the people.

Price: ~ $46 | Circulating Supply: ~ 16,750,000 | Marketcap: ~ $771M

Number 3: Ripple

Ripple, the infamous “bank coin” / remittance network has stood the test of time and been one of the strongest coins to perform against bitcoin the past year, serving as a hedge at times. The “decentralized” centralized network claims to be able to save an average bank nearly $3.76 per transaction. Having partnerships with more than 100 financial institutions across the world, Ripple has its place as one of the most controversial cryptocurrencies in the space.

Price: ~ $0.31 |Circulating Supply: ~41,600,000,000 | Marketcap: ~ $12.8B

Number 4: ChainLink

Link, a decentralized oracle system that plans to integrate data off the blockchain into existing blockchain infrastructure to be used for smart contracts has been one of the stronger performers of the 2018 bear market, outpacing bitcoin and carrying momentum into 2019. Already working with SWIFT, a global platform for financial services used by more than ten thousand institutions across the world, LINK has solidified itself as a force to be reckon with.

Price: ~ $0.43 | Circulating Supply: ~ 350,000,000 | Marketcap: ~ $152M

Number 5: Binance Coin

Binance Coin is the fuel of Binance. Binance is the most reputable altcoin exchange in the crypto sphere by a sizable margin. Binance jumped onto the scene in late 2017 led and championed by it’s founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao (also known as CZ).

CZ is maybe the most likable guy in the industry for a good reason. Whether its his interaction with the community, his sense of humor, his shorts he wears to conferences, his ambitious work-ethic, his dedication, conviction and confidence in the future of cryptocurrency, or his stunning good looks….do not get in his way. Funds are SAFU. DEX coming soon …. when Binance Chain?

Price: ~ $7.12 | Circulating Supply: ~129,000,000 | Marketcap: ~ $920M

Number 6: Cardano

Cardano, built by a global team of leading academics and engineers and led by Charles Hoskinson is a technological platform capable of running financial applications constructed in layers to give the system flexibility. Longterm, a settlement layer along with a separate computing layer will be built to handle smart contracts. Cardano will also run decentralized applications.

Price: ~ $0.04 | Circulating Supply: ~ 25,900,000,000 | Marketcap: ~ $1B

Number 7: Stellar Lumens

Stellar Lumens, founded by Jed McCaleb, previous founder of Ripple is an open-sourced, distributed payments infrastructure attempting to provide low-cost cross-border multi-currency remittance services. Partnered with IBM, Stellar’s ecosystem is growing rapidly.

Price: ~ $0.09 | Circulating Supply: ~ 19,000,000,000 | Marketcap: ~ $1.8B

Number 8: Tron

Tron aims to construct a decentralized worldwide content entertainment system, decentralize the internet and put data back into the hands of the people. Founded and led by figurehead Justin Sun who has received criticism for his savage marketing and sales techniques, Sun has managed to propel his brainchild into the top 10, far surpassing all expectations. At this point, its almost foolish to bet against him.

Price: ~ $0.03 |Circulating Supply: ~ 66,660,000,000 | Marketcap: ~ $1.9B

Number 9: Ravencoin

Ravencoin, a community-drive open-source bitcoin fork with no premine or ICO allows users to issue, track and transfer customizable tokenized assets. With a “Tokenize the world” approach, raven coin will allow users to tokenize anything from stocks to socks, allowing for ownership or a stake in all assets wether tangible or not to be divisible. “You wouldn’t download a car” Well…..think again.

Price: ~ $0.012 | Circulating Supply: ~ 2,772,000,000 | Marketcap: ~ $34M

Number 10: Holochain

Holochain is a “distributed blockchain”. What does this mean? Well, essentially each node on the network will be capable of running its own chain allowing data to be stored and distributed across the network. The distributed blockchain would allow transactions to be confirmed without requiring confirmation from the entire blockchain. In theory this would allow for transactions to be quicker and for the network to be much more scalable than current blockchains. Holochain plans to advance the internet by means of decentralization, scalability, speed and data ownership.

Price: ~ $0.0014 | ~ Circ. Supply: 133,200,000,000 | ~ Marketcap: $195M

Number 11: Pundi X

Pundi X is trying to overhaul our current retail transaction infrastructure. Attempting to promote financial inclusion, overcome foreign exchange issues and mitigate fiat currency instability issues, Pundi X is a benchmark for creating and distributing the hardware that will handle cryptocurrency transactions globally. Having already created the ‘Function X’, the world’s first “Blockchain Phone”, along with more than 5,000 XPOS devices capable of handling cryptocurrency transactions being distributed across the world, Pundi X is attempting to bridge the gap between retailer and consumer.

Price: ~ $0.00067 | Circ. Supply: ~ 166,000,000,000 | Marketcap: ~ $112M

Number 12: Tomochain

Tomochain (also known as fomochain) and led by Long Vuong (Co-Founder of NEM) is a smart contract-based staking network that incorporates masternodes, sharding, atomic swaps, governance, scalability, 2 second confirmations and potentially the sleekest wallet in the game. A public, decentralized blockchain meant for decentralized applications and smart contracts to be built on, TomoChain is a dark horse that may be victim to its lack of accessibility from an investor standpoint with Kucoin claiming the title of Tomochain’s highest volume exchange.

