Chains like BTC and Ethereum have achieved a huge degree of success and Media coverage - however that success has come at a price;
Very slow transactions and confirmations for extended periods and huge transaction fees.
Developments in scaleability and affordability appear to be glacial with Bitcoin and are lagging in Etherium. I am sure these issues will, eventually, be solved and I predict new highs for both of these chains in 2018.
Waves Platform have gone a long way towards solving the scaleability issue and is currently
world leader in this field;
https://www.crowdfundinsider.com/2017/11/124324-waves-implement-new-technology-become-fastest-blockchain-platform-world/with their implementation of WavesNG protocol (Based on BitcoinNG). This technology, since activation in Waves Feature Activation Protocol is performing, very much according to plan, and has gone through a further 6 iterations of release. This makes Waves the fastest distributed blockchain the world has seen.
Fees are also very low - less than a $1 cent currently. Mass payments can be much cheaper by using fee token issued by a large node operator.
Smart Contract development continues apace and is expected in Q1 this year. Coupled with the consumer grade wallets and easy near instant token creation, along with the DEX (Distributed Exchange) featuring many, many pairs and high volume this all makes Waves a
very presently undervalued platform.
2018 is set to be the year of WAVES!