Cryptocurrencies

Active Currencies

Here are some currencies that are trading with a high amount of volume.

Bitcoin - BTC

Gold standard, traded with many other cryptocurrencies.

Pros: Everyone uses it Long term issues: Block size limit, transaction fees

Ethereum - ETH

Pros: Smart contracts, transactions are pretty fast Long term issues: The rollback from the DAO hack

Ripple - XRP

Long term issues: Market segment (?), Supply issue (?)

Litecoin - LTC

First alt-coin that took off. Recently adopted segwit.

Pros: transactions are pretty fast Long term issues: Are people still using it?

Neo - NEO

Was called antshares. Blockchain with China's backing. Supply: 100 million NEO tokens. 50 million distributed during crowdfunding. 50 million retained by NEO. 100 million gas tokens. Can be subdivided to 0.00000001. Generated with every block created over 22 years using a decay algorithm.

Pros: Smart contracts, possibly a large Chinese market Long term issues: Centralized control over supply?

1. IOTA
2. TenX
3. Stratis
4. Safe Exchange Coin
5. Mysterium

ICO

ICO or Initial Coin Offering is a way people are crowdfunding new currencies using a token system, typically based on Ethereum using the ERC20 token standard.

Dying ICOs, or projects that have no activity or future are placed in the next section.

AdExchange - ADX

AdExchange is a blockchain based solution to provide advertisers and publishers with verifiable ad clicks or impressions.

This idea really doesn't make much sense if each click or impression generates an entry on the blockchain.

Sale

The ADX crowdsale ended a day after it started.

• 1ETH = 1035-1070ADX, or 0.00093457ETH per ADX

Notes

ADX has a moderate trade volume (> 400 BTC).

Price fell to 0.0007 since its start in July 2017 before jumping up to around 0.004 in August 2017.

Aeternity - AE

Aeternity will make use of state channels which allows transactions to happen off-chain unless a disagreement happens. Basically, it is like Ethereum but with state channels and a built in distributed oracle.

The testnet project seems to have some recent updates, but their github repositories aren't updated very frequently. (which seems scary.) They have a testnet running already (where is it?)

They ran a crowdfunding campaign in the first half of 2017. They intend to release ERC20 tokens based on contribution in August 2017 (but it has yet to happen).

Serious Issues: They lost 82,000 ETH of 102,000 ETH raised during their phase 2 crowdfunding campaign due to the multi-sig hack. They will continue to honor all contributions made, but this is a serious loss of funding.

Website

• https://www.aeternity.com/

There is also a wiki which may have some useful info (though it may not be accurate as stated on their main wiki page).

• https://github.com/aeternity/wiki/wiki/

Sale

• First Round: 1000 AE tokens per 1 ETH (April 3, 2017)
• Phase 1 and Phase 2 are over (July 2, 2017)
• Phase 1: 140 million AE tokens - 120,000 ETH + 328 BTC
• Phase 2: 88 million AE tokens - 105,000 ETH + 1135 BTC

Notes

At a rate of 0.13 BTC per ETH (or 7.7ETH per BTC):

• First Round - flat rate of 0.001
• Phase 1 = 140M for 122525.6 ETH, 1142 AE per ETH, or 0.0008757 ETH / AE
• Phase 2 = 88M for 113739.5 ETH, 774 AE per ETH, or 0.00129 ETH / AE

Since HitBTC uses AE/BTC, the converted prices are:

• Phase 1: 0.00011372 BTC / AE
• Phase 2: 0.00016753 BTC / AE

AE has a small trading volume. (>4 BTC)

I really like the idea of Aeternity, but the project seems to be mismanaged and lacks communication.

Bitquence - BQX

Bitquence is some sort of trading platform that allows the average Joe to use any of the cryptocurrencies that are available. Using their system, people can diversify their funds across multiple currencies to reduce risk and also be able to pay others with the currency of their choice.

It sounds like they want to be a currency exchange of some sort through smart contracts. There is absolutely no detailed information on how this is done and their timeline stretches to 2020.

I have absolutely no confidence with their platform.

