Introduction

2017 was a special year for the Cryptocurrency landscape. The total market cap of the industry grew +5000% and news headlines flooded our communities taking global awareness to a new level. As of today, the total market capitalization of the industry is 515 billion USD, and many specialists believe that this entire industry is still enormously undervalued, predicting that the total market cap will be worth well over 2 trillion USD in the next 12–24 months.

At Digital Asset Management, we also believe that this industry is undervalued, with room for serious growth.

With that being said, the following trends represent potential investment opportunities that will be closely monitored by our team at Digital Asset Management Limited.

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1. Decentralised vs. Regulated Exchanges.

New DLT licenses from jurisdictions such as Gibraltar will provoke the emergence of regulated cryptocurrency exchanges. Regulated gateways with rigorous listing processes will instill confidence and credibility by only listing quality tokens that deserve the correct recognition and liquidity. Regulated Gateways will organically increase the quality of ICOs and investors will naturally become more savvy in their investments.

On the flip side, decentralized exchanges will list tokens that are demanded by the public and will attract volumes that are equally important in the development of this phenomenal technology. As we have seen in the past, one of the downsides to regulation is innovative restriction.

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2. Free Transaction Currencies.

Investors are tired of paying high transaction fees to transfer bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. As this industry grows, we might see transaction volumes migrate over to free transactional cryptocurrencies such a INT, IOTA, and others.

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3. Platforms.

The rise of ethereum competitors is coming fast! Ethereum has had the ‘smart contract spot light’ for most of 2016/2017, but competitors such EOS, Tezos, Cardano, Stellar and NEO (amongst others) are growing fast, and it’s only a matter of time before we start to see dapps and other projects built on alternative platforms. A recent project built on the Stellar Lumens blockchain was mobius.network. Learn more about Stellar HERE

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4. Passive incomes

On the back of increased regulation and realized tax implications, investors might start looking for income generating cryptocurrencies projects. Projects such as 0x, Kyber, Bitshares, kuCoins, TAAS and Bankera all pay regular dividends. Investors might also hedge some market volatility by investing in these dividend paying cryptocurrencies/tokens, that to some extent follow dividend price cycles.

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5. Privacy Tokens

Increased government regulation will also increase legal and financial regulations surrounding this emerging digital asset class, we might see a shift of early investor capital towards tokens that enable private transactions between businesses and individuals. Coins such as Zcash and Monero might benefit from such a shift.

On ramping /Off ramping

Increased scrutiny from banks will bring challenges when it comes to buying and selling cryptocurrencies. Companies building a solution for this ‘pain point’ will see volumes in 2018. At Digital Asset Management, we assist individuals and institutions when it comes to buying, managing portfolios and storing cryptocurrency in our secure cryptocurrency vault based in Gibraltar. Other companies to watch out for are: Ethos, Bread and Covesting.

Thanks for taking the time to read this article.

What other trends do you anticipate this year?

Disclaimer: Digital Asset Management Limited (“DAM”) is not a licensed Investment Manager and does not advise or assist with the acquisition or management of financial instruments under the Financial Services (Markets in Financial Instruments) Act 2006 or instruments representing Collective Investment Schemes under Gibraltar Law. Investing in cryptocurrencies and tokens (“Digital Assets”) is a high risk activity with risks not typically associated with conventional assets. DAM is presently seeking regulatory authorisation in relation to being custodian of and managing Digital Assets and reviews its regulatory obligations regularly.