Recap

In my last blog post, I recommended three alt coins to look out for: WorldCoin (WDC) , NXTcoin (NXT), and DogeCoin (DOGE). For those of you who followed my recommendations, I hope I helped you to make a decent profit. But for those of you who didn't, fret not, because there were 10 altcoins launched in the last 2 weeks alone, and so definitely more opportunities & recommendations coming your way!

I think one of the best ways to trade altcoins is to invest early in new, technically innovative, and strong (community, branding, developers) cryptocurrencies. Typically, I look out for certain technical aspects in a cryptocoin, including fast transaction times (1 minute or less), higher security, being able to overcome certain limitations Bitcoin possesses, or factors that can potentially give the altcoin more value. I also covered some important aspects of a cryptocurrency, such as marketing, branding, development and community in an earlier post here.

New Cryptocoins to Keep an Eye on: WorldCoin (WDC), NXTcoin (NXT), DogeCoin (DOGE) http://t.co/S7w525tRgy
— Alvin Lee (@onemanatatime) December 16, 2013

Since I recommended them on the 16th of December, we have seen a nice growth from each of them:

• WDC has risen from 0.0003 WDC/BTC to its current rate of about 0.0006; a 2x increase.
• NXT has risen from 800 Satoshis (0.00000800) per NXT, to a current price of 5500 Satoshis; a 6.8x increase.
• DOGE has risen from a low of 30 Satoshis per DOGE, to a high of 200 Satoshis (6x increase), and is currently trading at 85 Satoshis (3x increase).

As you can see from the previous post, both new coins (NXT, DOGE) made a good 6 fold increase, and I believe that we can expect the same huge growth for almost all subsequent new potential altcoins. The altcoin scene is growing at an exponential rate, and I will do my best to keep up with new coins and give you guys good recommendations. On a side note, it is interesting to see that even new clones (with no innovation) can end up gaining 10x or more value, so maybe it's all just a matter of first-mover advantage? And I'm not referring to DogeCoin, because I personally think DogeCoin has tremendous value in it's reach and backed up by a large community with a common emotional bond to the Doge meme, which matters A LOT in branding.

Introduction

So in this post, I want to cover another 3 cryptocoins to watch out for over the next weeks and months. 2 of them are so-called "2nd generation" cryptocurrencies, which have gained popularity recently since NXTcoin's rise to fame. It could be very interesting to see how these (and other newer) 2nd generation altcoins will develop over the next year, and what they can bring to the cryptocurrency table. Will these 2nd generation coins really be the beginning of something new, and spawn a new era of cryptocoins that have significantly more value/benefits than Bitcoin? I only found out about these 3 coins yesterday, and am excited to share them with you! Tell me what you think about them in the comments section below.

Credit goes to Twitter user @Tasorrog for introducing me to 2 of the coins I will be talking about here; eMunie, and SkyCoin. Lastly, I will also discuss another interesting altcoin, EarthCoin, that has some unique technical specifications, and also gained much attention since the 20th of December.

Thanks 4 recommending these 2nd gen cryptocoins: eMunie (eMu) & SkyCoin (SKY). Researching now; look out for my next blog post! @Tasorrog
— Alvin Lee (@onemanatatime) December 24, 2013

eMunie (eMu) was first announced sometime in June 2013, and has been in Beta testing since. It kinda went into hiatus for a few months, before picking up some momentum and attention again this month as people anticipate its official launch in January 2014.

Like NXT, there is no mining involved. But unlike NXT, eMunie has an infinite supply of coins, which interestingly is dependent on the demand of the coin. It is rather complicated, but user windjc succinctly explains it in an eMunie forum thread here:

"The entire beginning total of Emus will be created in 1 genesis block. 

Anyone can invest during the 30 day pre-launch investment period. The cost is .10 cents per Emu. So if the entire investment is $1 million, then the genesis block will contain 10 million Emus. 

Later as demand for emus increase, to keep price for going up dramatically, more emus will be "hatched" and those will be dispersed to both hatchers and coin holders. So by owning coins you will receive a % of the new coins. 