Website

• https://www.bitquence.com/main/

Sale

• 5000 BQX per ETH or 0.0002 BQX / ETH

Notes

Trading volume is small (>20 BTC). Like ADX, the price fell in July 2017 to around 0.000289BQX/ETH, then jumped up in August 2017 to 0.00289BQX/ETH.

EOS

Website

• https://www.eos.io/

Sale

• 1,000,000,000 EOS tokens
• Sale between June 26, 2017 and June 1, 2018
• Price per EOS depends on how much ETH are sent in a sale period.

TBD: What is the average price for the sold EOS tokens?

Notes

The price is hard to judge since it's determined solely by its interest.

Unlike other ICOs, this one is still going until June 2018. As such, the trading price will probably continue to decrease from its starting price. See https://www.eos.io/ for the current distribution price.

IXT - Insurex

Whitepaper: https://www.insurex.co/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/insurex_whitepaper.pdf

Sale

• Starts July 11
  • Starts at 1ETH = 1530IXT, or 0.00065 ETH
  • Ends at 1ETH = 1125IXT, or 0.000888 ETH

Notes

Like ADX, BQX, the price jumped in August 2017 from it's low of 0.0005IXT/ETH in July to around 0.0016IXT/ETH.

There is a small trading volume (>40 BTC).

NET - Nimiq

What it is:

• Browser based blockchain written in javascript.
• Has a testnet ready.
• Intends to be complete late 2017 and launch in December 2017.

Website

• https://nimiq.com/
• https://nimiq.com/token-sale/

Sale

• Started on June 28, 2017
• 10,500,000 NET tokens for 60,000 ETH (76% sold as of July 2, 2017)
• 1ETH = 175NET, 0.0057 (until July 12) or 1ETH = 125NET, 0.008 after July 12.
• 10 NET = 1 NIM after ICO ends

HitBTC price at the moment is 0.0048. This dropped considerably the past few days and is now below the first ICO price. Trade volume has also decreased significantly to about 1ETH per day.

Notes

Github project doesn't seem to get many updates.

There is a small trading volume (>5 BTC).

Like ADX, BQX, IXT, this also fell to its lowest in July, then rose in August 2017.

SNT - Status

Status is a messaging app with features built in that utilizes Ethereum's blockchain.

Website

• http://status.im/

Sale

Not a lot of information. This website says it was sold at 0.0001 ETH per SNT or 10,000SNT per ETH.

HitBTC price at the moment is 0.000195, or 1.95x its original price.

Notes

Why do we need another messaging app even if it can handle payments?

There is a decent trading volume (>300BTC).

The value has steadily dropped since mid July 2017 to 0.000155.

XTZ - Tezos

• https://www.tezos.com/governance

Sale

• Sale starts July 1 through middle of July (or 2000 bitcoin blocks)
• 1 BTC = 5000 XTZ or
  • 0.0002BTC / XTZ
  • 0.00154ETH / XTZ (at 7.7ETH / BTC)

Notes

Website is pretty basic.

Their project builds on the idea that the blockchain software can be upgraded through the blockchain and can be decided by users on the blockchain. Their code is also written in Camel and will be formally verified (proofs and such).

There is a small trading volume (> 50BTC).

Crappy ICOs

Here are some ICOs that I believe won't deliver or has no future.

Digital Developers Fund - DDF

A company that promises to give you back some money they make after 'investing' the proceeds from the ICO.

This is from a company that squats on domain names. Sounds very scammy.

Website

• https://www.digitaldevelopersfund.com/ico/

Sale

• 1000 DDF per ETH or 0.0001 DDF / ETH

Notes

Sounds like a scam. There is absolutely no reason to trust that they would give dividends every quarter after running off with your money.

Trading volume is nonexistant.

MRV - Macroverse

Macroverse is a universe in Ethereum. It is intended to be a middleware for blockchain based games.

There is fundamentally no use for this project. Their whitepaper makes no sense. Their goal of making a virtual universe with planets and stars for games makes no sense. (Why do different games need or even want to use this middleware or be on a blockchain for that matter?)

