As 2019 gets underway, this week represents a great opportunity for teams to display their commitment to ongoing development and making a significant contribution to the blockchain economy. This week’s choices are projects taking the opportunity to get ahead of their competition by implementing significant upgrades and launches that should result in an increased amount of attention and help to build a positive sentiment.

Ethereum (ETH)

Ethereum is an open-source distributed blockchain that pioneered smart contract functionality. It operates as a decentralized virtual machine which can execute scripts and be used to transfer its native ether token between different nodes. Although ether can be used as a currency, it is more commonly used to execute smart contracts. The Ethereum blockchain also hosts a number of ERC20 tokens such as BNB, MKR, USDC, and TUSD.

Why Ethereum?

The Classic Vision Hard Fork is set to take place on January 11, and during the split, all Ethereum holders will receive 3 ETCV for each ETH in their personal wallets. The full details regarding the hard fork can be found on the official Classic Vision site.

ETH holders who wish to receive the ETCV tokens must be holding their ETH in their wallet and not on a cryptocurrency exchange. If someone is telling you that you have to send your ETH to a wallet that is not controlled by you in order to claim the ETCV tokens, you are dealing with scammers that should be avoided.

Update: According to reports, the Ethereum Classic Vision is appropriating users' private keys. We strongly advise users to avoid interacting with the Ethereum Classic Vision and Ethereum Nowa forks in any way.

Ethereum will also undergo the Constantinople Fork around 16 January, with the highly anticipated mainnet hard fork scheduled for block #7080000. Ethereum team leader Péter Szilágyi recently tweeted the proposed date of the fork that will act as an upgrade to the existing blockchain protocol.

Waves (WAVES)

Waves is a cryptocurrency platform that aims to facilitate the trading of digital assets of all kinds as well as real-world commodities. The project was created by Russian physicist Sasha Ivanov, and allows anyone to create their own custom token and trade it on the Waves platform. The project has also hosted a number of ICOs and been a reliable choice for teams looking to raise funds via an Initial Coin Offering.

Why Waves?

Waves was a solid performer towards the end of 2018, as the team moved to launch their Decentralized Exchange (DEX) and mobile Wallet. The project also expanded to incorporate Smart Contract capabilities in September 2018. The team are now ready to activate a Smart Asset functionality that will equip traders and asset holders with increased functionality when using the platform. The upgrade is set for January 6 with CEO Sasha Ivanov tweeting the confirmation.

Digitex Futures (DGTX)

Digitex Futures Exchange allows traders to buy and sell futures contracts on various digital assets, commodities and financial instruments. All trades are fee free, and the DGTX token derives value as traders on the platform must have a balance of DGTX in order to place trades, and can also win or lose their DGTX.

Why Digitex Futures?

As previously stated, DGTX can break the top 50, and the Digitex Futures Exchange Beta is set to launch on January 15, and provide ambitious traders with a serious alternative to BitMEX. Futures trading looks set to grow in popularity over 2019, and the Digitex team have outlined their plans to award the first 5,000 names on their waiting list with 1,000 DGTX after creating an account on the exchange beta. A further 100,000 DGTX will also be given to 10 users each and as tokens can be used to place trades on the platform, we can expect DGTX to grow in usage over the coming months.

How did the coins perform last week?

The seven day period had a negative effect on last week’s coins, as PAY fell by 33% and is currently trading at around $0.21. ELA moved sideways over the week and ended up experiencing a marginal loss of 0.50% and is currently trading at $2.70. SNM experienced a fall of 5% in value, and is currently trading at $0.02. Over the course of the week, the total cap moved in a slightly positive direction and shifted from around $130B on Monday to $133B on Sunday.