So there is eventually a limitless amount of Emu that will be created. It will depend on demand."

This will in turn keep prices more consistent, with a more sustainable growth compared to existing cryptocurrencies. In addition, it is also an attempt to improve fairness in coin distribution, and reduce susceptibility to Pump & Dump schemes.

To achieve this, eMunie will be launching with a pre-sale. Timb, a beta tester, pointed out on this thread about the pre-buys that there will be 100,000 EMUs available for the public during this pre-sale, and also discussed how the initial developers, contributors & beta testers will be rewarded for the work thus far. The pre-sale will last for 30 days. The exact date of pre-sale has not been confirmed, and was mentioned it will be delayed and would take a few more weeks, and that there's "no rush to completion by the developer".

I'm assuming this will be sometime end January, or early February, but don't take my word for it. To get the latest updates, sign up and be part of the pre-sale for eMunies by simply sending an email to prelaunch@emunie.com and they'll add you onto the list. For more information about the Pre-sale, please visit this comprehensive eMunie Pre-sale FAQ thread.

For more information on eMunie, here are a few more good sources to get your started:

• What is eMunie
• http://forum.emunie.com/index.php/topic/842-the-next-generation-digi-coins/
• http://www.reddit.com/r/eMunie/comments/1g5z72/emunies_original_post/
• http://forum.emunie.com/index.php/forum/3-emunie-discussion/
• http://forum.emunie.com/index.php/topic/115-newbies-read-me-first/
• Investing in eMunie
• http://forum.emunie.com/index.php/topic/619-as-an-early-investor-can-i-still-make-a-profit-from-holding/
• Pre-sale
• http://forum.emunie.com/index.php/topic/611-basic-questions-ahead-of-pre-sale/

SkyCoin (SKY) made its prelaunch announcement on the 22nd of December 2013. It has a total supply of 100 million coins, which like NXTcoin, requires no mining and all coins are already on the market. It uses the Proof-of-stake (PoS) system instead the Proof-of-work (PoW) system used by Bitcoin, and hence completely removes the mining process.

SkyCoin brands itself as a second-generation cryptocoin, and also boasts a quick transaction time of under 15 seconds, a higher level of security, and improved ease of use. Some of its features are listed as follows:

• Uses protocol called Obelisk instead of PoW. Obelisk is a provably secure PoW alternative for creating fair total orderings in decentralized systems with adversarial nodes. Obelisk was chosen over other proposals because it is provably secure and can be layered over Bitcoin's existing security model to eliminate the possibility of 51% attacks. 
• Transactions are free. Users receive coin-hours for each hour they hold a coin. Coin-hours are spent on transaction fees. Transactions bid to enter a fixed sized block. 
• Transactions are fast. Most transactions are executed within fifteen seconds. Off blockchain transactions are instant. 
• Inflation capped at 2% per year. Inflation will be used to fund open-source projects which enrich the community. Skycoin stakeholders will have per-project governance over project funding.

Depending on SKYcoin's entry-to-market price, we could see it grow in a similar fashion to NXT, as they both have rather similar specifications. I'm still unsure when SKY will officially launch, if someone out there knows, please let me know!

Note: This should not be confused with a dying altcoin, also named SkyCoin (SYC), but with a different ticker name.

Watch out for the new Altcoin; EarthCoin (EAC). Marketing & Branding looking good, Dev team & Community growing. https://t.co/yCrGSLwFF6
— Alvin Lee (@onemanatatime) December 23, 2013

EarthCoin (EAC) also recently launched less than a week ago, and a Bitcointalk forum post that started on the 20th of December has generated large amounts of attention and discussions, with over 75 pages of replies as of today. Apparently, the launch also attracted so much attention that the mining difficulty increased from 1 to 9 on the first day, before falling back down to 6.

