The recent downturn in market prices resulting from the Van Eck (ETF decision) postponement has rocked many investors. Whether you are a serious investor or see crypto as a hobby, unless you entered the market in Q1/Q2 2017, you’re probably showing a loss on your alt coin hodl. The hodl concept has huge popularity as a meme and crypto investment strategy. The underlying logic being that we were all investing in these projects that were going to change the world.

We are all now beginning to realise that we invested in projects trying to apply a world changing technology! Adoption to crypto platforms and dapps has not really occurred at all, despite there now being useful dapps available . The underlying premise for the hodl, the idea that we were on a train with a destination called success is being challenged. Projects like Cardano and Ethereum have started to trade at unprecedented lows. Blockchain cynics will say the market is finally moving toward accurate valuations of projects.

HODL or die, top 4 altcoins

The top 4 non-Bitcoin projects according to coinmarketcap today are Ethereum, Ripple, EOS, and Stellar Lumens. (Yes, I have left BCH out on purpose, for many reasons but mostly because I really do not like the project nor it’s community!) Each of these 5 projects are pretty well developed, with the exception of EOS. A lot of crypto investors will have positions in these projects and for the first time you are probably starting to think ‘wait, is this project going to trade to zero!?!?!?’ Undoubtedly some altcoin projects are going to die in the coming months. Now they face a massive test of execution, that grandiose whitepapers cannot solve!

Ethereum

For a long time, many investors (myself included) had considered Ethereum a stable investment. Ethereum is a well developed, active ecosystem with nearly 2000 dapps deployed. However as we can see here the usage rate on these dapps is very low. They are functioning dapps but we have to consider whether they are actually of any use to people or businesses!

Ethereum is trading at circa $260 at time of writing. Many analysts had held the $340 and then $280 mark as a strong support that we were unlikely to go below. Yet, here we are, looking at the cheapest Ethereum since September 2017. If you had bought last September you could have taken 3/4x profit throughout the Dec/Jan bull run.

Those with a long term hodl and believers in the project will say Vitalik Buterin and ConsenSys have enough bright minds to bring the next wave of usable dapps to the Ethereum platform. Doubters will point to lack of a killer dapp to date and the ongoing concerns around scalability and throughput.

Ripple/XRP

“But, but, but it’s totally centralised” or so goes, the anti-XRP dawn chorus on twitter everyday. Are they correct? Possibly but that is not the issue at hand. Over 100 commercial banks are using Ripple’s working blockchain product. In short Ripple is the market leader when it comes to providing a blockchain service that reputable businesses not only use but love.

The XRP price run from circa $0.25 in early December 2017 to $3.20 in Jan 2018 was a real profit earner for many people. The project went from being moderately undervalued to being massively overvalued. XRP has been correcting ever since, breaking the hearts of Jan buy-ins still on the hodl.

With a further dip today the XRP price has now retraced all the way back to that $0.25 mark. In other words externally the project is being valued at last years valuation. In reality the project has developed, added clients and improved functionality. Ripple has one of the best business use cases around and is probably in undervalued territory again now.

EOS

The $4 billion dollar ICO behemoth lovingly known by it’s fans as ‘Ethereum on Steroids’. The aim of EOS is to build a better Ethereum with greater TPS and scalability. Obviously no idea is worth 4 billion dollars at whitepaper stage and I do feel the big raise makes EOS a tricky trade.

In early May/June in the run up to the mainnet launch we heard it would never dip below $10 again! You can get EOS for $4.30 this morning. The mainnet launch was not exactly seamless with known security issues. Poor communication around the event compounded this. This was in stark contrast to the smoother launches by VeChain and TRON.

Where the price will go next is a very tricky subject, EOS has more weight of expectation than just about any other project. $4 billion brings a lot of pressure and EOS needs to deliver something notable in the coming months. Therefore, like other smart contract platforms, it needs to attract the best dapp ideas and drive those through to mainstream adoption. EOS is still high on potential and low on progress.

Stellar Lumens

Stellar is the best performing sizeable project in terms of market price over the last month or so. It has tremendous support at circa $0.20. The bears have been hitherto unable to drive the price below that mark. This is an important indicator as it shows there is relatively greater buying demand at relatively higher prices than other projects. I think if you can get in at as close to $0.20 and hodl there should be profit available in the coming months.

The clear focus of the project undoubtedly helps Stellar. The Stellar Lumens Project is primarily focused on narrowing the gap between blockchain and the traditional financial world. The ability to settle transactions quickly without the need for dispute resolution is the obvious USP. This is a little more concise and guided than Ethereum/EOS.