Easy. Marinecoin.

Its way faster than bitcoin
It has support for AI and IoT, which is where things are headed
It is not too dependent on a core of dedicated miners or devs in order to work.  Most of the services currently provided by devs/miners to traditional coins will be provided by dedicated AI to the marinecoin network. This will have a significant downward impact on transaction costs and times
It's marketcap is below 1mUSD so it has a lot of room to grow
Best of all, it is currently free. There is an airdrop currently going on that will airdrop 90% of all available MTC to the first 20,000 people to apply and qualify. That comes up to 450,000 MTC free for each and everybody who wants it. Risk free.

Whats not to like about this?

There's way more detail on marinecoin at marineco.in

Check it out if you are interested

Marinecoin.

I have no doubt that this will be the best airdrop of 2018, and I'm kinda surprised there isn't more coverage about it. Just to add to some of the points you put up there:

It has a very low marketcap <1mUSD, so I expect this to explode at one point or the other once people realise just what this coin can do. By then, only the early adopters will be able to take advantage of the price movement

I really encourage anybody who is looking at altcoins to look at MTC while the offer lasts