EarthCoin is a Scrypt algo coin, with 60 second block target, a total of 13.5 billion coins, and a premine of 2% for support purposes. For more information on EarthCoin's technical specifications, visit this cryptocointalk introduction post. Although this altcoin is not as innovative as the previous two mentioned, it does have some very interesting technical differences. Cryptomaster highlights very well in an EarthCoin post on his blog, and an abstract is shown below:

"EarthCoin uses a 365 day period. It will start with 10,000 coins per block, and it varies in a sine curve with amplitude of 2,000, with a period of one year (like the Earth moving around the Sun). 

This means that you start with 10,000 coins, and it adjusts at each block, reaches a maximum of 12,000 coins per block after about 3 months, then it will descend gradually to approx 10,000 coins per block again at about 6 months. Then a new minimum of 8000 coins per block at about 9 months. 

Then we reverse that – to climb and return to 10,000 coins per block at one year, before finally cutting the payout in half."

Source: http://cryptosource.org/earthcoin-launches-neat-idea/

Lastly, I just wanted to comment on the issue of premining around EarthCoin. In again another of Hazard's post, this time calling EarthCoin a scamcoin because of the premine. There have been tons of coins with premines popping up lately, and it's sad to see that many have simply dismissed some potential altcoins because of the failure of others. Here's another discussion about the premine on Reddit.

In the case of EarthCoin, only 2% is premined, and is said to be "for promotions, giveaway, bounties, dev and long term support." First of all, they were transparent about it, and I think it is a rather reasonable rate. Of course, this is provided that the developers use the funds wisely, and aim for a fair distribution of the premined coins in exchange for a larger adoption/reach.

I have no clue how this is going to go in the end, but I don't have incredibly high hopes for it either. The main reason I have highlighted EarthCoin is because it is new, there is large interest in it, and is not currently on any exchange which means that we can expect a large growth as an early adopter.



This is only a preliminary investigation into these 3 cryptocurrencies. Please invest at your own risk. If you have questions or comments, feel free to leave them in the comments section below!

Always remember, Buy Low, Sell High! Avoid the herd mentality, and like Warren Buffet likes to say:

"Be fearful when others are greedy; and be greedy when others are fearful."

To end off, I'd like to share a video by Chris Dunn, a technical analysis & short term trader, whom I have been following for the last 3 or so weeks. He has made very good Bitcoin predictions over the last weeks (whether it's just luck or not, you decide for yourself), and also gives very good insight into understanding market psychology as a way to beat the market. If you like it, watch his other videos as well, and follow him on twitter @ChrisDunnTV.




Good luck trading. Peace.

Researching into more potential alt coins: NXTcoin (NXT), SecureCoin (SEC), Noirbits (NRB), YACoin (YAC), Argentum (ARG), WorldCoin (WDC).
— Alvin Lee (@onemanatatime) December 14, 2013

Alt coins that interest me: NXTcoin (NXT), WorldCoin (WDC), Globe (GLB), Dogecoin (DOGE). Anyone know anything, tell me more!
— Alvin Lee (@onemanatatime) December 15, 2013

NXTcoin (NXT) is a new cryptocurrency that is branding itself as a 2nd generation crypto that uses "a 100% new Proof of Stake currency with many exciting features in the pipline". It has 1 billion total coins, that are ALREADY fully in circulation. Mind-boggling huh. Read NXTcoin's specifications here on Cryptocointalk here. In fact, NXT has not officially launched yet. Read more about NXT on this wiki.

If it's still too confusing, here's a few videos that explains how NXT is different from Bitcoin:
Youtube: Introducing Next Coin - Bitcoin Litecoin - Nextcoin
Vimeo: What is NXT?

Here are also some points brought up by Reddit user Olliby in his post, How I think NXT could be a greater success:

No promotional webite - every coin needs a basic 'go to' official website to show they're a genuine product.

No Cryptsy support - traders of smaller crytpo-currencies love using Cryptsy, so talks need to begin to get this started.

Poor GUI - The actual visuals are great but the need to load a command prompt first makes the whole thing seem clunky, a single executable file is needed.

