7 Altcoins With Solid Projects To Watch in 2018, does your fav coin add up?

At Totle, we understand that it can be a time consuming task to wade through all the many altcoin projects out there looking for just the right one to invest in. With a flood of projects entering into the space on a monthly basis, finding a project that has solid long-term potential is almost like looking for a needle in a haystack.

There are a few factors that make for a good project including a solid team, having a working demo or final product, a token that has utility on the platform, and an idea that is actually viable and not just a whitepaper and a dream. Finding a blockchain based project shouldn't be like looking for a unicorn, so we decided to put the spotlight on 7 coins that we think have excellent projects with already established products and vibrant communities.

1. Steem (STEEM)
Steem review 2018 solid altcoin
The Steem blockchain makes the top of our list because out of all the projects we looked at, it had one of the most developed and use platforms. Steem is the currency and blockchain that runs the Steemit.com platform. Steemit is where a Reddit like forum meets the blockchain and contributors get paid through "upvotes" on their articles and comments. These upvotes equal out to a certain amount of rewards paid in Steem cryptocurrency. Content creators earn "reputation" on the platform by posting content that people like and therefore increases the power of their voting and posting on the site.

The platform boasts half a million users and was launched in July of 2016. One of the remarkable aspects is that transaction times are just around 3 seconds! Steem transactions are free and pretty much instant. The active engagement growth that has been seen in the last 6 months alone is impressive when compared to other projects with a similar user base. This is a real working project that has a lightning fast blockchain and is already being used by hundreds of thousands of people daily.

2. Basic Attention Token (BAT)
BAT review 2018 solid altcoin
Many of the coins in the top 10 are aimed at being a transfer of value similar to Bitcoin, but Basic Attention Token has their eyes set on another major industry; advertising. Just like in print, online publications often make the majority of their revenue from advertising. Being flooded by ads is almost a right these days and you can't read news on any major outlet without going through an ad or two with most of the page space taken by rotating adverts.

This outdated model of advertising is behind us according to BAT which aims to put the power in users hands where they reward content creators for their work with BAT tokens therefore eliminating the need for banner ads and popups. The BAT token works in conjunction with the Brave browser which is a traditional ad blocking browser for the net. The concept here is forward-thinking with a solid game plan. It's a big job to tackle but this product already has partners with a working product and an army of users that are fed up with pesky banner ads and popups.

3. Stellar Lumens (XLM)
stellar lumens review 2018 solid altcoin
Stellar has moved up the ranks notch by notch over the last year and now sits in the top 10 coins by marketcap. While it did not see the massive price spikes that Ripple did coming into 2018, the technology is strikingly similar (Stellar is actually a fork of Ripple) and has massive long term potential. Stellar is all about cross-boarder payment systems that rely on "anchors" to work similar to traditional banks in their decentralized network.

Transaction times are around 2-3 seconds and for fractions of 1 Lumen or XLM the native token on the Stellar network. They inked a deal with IBM and KlickEx late last year which should propel their product offering to the forefront. They are also run by a non-profit organization which makes direct donations to them tax deductible. This is one solid rocket ship to the moon!

4. Monero (XMR)
Monero review 2018 solid altcoin
While most of the privacy-centric coins saw large gains going into 2018 Monero certainly has been leading the pack. Like Bitcoin, Monero is all about transfer of value, but the similarities stop there. Monero is focused on privacy so unlike Bitcoin every transaction on the Monero blockchain is 100% private. They use ring signatures to secure the privacy of their transactions and it really is a unique method for achieving this goal. Every transaction id becomes part of a ring of transactions from the network where the signer could be any of the id's so anyone looking from the outside could not identify who that actual owner is.

One of the more interesting features of this privacy coin is that you can also make your transactions public through the use of a "view key" that allows anyone with that key to see full transaction history. The Monero project has been in high demand in multiple markets for the last few years and with the increasing demand for privacy focused transactions their have a strong project that will no doubt see major growth in 2018.

5. EOS (EOS)
EOS review 2018 best altcoins
Compared to the other coins on this list EOS has much less of a product (none in fact at this time!), but they have crept into the top 10 coins over the last few months with anticipation of a strong 2018. EOS aims to be a development platform very similar to Ethereum but with improvements to speed & scaleabllity. The project is spearheaded by Dan Larimer that same guy who invented the Steem blockchain and Steemit.com. EOS is his latest project and while they decided to go with a year long ICO, the project is starting to pick up some steem (pun intended!) with the release of their public test net.

The platform is looking to solve some of the problems we have seen with the Ethereum blockchain environment even though the EOS token itself is an Ethereum based ERC-20 token this is only a "placeholder" for when the EOS blockchain launches with their own native token. With such a solid team and clear direction with results to back it, EOS is going to give other decentralized development platforms a run for their money in 2018.

6. OmiseGo (OMG)
OmiseGO OMG review 2018 solid altcoins
OMG has been one of the most successful Ethereum based tokens and continues to hang around the top 20 coins by market cap. While OMG is also establishing itself as a payment and value transfer network, and while they focus on both B2B and P2P the unique aspects of their platform are geared more for providing solutions for businesses versus peer-to-peer transactions. They have a huge team including the one and only Vitalik Buterin as an adviser. Watching the progress this team has made since their ICO has been fun and they seem to have picked up quite a few partners for real-world use cases of their OmiseGo network. Here is a really good article that breaks all these partnerships down to fine grains.

7. Worldwide Asset eXchange (WAX)
WAX review 2018 altcoin
Last on our list of solid cryptocurrency projects for 2018 is the Worldwide Asset eXchange or WAX for short. This is an online gaming specific token on the Ethereum network that allows you to buy and sell digital assets across a massive global network. Right now, the digital asset market is valued in the millions per year and gamers are very comfortable with online and digital focused transactions. The WAX team are the same guys behind OPSkins.com which is one of the largest current digital asset markets globally.

They have an already established business which they are essentially "upgrading" to the blockchain to improve features, speed, price, and offerings. With a solid product offering already on the table and millions of gamers worldwide looking to buy and sell digital game assets, 2018 is going to be a huge year of growth for WAX and the gaming industry as a whole.

Happy Altcoin hunting! If you find a project that you think is a really solid application with long term potential, drop us a comment here!