Price: ~ $0.29 | Circulating Supply: ~ 59,000,000 | Marketcap: ~ $17M

Number 13: Waltonchain

Walton Chain, named after Charlie Walton (inventor of RFID technology) is attempting to use blockchain technology to integrate IOT with RFID to improve logistics, efficiency and transparency for supply chains. Sub chains can be created and customized on the Walton Blockchain by any business leveraging the technology to suit their needs. Walton Chain is also rumored to be creating their own ASIC mining devices.

Price: ~ $1.08 | Circulating Supply: ~ 41,000,000 | Marketcap: ~ $44M

Number 14: Z Cash

ZCash, down from its all-time high print of 3299.9999999 Bitcoin (no — that is not a type) is a privacy coin created by noble developer Zooko that leverages zk-SNARKs. zk-SNARKs allow for transactions to be fully shielded and encrypted from the public while still being verified by the network. Regulators are more akin to Z-Cash because of the users ability to reveal certain aspects of the transaction for audit purposes making the currency a good option for B2B transactions.

Price: ~ $52.04 | Circulating Supply: ~ 5,800,000 | Marketcap: ~ $300M

Number 15: Waves

WAVES, home to one of the fastest, cheapest and smoothest decentralized exchanges in the space is a blockchain platform that allows for custom tokens to be created instantly and at almost no cost (1 WAVES token). Implementing multi-sig addresses, token freezing, atomic swaps, voting and oracles, the WAVES network is attempting to compete with Ethereum from a coin generation standpoint, trying to capture a share of the ICO craze from 2017/2018 that will almost certainly return when the market rebounds.

Price: ~ $2.88 | Circulating Supply: ~ 100,000,000 | Marketcap: ~ $287M

Number 16: Komodo

Komodo, one of the most complex all-in-one blockchains being created is a technologically advanced, innovative and overwhelming behemoth of an ecosystem. All projects built on the Komodo platform will receive their own native blockchain while simultaneously having the option to work in unison with other blockchains on the network to function as a single chain. To enhance interoperability, Komodo has also integrated cross-chain smart contracts which will allow for inter-blockchain transfers of values without performing a swap or trade. On top of all of this and a target of 1 million transactions per second, the most interesting feature Komodo has to offer is it’s delayed proof-of-work mechanism. To protect against 51% attacks, Komodo stores backups of the KMD blockchain onto the bitcoin network via a process called notarization. By this method, KMD’s network is now reliant on and as secure as the BTC network. There is a lot going on at KOMODO and with an upcoming rebrand it is definitely a colossus project to keep an eye on.

Price: ~ $0.67 | Circulating Supply: ~ 111,500,000 | Marketcap: ~ $75M

Number 17: Quant

Quant network, launched in August of 2018 is attempting to remove the barriers for enterprise, developers and businesses to take advantage of blockchain technologies. Quant is built on Overledger, a blockchain operating system that connects blockchains to one an other while simultaneously connecting blockchains to existing networks to facilitate the creation of internet scale multi-chain applications (mApps).

Price: ~ $1.96 | Circulating Supply: ~ 10,000,000 | Marketcap: ~ $19M

Number 18: VEO

Amoveo is one of the most interesting projects in the space. Created by Zack Hess, co-founder of Augur, and driven by its community, Amoveo is a prediction market platform that uses VEO as its internal currency. The amoveo platform is a new form a government, futarchy. Futarchy is the idea that prediction markets would be used to determine which policies will have the most positive effects. A way for citizens to vote on policy decisions with their cash. Aside from prediction markets, Amoveo intends to allow investment and insurance contracts along with derivatives to be created using smart contracts.

Price: ~ $82.40 | Circulating Supply: ~ 56,000 | Marketcap: ~ $4.6M

Number 19: Aergo

Supported and developed by the Samsung-backed commercial blockchain startup Blocko, Aergo is an open platform that allows business to build applications and services by utilizing flexible, plugin-based infrastructure and sharing data on a trustless and distributed ecosystem. Blocko is already working with Hyundai-Kia Motors to help reduce costs and increase security around document management.

Price: ~ $0.06 | Circulating Supply: ~ 26,000,000 | Marketcap: ~ $1.5M

Number 20: THETA

Theta, a decentralized content distribution network created by Mitch Lui, co-founder of Sliver.TV and advised by co-founders of Youtube and Twitch aims to monetize bandwidth by allowing members of the network to get paid by sharing their own bandwidth. Already partnered with South-Korean Media Giants, Theta looks to implement its technology to video streaming networks worldwide and create the global bandwidth sharing economy.

Price: $0.06 | Circulating Supply: 710,000,000 | Marketcap: $42M

Honorable Mention

Dogecoin: Favored by Shiva Inus worldwide. Mcap surpassed $2B in 2018

BitTube: Decentralized, uncensored & ad-free alternative to Youtube.

Bismuth: Python blockchain. Cryptopia hackers decided not to steal any $BIS.

StakeNet: Offering the ability to stake your coins offline.

DragonChain: 2019 is the year of the dragon.

Mochimo: Quantum-Proof cryptocurrency.

Grin/Beam: MimbleWimble.

Fantom: South Korea target / Heavy VC investments.

LTO: Innovative tokenomics with government partnerships.

About the author.

Cryptunez is a blockchain enthusiast and content creator.

He is also a co-host of Wednesday Night Crypto Chats, one of the most electrifying cryptocurrency live-streams in the world.

He can be found on twitter at twitter.com/cryptunez.