08/02/2018 Forget Bitcoin, Diversify with These Four Cryptocurrencies Now

Kenny Li Following
Out to prove that it’s not too late to get into cryptocurrency. Entrepreneur. MIT Sloan 2020.
Twitter @kennymuli
Feb 7 · 7 min read

Forget Bitcoin, Diversify with These Four

Cryptocurrencies Now
Diversifying is a key component to capture growth opportunities and
mitigate risk against crashes that may occur. This article is not telling you
to sell all your bitcoin; it is an answer to the question: “what other coins
should i be looking at?” Take a look at my previous article on
Diversi cation against Bitcoin as a case study for diversi cation.

You know what’s worse than going through a Bitcoin crash? Watching
the markets rise again and kicking yourself in the butt for not buying
coins at a very low price. Following yesterday’s SEC/CFTC hearing, the
markets have started to recover slowly. I’ve been here in the past, as an
investor who’s watched the market crash and just sat there without

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08/02/2018 Forget Bitcoin, Diversify with These Four Cryptocurrencies Now

making the right investment moves; I’m here to tell you that it’s not a
good feeling and you don’t have to go through the same regret I did.

Introducing Portfolio Guidance

Cosmic Trading

Join our community of over 4,000 cryptocurrency

traders for trading signals, cryptocurrency analys…
discord.gg

This is why we started the Portfolio Guidance section on Cosmic

Trading, which is a cryptocurrency trading community (I wrote about
the group previously in my article The Kinda Super Secret World of
Cryptocurrency Trading). The Portfolio Guidance section is speci cally
geared towards coins that we believe will do well in the long term due
to a combination of:

• Its proven track record of success with things such as on-time

milestones and product launches

• The motivation, responsiveness, and credentials of its team

• The value it brings to the cryptocurrency ecosystem

• The value it brings to its investors.

This article highlights the rst few coins in the publication. With the
recent market recovery, now is the time to decide whether or not you
will jump in on the opportunities.

1. NEO (NEO)

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While these recommendations appear in no particular order, NEO is

one of the cryptocurrencies I’m most bullish on in 2018. Although I
don’t think it will necessarily demonstrate the best growth by the end
of the year, I have no doubt that it has huge potential, and that the
current price is still a bargain. As a competitor to Ethereum, NEO
currently has 40 ICOs in line for 2018. Investor fervor to participate in
these ICOs will drive up the price of NEO, as NEO ICOs require NEO to
participate, similar to how Ethereum ICOs require Ethereum.

Beyond its use case as a smart contract ecosystem, though, it also

generates Gas as a dividend. By holding NEO, your wallet will
automatically generate Gas. In order for the NEO to generate Gas, you
must hold it in a private wallet unless you hold it in Binance — Binance
pays out its users in Gas once every 30 days (clari cation by Samuel
Ng). For private wallets, I recommend the NEON wallet from City of
Zion, which is approved by the o cial NEO Council. It has
compatibility for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Do not underestimate Gas
— it is the actual currency that drives the NEO Smart Economy.

CoinLib shows Gas’s all-time-high at $92.50; current price is around $40.

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Apart from its better block con rmation speed (Ethereum has a
theoretical 30 TPS, while NEO has a theoretical 10,000 TPS), NEO also
approaches ICOs in a di erent way. With Ethereum, anyone and his or
her grandma can create an ICO. While this embraces the spirit of
democracy, it also leaves rooms for lots of scammers. NEO creates a
barrier to entry for its ICOs, with a requirement of 500 Gas to launch a
smart contract. This is one of many lters the NEO Council implements
to ensure that only high-quality business ideas saturate its blockchain.

2. Ethereum (ETH)

CoinLib shows 2,600 coins listed in the cryptocurrency space — guess

what? Most of those coins are Ethereum tokens, meaning they are
cryptocurrencies that exist within the Ethereum blockchain because
that’s where they were created.

Ethereum is the grand-daddy of altcoins. If you want a long, itemized

list of the reasons why Ethereum isn’t done, take a look at my most
recent article on The Flippening: Ethereum VS. Bitcoin. It will give you
a very good idea why Ethereum is a strong competitor for the throne as
the Top Dog cryptocurrency against Bitcoin by the end of 2018.

