DISCLAIMER: This is not investment advice!
Obviously there's an element of shamelessly shilling your own HODLings with any post like this, but I'd be interested to see what order other people choose for their top picks and possibly add to my own.
I would just like to disclaim that I do hold BTC, ETH, IOTA etc too, but I don't see the top 10 as my path to crazy ROI this year compared to smaller projects. These are more like outside gambles with your speculation money. I still treasure my BTC above all else for now, but I'd be very happy with 4x there this year, so here are my side-bets to beat the honey-badger in 2018!
I have tried to keep my predictions reasonable, but I would not be surprised to see any of them beaten. Crypto has done nothing but surprise me over the last two and half years, but it's best to stay a little modest with expectations and be pleasantly surprised if they are beaten. To the rest of the world forecasts of 2000%+ gains in a year seem insane, here they are 'modest' lol
We are a lucky bunch, let's not waste the opportunities.
1. **MAID** - The sleeping giant. They don't hype at all over at MaidSafe, so it has dropped from top 10 to outside the top 50 now. Very few seem to understand how big a deal it would be if it worked and they ever launched. I see this is an outside shot on the market sentiment, but it's the best ROI shot for short/mid and long term hodl'ing imo - well outside of the real penny stock cryptos that don't really have much to offer under the hood anyway. Having been in development for over a decade (older than BTC) and with a team of 20 odd core devs now I think we'll finally see this beast make a couple of big moves when they release their testsafecoin iterations and data chains get into the spotlight later this year. The implications for a functioning Safe Network and SafeCoin would turn the whole blockchain movement on its head ... it fixes privacy, scalability, distribution, PoW power useage, true decentralisation and autonomy, accessibility, fees, app infrastructure, confirm times... everything and more basically. It really could be a new internet IF it works. It will also likely boom as it gets closer to the moment where we find out how robust it is in the wild.
Prediction - to $10bn cap, 20x
2. **ZEPH** - At just a $10M cap this one could pop quite far. Bitspark making more moves in the world of remittance. As an established company this is all about actual utility rather than speculation for me. They swapped back from Ethereum to bitshares so they could scale now. 25% of fees are used to buy back tokens, creating buy-pressure and value for the coins. It works now and is being used now, building momentum since 2014. I'm not sure how long term I'd back it for, but for 2018 I have high hopes.
Prediction - to $200M cap, 20x
3. **Filecoin** - Long term I prefer MaidSafe's model and incentives, but for 2018 I'd say Filecoin hodlers can expect returns to outpace BTC. Demand was not satisfied in the token sale. Only qualifying investors who went through an arduous proof of wealth process were allowed to participate as 'sophisticated investors'. They have a lot of money and big guns behind them. With the flood of interest that has arrived in the space since that token sale I would imagine a top 20, perhaps even top 10 position by year's end. Supply will still be nowhere near that 2bn cap (a few hundred million at most). Futures are trading at 4x the token sale price now, I'd say that's a great buy.
Prediction - another 5-10x
4. TEZOS - Well, despite the huge ICO and all the drama since, I still think this is a reasonable pick. The tech is groundbreaking and governance is a huge issue to solve. Staking for 20% pa with 3 month lock in's is a big incentive to keep supply low too. I see no reason why TEZOS can't break the $20bn mark this year (probably just around top 10 by year's end). With around 600M coins that would be over $30 a coin.
Prediction: 6x
5. BFT - Not yet launched the ICO is coming soon. They're selling $33M to the BanktotheFuture account holders and opening it to the public for the remainder (min&max $1k in the public sale I believe). Simon Dixon has secured strategic partnerships and has the regulation under his belt to create a compliant liquid secondary market for securities/equity tokens. To say this could be big is an understatement. The BTF token will be the only utility token traded in their secondary market, the rest will all be equities. The token is an incentive mechanism for decentralised management of due diligence and deciding what pitches make it on to the platform. They'll be able to take US investors too so this could be very disruptive to the ICO market. Equity has always missed the benefits of liquidity, this is a chance to see that turn around and an end to crazy currencies that are not necessary. If folks can raise on equity that has a liquid secondary market then we could see a lot of that next year. BttF looks like it will be the only place to do it, so it could enjoy a really privileged position in 2018.
Prediction: Since they've capped the ICO I'm betting on a 10-20x from there myself.
Happy New Year folks and good luck in 2018!