2017 was the year of cryptocurrencies. With a surge from $17 billion to $600 billion in total cryptocurrency market cap, 2017 has been the year for the breakout of Bitcoin. If we knew who Satoshi Nakamoto was, they’d probably be on the cover of Time magazine. There’s always next year, I guess.

However, the cryptocurrency rally is unlikely to be over. With numerous companies and governments getting interested in harnessing the power of the blockchain, the field is ripe for some new players to enter the game. Coins such as Litecoin, Monero and Dogecoin have been around for a while, but what are the most promising new coins for 2018?

Disclaimer: This post isn’t giving you investment advice. It’s also not guaranteeing any price movements; we’re simply shedding some light on some lesser known cryptocurrencies that have the potential to be big.

NEO

NEO is the largest market cap coin on this list, but that doesn’t mean it’s too big to make some serious gains in 2018. A lot of people hail this crypto as the next Ethereum. From China, of course. NEO is similar to Ethereum in that it focuses on using blockchain to develop dApps (decentralised applications) and smart contracts.

When you hold NEO, you’re actually holding a management token on the NEO blockchain, which gives you ‘voting rights’ and access to network parameters. You are essentially a shareholder in the blockchain, and like shareholders receive dividends, NEO produces dividends too. NEO produces a token called GAS in regular intervals, as an incentive for resource control of the network. As the price of NEO goes up, GAS goes up too. This makes it a very valuable crypto to HODL over the long term, since it’s essentially like having a dividend paying stock.

Advantages

Decentralized token with backing by various Chinese governments

NEO pays dividends in the form of GAS

Risks

NEO is indivisible, so you cannot own less than 1. This will provide scaling challenges when the price rises.

Uncertainty about the direction NEO heads in with Chinese government involvement.

Stellar Lumens

Stellar (XLM) is an IBM backed, global and decentralized payment solution. Stellar Lumen’s goal is to allow people and banks to transact in various currencies across the globe while finding the best exchange rate in real time. The Stellar network aims to be fully decentralized. It shares most of its characteristics with the other coins on this list – low fees, instant, and secure. What sets Stellar apart is the progress made towards implementing its goals. The IBM partnership could lead to great things for the project, and in turn the price of the coin.

Advantages

Tie up with one of the largest ATM manufacturers in the world, IBM.

Already gained significant some traction (14th largest market cap coin right now)

Investors in Stellar include the founders of Stripe, WordPress and YCombinator.

Disadvantages

As a payment solution, it’s essentially competing with a lot of other platforms based on the Ethereum blockchain.

Limited use case, and hence might fizzle out to larger, more stable cryptocurrencies.

Request

When people in the cryptocurrency scene talk about underrated, few conversations happen without bringing up Request Network (REQ). It’s actually quite similar to Stellar in its use – it’s a currency agnostic payment solution. This article explains some of the intricacies of the Request protocol. You could also visit the subreddit to find out more.

So why buy Request? Short answer is the coin is very undervalued at the moment. There is huge confidence in the developing team, and their recent launch of Colossus, a major update in the network was done many months ahead of schedule. It was released on Dec 18 2017 (expected release was Q1 2018). There is potential for this coin to reach multiples of 10x in value.

Advantages

As a product, works very well and is very intuitive.

Great development team.

Disadvantages

Doesn’t have the same industry connections as some of the larger coins

Hasn’t reached the tipping point where it indicates surefire success.

OmiseGO

You’ve probably only heard about OmiseGO (OMG) if you browse 4chan or reddit. This coin is shilled a lot there. But its fundamentals are solid. OmiseGO is a decentralized payments exchange built on the plasma.io platform. OMG is an ERC20 Ethereum based token and therefore can be stored on most popular Ethereum wallets.

The fundamentals of OMG are a slow and stable rise as its product improves. The community and development team are also heavily intertwined. Their efforts to bring in social change by banking the unbanked are quite commendable.

Advantages

Created by the multi-million dollar fintech company, Omise. Delivery team has great potential to follow through.

Potential conglomerate partnership announcements are awaited.

Disadvantages

The ticker is OMG

Slow moving project when compared to other fledgling cryptocurrencies.

Nano (RaiBlocks)

Nano (NANO) is probably the most undervalued item on this list, and also has the potential for the most growth. Why is it ranked so highly on almost every metric? Well, Nano is led by a team of very talented developers who have managed to create a working transacting cryptocurrency. The product today is truly instant (probably the fastest transaction on the market), zero fees or taxes and just as secure as its competitors. Check out our article about how the network can manage to sustain where there are no incentive to run Nano nodes. The project is touted to be a game changer in pure transacting cryptocurrencies.

Nano is extremely undervalued because it used to only be listed on two small exchanges, Mercatox and Bigrail. This has changed, and after undergoing a rebrand from Raiblocks to Nano, the project looks stronger than ever. Despite its slow start, Nano reached a $50 million daily volume with an all time high market cap of almost $2 billion. So far, RaiBlocks have done little marketing and no tie-ups, and still managed to enter the top 50 in market cap. The fundamentals are sound and its demand is only going to increase in 2018.

Advantages

Instant payments with no fees. For real, this time.

Talented developers, strong community and increasing demand.

Disadvantages

Difficult to buy right now as it’s not on any of the main exchanges. (Update: Jan 2018, RaiBlocks is listed on Binance and Kucoin so you should go buy it there.)

Conclusion

The 5 most promising cryptocurrencies to invest in in 2018:

RaiBlocks OmiseGO Request Network Stellar Lumen NEO

Most of the currencies on this list have the potential to 10x or even 100x in 2018. NEO and Stellar are too big for the latter, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility for something like Request or RaiBlocks to enter the mainstream exchanges and completely change the game. The metrics I’ve used to create this list are social media discussions, current trade volume and market cap, and the potential for scaling a similar project in 2018. Since 2018 is the year that big banks and institutional investors get into cryptocurrencies, we might see the fruition of a lot of smaller ICOs entering the big leagues.

Where to Buy

RaiBlocks: Binance or Kucoin OmiseGO: Binance or Kucoin Request Network: Binance or Kucoin Stellar Lumen: Binance or Kucoin NEO: Binance or Kucoin

Note: Binance and Kucoin include our referral links.