Why Skycoin is Still Under the Radar in 2019

The tangible legitimacy of Skycoin, the most undervalued project in crypto

Anyone who reads enough about Skycoin is, at a certain point, bound to ask themselves, “Why isn’t Skycoin higher up the cryptocurrency rankings?”

The top ten cryptocurrencies by market cap at time of publication, according to coinmarketcap.com. Skycoin sits at #204 out of 2108 listed currencies.

Of course, if you’ve done any research into what Skycoin has already accomplished, and its ambitious plans for the near future, you already know why it is not likely to stay at its current market valuation for much longer. But it may be helpful to learn some of the reasons why it got here in the first place.

After Bitcoin began gaining traction in the public consciousness, thousands of new coins and tokens sprang up, hoping to get some of the money being recklessly hurled at anything even tangentially related to blockchain technology and Bitcoin. As you are undoubtedly aware, many of those coins were scams designed to generate a quick payout for a select few with no intention of fulfilling their stated objectives, or otherwise failed due to a lack of vision or developers, insufficient funds, incompetence, negligence, fraud etc…

Then, of course, there was the long tumble into a bear market through 2018 that saw many people who bought crypto on the way up leave the market penniless and jaded. All of this had a chilling effect on a number of different coins, and legitimate investors became much warier of which assets were worthy of financial support. At the same time, many ill-equipped or poorly informed day-traders and would-be investors remained in the market, creating additional volatility as they chased pumps and fled dumps. The resulting hard-won skepticism affected many projects, but especially those whose plans were particularly ambitious, and few projects in the crypto space are as ambitious as Skycoin.

Get it? A bear is literally walking across a bunch of coins with cryptocurrency symbols on them? Thank you stock photographer!

Skycoin represents an all-encompassing ecosystem threatening to render most projects obsolete, each of which has focused on an issue or concern that overlapped with an aspect of Skycoin. Substratum for example (recently delisted from Binance) was attempting to position itself as capable of building a decentralized Internet, and likely saw Skycoin, which was much further along, as a direct competitor. Since Substratum’s collapse, credible allegations have been levied that disinformation campaigns were sanctioned and financed by Substratum in order to discredit Skycoin. Naturally, these baseless attacks and allegations from the SUB camp made investors skittish, lest there actually be some fire under all that smoke of fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD). Of course, it was all lies and unethical subterfuge. But, the damage had been done and disingenuous articles detailing the manufactured scandals remain online (and appear in search results) to this day.

A helpful acronym to remember when dealing with the way in which most cryptocurrencies are reported.

For a comprehensive overview of what Skycoin has had to overcome in this regard, please visit the unofficial website SkyFUD.com, where each rumor or controversy is explained in context, and authoritatively dispelled.

Luckily, most of the groups trying to ruin Skycoin were casualties of the current crypto winter. Ultimately, of course, Skycoin will need to stand on its own merits, but its track record of consistently delivering on roadmap milestones is, even to casual observers, extremely impressive. One would be hard pressed to find another cryptocurrency project with the same level of active development, engaged community, and sophisticated hardware infrastructure as Skycoin. The scope of this achievement can be difficult to convey quickly or succinctly, which may also contribute to Skycoin’s temporarily depressed position in the market.

It’s possible that people made up their mind about Skycoin a year or two ago – possibly due to some FUD convincing them the coin was dead and/or a scam – and simply haven’t bothered to glance at anything that’s taken place since.

Many people simply do not understand what a decentralized Internet is or why they would want it, let alone the ways in which Skywire is faster, safer, and more secure than the current Internet. They do not grasp how Skywire will protect their data and privacy, or allow regular citizens to literally become Internet Service Providers for their communities. Likewise, people are unaware of the sheer volume of DIY and Skyminer hardware nodes already deployed in the service of Skywire, or else they don’t have a conception of what that number means. With around 10,000 nodes online around the world, and more coming online every day. Skywire already has thousands more nodes than the 17-year-old TOR network after only 1 year; more than Ethereum too for that matter. Again, it is only a matter of time before the significance of this achievement is reflected in the market value of the coin.

