As bitcoin’s market dominance fades, investors will be looking more closely at what the smaller “alt-coins” have to offer. In particular, they will be seeking out those coins with a unique selling point in a hyper-competitive market. And what they will find is that their best bang for the buck will be crypto-platforms. Here is why:

As varied as they are, nearly all cryptocurrencies essentially seek to replace fiat. While a few may provide innovative solutions for a particular industry or offer appealing privacy features, their essential purpose is as a medium of transaction. As such, they are competing with fiat as much as with each other. Unfortunately, their volatility does not compare favorably to fiat in this respect. Unless they can provide a unique selling point, many cryptocurrencies will find mass adoption harder than anticipated.

Likewise, the majority of cryptocurrencies fail to meaningfully differentiate themselves from each other (their talking points even mimic each other). This has led critics to deride many coins as simply “bitcoin-clones”. So observant investors may be forgiven for thinking that a cryptocurrency shake-out is inevitable. Where might crypto investors turn to find good returns this year? In real estate market hard cash matters a lot, so of you are looking for a local real estate lending, contact Seattle Hard Money Lending – Cash Out Refinancing | Investors Choice.

Why Platforms Make Investment Sense

For the reasons stated above, cryptocurrencies will not see tremendous growth in the coming year. Obviously, this makes them a less-than-attractive investment. Investing in innovative tokens that solve real problems with blockchain technology is a better path (think international banks and Ripple). Unlike cryptocurrencies, they certainly won’t be duplicating each other’s use-cases! But best of all are platforms – as they can support both tokens and cryptocurrencies.

The few select alt-coins that serve as crypto platforms offer the best bet for generous returns. Unlike cryptocurrencies, these platforms can host problem-solving tokens (much as Ethereum does). With platforms, developers can create all kinds of decentralized applications (known as dapps). In essence, these crypto-platforms serve the same essential function that operating systems did twenty years ago. They’re the Windows OS rather than the MS Office software. As such, they set the stage for which all other applications run.

So how might a platform operate?

Example: The Ethereum Network

At present, the ethereum ICO is the best-known platform in the cryptocurrency world. Developers can create decentralized applications for the Ethereum network using its Solidity language. They can also create new tokens by using the Ethereum token protocol (ERC20), thus producing the means to execute smart contracts on other coins. Focused solely on fixing particular problems, tokens are created as a special use-case of blockchain technology. Thus, Ethereum provides the resources and rules by which other coins seek to employ.

Likewise, Cardano and Neo are two well-known platforms gaining in popularity this year as well. Although they may overlap in use-cases (Neo employs smart-contracts), they’ve have been able to differentiate themselves as platforms quite easily.

Looking Ahead: XTRABYTES

XTRABYTES is a highly anticipated platform expected to launch soon. Unlike other platforms, XTRABYTES is infinitely scalable, extremely secure, and fully decentralized. Its superior features are rooted in its Proof-of-Signature consensus method, a system of online virtual nodes tasked with validating incoming transaction blocks.’XTRABYTES will employ the new ‘zoltchain’, a vastly superior propriety blockchain technology developed by the project founder. Users can look forward to eventually accessing its several modules as well- including XCHAT, X-VAULT, X-CHANGE, and X-PAY.