While everyone is focused on the prospects of the top 100 cryptocurrencies, there are a whole host of projects that fall off their radar.
These so called “microcap” cryptocurrency projects are low market capitalisation coins which have not had that much scrutiny on them before. This is despite the potential promise of the underlying technology in these coins.
Moreover, given that these coins have a really low market cap, there is more scope for large returns on investment than there is in some of the higher market cap coins.
So, which of these low market cap coins should you consider? We will take a look at 5 of the most promising altcoins that you may not have heard about.
Electrify Asia (ELEC)
This is an interesting project that is currently sitting at a rank of 500 with a market cap of about $4.8m. The project is based in Singapore and is trying to create a decentralised electricty market in Asia.
This is no doubt quite a massive market that they are trying to decentralise. Over half of the world’s population lives in Asia and their electricity markets are really centralised. They are in the control of a handful of powerful companies and state utilities.
Electrify Asia Ecosystem. Image source: Electrify.asia
Within the Electrify Asia marketplace, people will be allowed to purchase their energy at the current wholesale rate. This energy contract will be ERC-20 smart contracts that are secured on the blockchain. They can also trade this electricity among themselves on the platform.
The reason that this project is particularly appealing is because they already have an established marketplace. This is Electrify.SG which is based in Singapore. It was developed for enterprise clients in the country and there are already 12 of them that are using it.
This means that they already have a slight competitive advantage and will have a functioning platform from where to launch their smart contracts and ELEC tokens. This is something that too few ICO projects actually have.
The price of ELEC has followed the rest of the market. Depending on your view of the technology and the long term prospects for a decentralised electricity market in Asia, it may be a good token to hodl. You can purchase ELEC tokens on the HITBTC Exchange.
Turtlecoin (TRTL)
Turtlecoin is a cryptocurrency that was started purely as a community project last year. The developers wanted to create a cryptocurrency from the ground up without the need for large ICO rounds.
The project is less than 1 year old and still does not have a whitepaper. They are purely focused on the power of peer reviewed code and advanced technology. The coin currently has a market cap of about $600,000 and is sitting at 834 in the rankings.
Don’t let this fool you though, the coin has some pretty advanced features. Firstly, it is fast. Currently the block times on their network are 30 seconds which is 20 times faster than that of Bitcoin.
The coin also uses the CryptoNight PoW algorithm. This means that Turtlecoin has some of the same privacy enhancing features of Monero including the chance to use Mixin. This means that users can hide their transactions by obfuscating their keys with others.
The great thing about this coin is that it is easily mineable, even with a CPU. This means that you do not have to buy any of it on an exchange and you merely have to download the software and run it on your PC.
Po.et (POE)
Po.et is an interesting project because it is one of the few cryptocurrency projects that is non-financial in nature. It was developed in order to secure intellectual property online through the use of blockchain technology.
This is indeed quite a prevalent use case because of the challenges that content creators face online. It is really easy for someone to steal your works without attribution and not face any consequences.
However, by placing your intellectual property work on the blockchain in an immutable manner, you have indisputable proof that you were the author of said content. It is also decentralised meaning that there is not a single authority that will control this content creation network.
Po.et Coin Overview. Image source: Po.et.
Given that Po.et was built on the Ethereum network, they also make use of ERC-20 smart contracts. With Po.et, these will allow the author to licence out the rights to use the content should they desire it. They can structure these contracts with all the important terms / conditions.
The coin is currently sitting at 185 in market cap with a total market cap of $23m. The price reached a high of $0.2 during the late December early January bull run. For a utility coin with a unique use case, you could consider it.
Rentberry (BERRY)
Another project that wants to solve a real-world problem with blockchain technology is that of Rentberry. They are trying to tokenise and decentralise the apartment rental industry with their BERRY tokens.
The project completed an ICO last year on the back of their already established rental website. The original website was founded in 2015 and had already garnered about 224,000 properties in over 4,900 cities.
With their BERRY ecosystem, all of the renter’s history will be free for everyone to see. This gets rid of one major sticking point with rental properties (verifications). It will also allow for the rental contracts to be completed on the blockchain through the use of smart contracts.
The really ingenious unique selling point of Rentberry is the way that they approach security deposits. They want to create a Peer-to-Peer lending ecosystem where those who cannot afford the security deposit can get it funded by others in the ecosystem. These lenders will be able to purchase these rental contracts and earn interest on them.
Currently, Rentberry is sitting at 634 in the rankings with a market cap of $2.8m. The price has come down considerably since the beginning of the year. Given that the project is fully functional and run by an established team, there may be value in BERRY tokens at this price.
Coinfirm’s AMLT
This is another project that completed an ICO with an established and successful business behind it. Coinfirm is one of the premier KYC and AML (Anti Money Laundering) businesses that is operating in the blockchain space.
Coinfirm offers what is called “Compliance as a service”. In other words, they can be used by ICO projects, exchanges or any other cryptocurrency related business that does not have the resources to conduct their own compliance checks.
The company decided to complete their very own ICO last year and issued their AMLT tokens. The main goal of this decentralised compliance network is to allow other participants to help in identifying potential risks to the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
AMLT Compliance Token. Image source: Coinfirm AMLT
The AMLT token will be used as a utility token in the ecosystem where firms and other businesses will be able to pay for compliance services on their platform. They can also earn AMLT by providing ratings and information about specific cryptocurrency addresses.
The AMLT token is currently sitting at 737 in Coinmarketcap ratings with a market cap of about $1.8m. Therefore, if you think that the cryptocurrency industry is moving to a more regulated and compliant world then you may want to consider the “token of compliance”.
Conclusion
While the crypto markets have fallen considerably over the past few months, there are still a great deal of projects that building innovative technologies.
Everyone has been fixated on the prices of the top 100 coins and have not taken an opportunity to examine other potential opportunities a few pages down.
We have focused on coins that are not only really cheap but are also busy developing their platforms and ecosystems. They are focused on what really matters in an overhyped cryptocurrency space.
Yet, as with anything related to cryptocurrency investments, this is just an opinion. More than anything else, you should DYOR (Do Your Own Research) and gather information from many different resources.