TOR does good and important work with the existing Internet. Skycoin will do it better. For starters, Skycoin will incentivize those willing to provide value to the Skywire network with actual cryptocurrency. (Volunteer to run a node for TOR and you might get a t-shirt…)

There are other aspects of the ecosystem that prospective backers may find difficult to grasp without the kind of research that very few investors seem inclined to perform. The concept of Coin Hours, for instance, is a brilliant solution to the problem of incentivizing people to maintain the infrastructure of a decentralized Internet, but it is abstract and unfamiliar to many. Coin Hours are essentially a parallel currency that will be used to pay for services and bandwidth on Skywire and is generated simply by holding Skycoin.

As illustrated in this screenshot from Skycoin.net, Skycoin is an ecosystem, which requires the kind of nuanced explanation that many jittery investors are not prepared to sit still for.

As the flaws built into the heart of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and many other top crypto assets become more pronounced, the innovative ways in which Skycoin solves these shortcomings will be brought into sharp relief. Its lead developers, after all, were early contributors to the Bitcoin and Ethereum open-source communities when these defects were originally identified, resulting in three groups tackling these issues separately before eventually consolidating into Skycoin. Since the discovery of these inherent issues with Bitcoin and Ethereum, they have only become more prominent and troublesome.

For example, Skycoin is introducing its revolutionary consensus algorithm, Obelisk, that replaces Bitcoin’s environmentally destructive, slow, and increasingly centralized proof-of-work system and will simultaneously obviate the need for proof-of-stake.

Or consider Fiber, Skycoin’s elegant blockchain platform that uses a unique parallel blockchain structure that is at once stronger, faster and more secure, as well as customizable and infinitely scalable.

Or CX, an easy-to-learn and Turing-complete programming language built on Golang. CX includes features and capabilities that are lacking in languages like Ethereum’s Solidity, and which make it well-suited for use in an exceptional range of projects, including gaming. Each of these components of the Skycoin ecosystem would be ground-breaking on their own. Together, they represent an unprecedented powerhouse of technology and services.

This stock photographer is hoping people can’t tell the difference between a bull and what is clearly some kind of bison.

As soon as people begin to realize that the next surge in the market will need to cautiously focus on projects that have proven solutions and value tied to tangible real-world commodities, Skycoin will take the place in the market that it deserves. A cryptocurrency like Skycoin that combines the best features of many existing blockchain projects, but in technologically superior ways, can only stay a secret for so long.

The Skycoin development team has taken a long-term view, and rightly focused on fulfilling the deliverables of its demanding project roadmap, with less attention paid at this stage to promotion and marketing. But as new aspects of the ecosystem come online like clockwork, Skycoin marketing as well as word-of-mouth will begin to cut through the noise as it ramps up and spreads across the crypto space and beyond.

…Did someone take a chalkboard to a coffee shop? Is that the story we’re supposed to accept from this stock image?

It is only a matter of time before the tipping point when investors recognize the staggering dichotomy between Skycoin’s price and its demonstrable real-world value. One of the lead developers, Synth, recently announced that Skycoin had signed an infrastructure contract worth ten times its current market cap. That kind of glittering value doesn’t stay hidden in the dark for long, even in a bear market. And while an asset priced well below its value may be a boon to those who like to accumulate such bargains, it won’t last forever. Eventually, the pressure under the surface will cause a simmering volcano to blow its top.

Seems like someone will notice eventually…

Some people get it. Skycoin is a Gold Label Project on Binance, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world. Traditional investors, who tend to be more cautious, also understand that the best investments are the ones that demonstrate real-world value, rather than “someday” promises without the infrastructure or deep development bench to back it up. Those old-school investors will enter the crypto market eventually, and when they do, Skycoin will be among the most attractive investment options from that standpoint. They will not be swayed by rumour or innuendo; they will be analytical about their research, and Skycoin will naturally rise to the top.

For the time being, Skycoin is under the radar, which isn’t a bad thing if you understand why it is. If Skycoin can continue to deliver on its formidable promises, (and all indications thus far are that it will), it will not just be the next big thing. It will be the biggest thing.