Tech support - A single email you could contact (on an official website) for all tech support issues would be great. I honestly think someone who has a big investment in NXTCoins could dedicate 30mins of their day to answer questions.

Lastly, this unofficial NXT forum is also a great treasure trove of information about this new cryptocoin. Read more here. If you are interested in purchasing some NXT, you can do so at this exchange, Dgex.com. I have tried it myself and seems to be legit, although it is quite difficult to get a position closed. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments section below. You can also view NXT market prices on this spreadsheet.




DogeCoin (DOGE) is a totally ridiculous coin that is basically a clone of Litecoin with a shorter block time of 60 seconds (Source: Cryptocointalk - Dogecoin). In the short time since its launch, the DogeCoin Subreddit has grown to a size of 2500 subscribers, or as they like to call it, "rich shibes". You can find the current trading prices of DogeCoin at these sites, Dogepay, and DOGE Calc. I don't know how this is going to go, and it still sounds ridiculous to me. But in the alternative cryptocoin scene, I've found out that, albiet unfair, early adopters always win.

If you're interested to buy them, there are currently two options. Buy them from other sellers on forums, such as this subreddit, or this doge forum here. I personally don't recommend the first option, because there are lots of scammers out there on the Internet. The second option is to buy them from an exchange, currently there's only one that I know of; CoinedUp.

Disclaimer: Invest at your own risk!

Well, this is just a preliminary investigation into these potential alt coins. Please do not take this as investment advice. Do your own research before investing in any cryptocoin!

If you're interested to see how other crypto enthusiasts' portfolios look like, check out this Reddit discussion: What does your Crypto Portfolio look like?

I hope this post was helpful for you. If you have any questions, please shoot away in the comments section below! Wishing you an awesome week ahead, peace.

Fancy a donation?
WDC: Wc9MN3SURdTHyBJ2G4s2fPYNgyxEyi9LoF
NXT: 6635869272840226493
DOGE: D97CRC3JDgpdBZJppuDKHxRG6BSniLnkzS

As I have mentioned in my previous post, there are two main arguments against Quark (QRK).

First of all, the biggest argument lies in the "premining" issue. Let me clarify again, that Quarks were not "premined"! Instead, Quark was launched such that only a small number of early adopters were able to mine a majority of coins within 6 month timespan (99.64% already mined). However, the interesting thing about having almost all the supply out there, is that the price of Quark will stabilize much much faster than Bitcoin. Because Bitcoin will take another 20 odd years to be completely mined out, we could be speculating on the price for much longer than Quark.

Secondly, having a few people own a large number of coins leads to our second argument. How then, can we ensure a fair distribution of Quarks to the rest of the market, following the 6 month accelerated mining period? Sure, we can argue that it's unfair because the early miners get to sell the Quarks for massive profits. But doesn't that also apply to any other cryptocoin? In fact, the issue of fairness is as prevalant in Bitcoin as well as other cryptocoin mining. Bitcoin's mining power is currently being hoarded by the ASIC miners, which in turn gives GPU & CPU miners very little room for profitability. By limiting Quark mining to CPUs only, this can be argued to actually be more beneficial to the community, although it also does bring about a potential problem of Botnets mining from user's computers without their permission.

On another note, besides the technical specifications of each cryptocoin, I have also come to find that there are several other factors that affect a cryptocurrency's adoption, price, and eventual success. This includes:

1. Infrastructure
2. Community & Development team
3. Branding & Marketing

If we look at Bitcoin, it is clear that first-mover advantage is crucial as we can see with Bitcoin's clear lead in the Cryptocurrency market. However, this is not the only reason behind Bitcoin's success. Looking at the landscape chart below, we can see that the Bitcoin infrastructure is well developed with many services competing in various sectors, who are ultimately cooperating to build an ecosystem currently unrivalled by any other cryptocurrency.


In the context of Quark, the community has also been working hard to build up an extensive infrastructure and network. They have revamped their website to make it look much cleaner, and are already in the midst of launching Quarkspend, an ecommerce platform that uses Quark as currency of choice.

