DigiByte (DGB) is attracting a huge amount of attention as we head into the holiday break. The token saw volume of close to $45 million over the last twenty-four hours, nearly six times average daily volume, and currently trades for a market cap of just shy of $350 million. That’s down on the $400 million logged mid-week but we’re in a major corrective period right now pretty much across the board in crypto so that we’ve got a bit of a dip on our hands in DGB isn’t any real surprise.

The question is, once the space recovers (and it will, as anyone who has ridden out these sorts of corrections in the past will know), is DigiByte the sort of company (and, in turn, token) that can recover in line with some of the bigger names – the bitcoins, the Litecoins, the Ethereums, etc.?

Let’s try and figure that out.

First up, then, what is this one all about?

It’s probably first important to note that this is what we might call a well-established coin. It first hit markets back at the start of 2014, having been developed and beta launched throughout 2013 – just a few years behind bitcoin and pretty much in line with what we saw from Litecoin (perhaps a few months behind). This is important for a couple of reasons but, primarily, because it means there exists a strong and solid network of developers and nodes already in place.

When it comes to altcoins, the risk is that development dries up and the supportive network dwindles. If this happens, the features that set these sorts of coins aside from others disappear (as if they are being mined, transactions aren’t being processed) and so the longer the coin has been around and, in turn, the larger the network that supports it, the better.

So that’s a sort of top-down reason why this one is a nice play right now, but let’s get specific.

DigiByte is built on a blockchain that’s based on that of bitcoin but with a couple of key differences. First, block time is just 15-seconds as compares to the 10 minutes of bitcoin. This means transactions are much faster and it also contributes to an added layer of security on the network (purely because more hashes are being created quicker).

The other difference is that it allows for a range of different mining processes. IN total, it can be mined over 5 different algorithms: Sha256 (ASIC friendly), Scrypt (ASIC friendly), Groestl (GPU friendly), Skein (GPU friendly), and Qubit (ASIC friendly). When you compare this to bitcoin (which is Sha256 only) and Litecoin (which is Scrypt only) it serves to incentivize mining activity which, again, helps to build out the above discussed all-important network.

So why do we like this one right now?

DigiByte is going after the microtransaction market, with an early focus on the gaming sector. One of the major bits of news to hit this space over the last few weeks is that gaming network Steam has stopped supporting bitcoin because of its slow transaction processing times. Steam (and others) are looking for alternative coins to fill the hole left by bitcoin and, in our eyes, DigiByte does exactly that.

Which sets things up for a two-pronged strategy. First, a long-term buy and hold in anticipation of the network that this coin already has supporting it contributing to increased adoption as the space turns around.

Second, a short-term play in anticipation of gaming networks like Steam announcing support for DigiByte as a microtransaction asset available to users.

It’s also the longest blockchain in existence. That doesn’t mean a great deal but it’s a nice sound-bite.

Let’s see what happens.

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Disclaimer: This article should not be taken as, and is not intended to provide, investment advice. Please conduct your own thorough research before investing in any cryptocurrency.

Image courtesy of DigiByte