Ah, the good old 2017. No COVID-19, but more importantly, no matter which crypto project you threw your hard earned money into, chances were, it would pump at some point and then pump some more. Before it would dump, of course. Exchanges were overwhelmed with user influx, Telegram groups were full of “when <expensive car or a planet>“ messages and everyone wanted a piece of the action.
Well, bummer, it’s 2020 now and the golden age is no more. Over 95% of those high flying projects are nowhere to be seen, many under active prosecution or investigation for fraud and with good reason. Prices indeed reached the moon and Lambos were being bought, but with money accumulated from hopeful investors, not by investors. ICO model itself has transitioned to IEO (initial exchange offering) as it offers more protection to potential investors.
Not all romance is gone however, because even in 2020, you can still find some projects which have yet to gain wider recognition, projects that are perhaps currently undervalued or have an actual solid product to show for, and in my opinion present a great investment opportunity.
- Cardano — ADA: Yes, i know, I’m putting a top 20 and former top 5 crypto project into this list. Yes, pump and dump happened already, but hear me out. No one doubts the capabilities of the development team, this project is the real deal. Naysayers will point out that development is slow, to which i have to agree, but it has also come very far, with features finally rolling out soon. There’s more to a crypto project than just its token and a Github repository. There’s the utility aspect, regulatory aspect, marketing aspect and more. Cardano pretty much covers everything, hell, it actually has a working proof of stake consensus algorithm already implemented (looking at you, ETH). Currently selling at 4c while all time high was around 1.15$ and ICO price around 8c. With upcoming updates, i think this project is way undervalued at half ICO price. If you wanna bet on the top market cap project, you’d do well to bet on Cardano.
- CoinMetro — XCM: This is the sleeper with huge potential in the bunch. Let me ask you a question. Did you ever bump you head into a wall thinking, why didn’t I buy some BNB before the now super popular exchange was launched. BNB token was sold for just 10c, then quickly took off to 2$, never looking back. It reached a maximum value at just shy of 40$ which is 400x ICO price. Yes, 400x. Even currently at 16$ it is still at 160x ICO price which is amazing but makes sense at the same time as BNB is used for paying fees on the exchange. It has actual utility, not empty promises. This isn’t the only example, so there’s a pattern and it’s hard to deny that an undervalued exchange utility token has great potential. Enter Coinmetro (www.coinmetro.com). An Estonia based exchange that somehow stayed afloat for 3 years since their ICO when crypto projects were falling like flies. Their utility token, XCM, which is kind of parallel to BNB, but has even more utility, was sold in different tiers from 3c to 12c. The exchange/company gives great emphasis on transparency, regulatory compliance and has also launched some innovative products like copy trading or CSD (actual working implementation of tokenization of real world assets). With XCM currently trading at 3c at meager volumes (so we are at or below ICO price) and the company actually only now aiming for their first big marketing push, not to mention a great affiliate program, you better buy that metro ticket and jump on the CoinMetro train!
- Chainlink — LINK: So, Cardano is huge, Coinmetro is micro. Chainlink was somewhere in between, but thanks to its steady growth over the last 12 months it now plays in the big boys league. The project that offers blockchain interoperability is solving the problem of trust when looking into the blockchain data and has some solid partners to show for it, like SWIFT payment system. ICO price for Chainlink was 11c and it currently trades around 4.5$ which is already a huge boost (x40 approximately), but to me, this project looks like a relatively solid long term investment (I dare not use the word safe, as there is no such thing in crypto)
So there you have it. 3 projects i think deserve your consideration. But please, don’t take my word for it. Be skeptical and always do your own research. It’s your money after all. No project can see success without utilization and unfortunately, utilization and token value are not necessarily correlated. Just remember, even NEO was once a laughable penny stock called Antshares ;)