Website

• https://macroverse.io/

Sale

• 5000 MRV per ETH, or 0.0002ETH per MRV
• A limit of 100,000,000 MRV with the rest supposedly burnt after the sale.

Notes

This token is inherently useless unless you have interest in playing with their game.

Stay away from this.

There is virtually no trading volume.

PRO - Propy

Propy is a blockchain based title registry for some property.

Website

Read the whitepaper here:

• http://tokensale.propy.com/WhitepaperSummary.pdf

Sale

The whitepaper lists the price at $1 per PRO. 1 ETH is about $220, so one PRO is about 0.00455 ETH.

Notes

There is virtually no trading volume.

SAN - Santiment

Santiment is a financial market data and content platform for cryptocurrencies. It intends to create a mobile app that combines thousands of data feeds. SAN tokens provide users access to this app.

Website

• http://santiment.net/token-sale/

Sale

• Starts July 4 - July 6
• At a rate of 1ETH = 1000SAN (0.001 ETH per SAN)
• Investment cap is 45000 ETH.
• 54 million

Notes

• Price at 0.003 (July 2 2017) on HitBTC is overpriced.
• The idea isn't too spectacular either.

There is very little trading volume (0.2BTC).

Unlike ADX, BQX, IXT, NET, this did not rise in August 2017 (lack of interest?).

TIX - Blocktix

Blocktix is a platform for event hosting.

Website

• https://blocktix.io/#token

Info on ICO:

• https://blog.blocktix.io/the-blocktix-public-crowdsale-9af93fb0f2cd

See also:

• https://tokenmarket.net/blockchain/ethereum/assets/blocktix/

Sale

• 1 ETH = 1127 TIX (Not sure what tier this is at) or 0.000887ETH per TIX.

Notes

Low trading volume (~1 BTC) but this is mostly because of the bump in price like other ICOs in August 2017.

TFL - True Flip

True Flip is a lottery that uses Bitcoin hashes as a seed for their number generator so that numbers are 'provably' random. (Question: Is the number generator truly generating random numbers based on the block hash? Is it bias towards certain numbers?)

True Flip is running an ICO in order to raise funds to up the jackpot. Token holders will be rewarded by a 10% - 15% share of the ticket sale profit.

Website

• https://trueflip.io/
• https://ico.trueflip.io/

Sale

The current price for a TFL token is 2400 TFL per 1 BTC, or at a rate of 0.000416 FTL / BTC.

There will be a maximum limit of 21,000,000 tokens. 14,700,000 are for sale. Unsold tokens are burnt.

HitBTC price on July 12 is around 0.0003 which is below the price of the ICO. The price hasn't risen and there haven't been much trading which might hint the lack of faith in the token (see below on profitability).

I would stay away from this ICO. There're probably better ways to 'make' money than buying into this ICO unless the price is 1/16th or less of its current sale price of 0.0003BTC/TFL.

Profitability

Assuming a sale of 15,000 tickets per day (or 15BTC in sales at a rate of 0.0001 per ticket), that leaves 'investors' with 1.5BTC per day. Each token gives a share of 1/21,000,000. In a year, each token will generate 365( 1.5BTC / 21,000,000 ).

In other words at a sale rate of 15,000 tickets per day, an 'investor' with 1,000,000TFL will generate 26.07 BTC per year. 1,000,000 TFL will cost 416.666 BTC, which breaks even after 16 years.

Their ICO website has a slider that goes from "Low" of 15,000 tickets per day to "High" at 100,000 tickets per day. Even at their highest most optimistic sale rate of 100,000 tickets per day, it will take over 2 years to break even with the initial 'investment'.

Notes

True Flip hasn't released any real 'source code' as they claim on their website. There is also a large discrepancy with the amount of money going in through ticket sales and the amount of payout and jackpot increase. Undoubtedly, they are probably making a healthy profit with the lottery.

There is also absolutely no guarantee that they will even pay out investors.

There is a small trading volume (>5BTC). The price did not jump in August 2017 but has overall decreased since it started trading.

I'm sure the business plan is sound, but playing 'investor' with their token seems to have too many risks for too little reward.