I love the energy coming from the Quark community. The work of the community is commendable, and is a prime example of the power of crowdsourcing. The community, not unlike the currency itself, is decentralized and each individual contributes his expertise with a common goal of developing the Quark ecosystem.

This closely knit group of Quark supporters have bonded together in the discussion forums (Quark Forum, and Quark Talk), and are currently developing an introductory video for Quark under their marketing thread here. Also, a user in the forums, Konrad pointed very aptly that the Quark community needs to:

"find out the path Megacoin took to promote Mega and build on it. Megacoin adds nothing new to Altcoins but look at the price, they are doing their marketing perfectly. Since Quark actually has something new to offer in the world of Cryptocurrency building upon Megacoin's marketing plan will increase the price at least 5x over."

Before we investigate the factors driving the success of MegaCoin, I'll first discuss about ZetaCoin. Like Quark, Zetacoin (ZET) has a supply of 160 million coins that will be mined out within a year, with a "small yearly inflation" (as can be seen here). And as such, will also see a quick consolidation in price, followed by a deflationary price for ZetaCoin. In this sense, we can similarly argue that ZetaCoin is to Quark, as Litecoin is like silver is to Bitcoin's gold. Over the last week, ZetaCoin has skyrocketed to its current 11th position on Coinmarketcap. ZetaCoin's value has grown about 5 fold over the last 4 days against BTC, from a low of 0.012 to a high of 0.12 and a current rate of 0.07. Moreover, the ZetaCoin dollar value has also increased from its sub $0.01 price to a current value of $0.065.

I also like the work of the development and community team at ZetaCoin. Unlike most other cryptocoin communities who use Forums to collaborate on their projects, ZetaCoin uses the Cryptocoin Social Network, Nobs.is, to discuss and develop their marketing efforts. The team is still young and there's still much work to be done, but I believe that they have a strong and motivated community, and are on the right track to making ZetaCoin succeed.

Quark, similarly, has also exploded into 4th place on Coinmarketcap. I still stand by my prediction that Quark prices will soon experience the Keiser Effect. And in the context of the analogy of ZetaCoin to Quark, I do believe that there is a huge potential for ZetaCoin to follow Quark's price. Just saying.




MegaCoin (MEC) launched in June 2013, and is a clone of Litecoin's scrypt crypto. It has a rather interesting specification which generates half of the total 42 million coins in the first 5 months, while the rest will be released over the decades with increased difficulty. The intriguing thing about MegaCoin is that it has climbed to the 7th position on Coinmarketcap in the short time that it has been around. As such, we will take MegaCoin as a case study to explore how the other cryptocurrencies can learn from them to better brand and market their cryptocoins.

With a quick content analysis of the MegaCoin website, we can see a well-built website, with a clean simple design, and full of useful links. Apart from the usual informational and download links, I want to also highlight how they have implemented a "shopping & services" tab to allow users to easily spend MegaCoin, a community link for easy access by users, as well as links to their social media accounts. The website also boasts a wide range of translated versions, with 15 different languages, including English, Mandarin, Korean, and many other European languages. We can also find an active community of MegaCoin supporters on their forum and the Reddit page.

With this, I would like to make a few suggestions for the Quark and Zetacoin community.

1. Revamp homepage to include more links to community sites
2. Social Media integration on website
3. Increase engagement on existing networks such as Reddit (instead of focusing on internal community platforms)
4. ZetaCoin should build a platform to allow users to spend their cryptocoins.

I hope this article has helped you better understand some of the external factors that drive a Crytpocurrency's adoption and price. It will also be interesting to also examine and compare the other leading alternative cryptocurrencies. With most of them being simply a fork of or a clone of Bitcoin/Litecoin, I'm really curious about what determines a certain cryptocurrency's price (besides it's technical characteristics). Of course, first-mover advantage is crucial, as we can see with Bitcoin's clear lead. But I have a hunch that the community, branding, and marketing of a cryptocurrency also play a big role in its success.