3. COSS (COSS)

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COSS is a startup exchange that is similar to exchanges like Bittrex,

GDAX, and Binance. What sets it apart, though, is that it has its own
cryptocurrency, too, and you earn a percentage of all of COSS’s
transaction fees by holding its cryptocurrency. Think of it kind of like
the relationship with NEO and Gas, but instead of generating more
currency, it gives you a percentage of what each user pays each time he
or she makes a trade on COSS.

The cryptocurrency is built atop (you guessed it!) Ethereum as a Token.

This means that you can store it on any wallet that is Ethereum ERC20
compatible. Don’t know what that means? Don’t worry. It means you
can store it on any private wallet, including Nano Ledger S, My Ether
Wallet, Exodus, and MetaMask.

CoinLib shows the all-time-high of COSS at almost $3. It is currently under $1.

Sure, more experienced cryptocurrency traders that have explored the

altcoin world of exchange dividends can argue that COSS isn’t the only
one that o ers dividends, and it certainly isn’t the only exchange that
has its own coin. Binance has its Binance Coin, which o ers 50% o

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trade fees, and Kucoin has its own coin, Kucoin Shares, that o ers trade
fees, too. I think both Binance Coin and Kucoin Shares have strong
potential for growth in 2018, too, but there is one thing that I’m really
excited about with COSS that neither Binance nor Kucoin o er:

COSS.IO
@cosscrypto

SOON on COSS
COSS is introducing FIAT deposits and withdraws to credit cards

Fiat.
COSS has partnered with a major credit card company to start
introducing at deposits and withdraws for its exchange. This means
that it will start allowing traders to buy and sell cryptocurrencies on its
exchange and do it directly through cash, instead of doing BTC, ETH, or
LTC transfers. That being said, US citizens will still have to wait for
their time to be able to use this feature due to nancial regulations. But
it is big news for anyone in smaller foreign countries that don’t have
access to at exchanges like Coinbase or Gemini.

4. ICON (ICX)

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First I talked about NEO, then I talked about Ethereum, and now I’m
talking about ICON? You must be noticing a pattern now. I love smart-
contract platforms. I love them because it gives the cryptocurrency
much more value beyond a “store of value” or a “transactional item”
which leaves much to the mind for speculation. As businesses are built
atop these economies, the value of the businesses both from a nancial
and impact perspective will contribute to the value of the underlying
platform. Read this as: it’s no longer about speculation.

ICON o ers a smart-contracts platform, too. ICON is a Korean-born

competitor in the smart-contracts space. As a smart economy, ICON
intends to also host ICOs, also.

At the end of January 2018, it launched its Main Net. This means that
now Decentralized Apps (DApps) can start being built and launched on
ICON. Usually, this leads to the eventual emergence of ICOs. At the
ICON Annual Summit held at the same time as the Main Net launch, it
also showcased 5 di erent decentralized apps that have already started
development on the ICON platform, which may lead to ICOs. In April
2018, ICON will launch its o cial ICO platform. One of the DApps that
have gained the most traction is Nucleus Vision.

. . .

2018 is an exciting year for cryptocurrency space. Apart from the

recent announcements of governments like South Korea, Japan, India,
and even the United States embracing cryptocurrency through
regulation, the ideas and technologies are maturing. The four
recommended cryptocurrencies listed in this article still have lots of
room to grow and mature for both themselves and for the future of the
cryptocurrency space.

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Need More Portfolio Guidance?

While my team and I will continue to periodically publish articles like
this, if you want access to the latest coin recommendations for long-
term hold and signals for short-term trading, I recommend you catch
up with us directly on our Cryptocurrency Community, Cosmic
Trading. You can learn more about us through our website, or start
chatting with us immediately through Discord:

Cosmic Trading

Join our community of over 4,000 cryptocurrency

traders for trading signals, cryptocurrency analys…
discord.gg

Like this article? Want to read more down-to-earth discussion on

cryptocurrency and cryptocurrency trading? Follow me on Medium!

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If you have any questions, please DM me on Twitter or post in the

comments below. Also, if you found these articles helpful, you can help
me by signing up for exchanges to buy the coins through the following
links:

• Binance — buy Ethereum, NEO, or ICON

• COSS Exchange — buy COSS, Ethereum, or ICON

• Coinbase/GDAX — buy Ethereum

• Robinhood — Less relevant, but they’ll be doing no-fee trading on

the most popular currencies. If you use my link, we’ll both move
up on the wait-list to be able to use it, and also we get a free stock!

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