Official 2018 Cryptocurrency Investment Rating Scores

Many companies are starting to publish cryptocurrency investment rating scores, yet have no idea about cryptocurrency as an investment. Here at Profiting at Poker, we have a team of people who have been in the crypto game for a long enough time to give solid ratings on the top coins.

This cryptocurrency investment rating scores list will score each of the top cryptocurrencies in terms of investment opportunity.

Disclaimer: do not take this as financial advice. These scores are our opinions only and reflect the knowledge we have gathered through our experiences. Crypto is a very volatile space and even the most logical decisions may not work out. Please DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH before investing.

Bitcoin (BTC)

Rating: C-

The king of crypto is slowly dying. It’s no longer viable as a legitimate currency and is holding onto the fact that it can be used as a store of value.

The fees are extremely high (can be $30+) and the confirmation times are very slow (many hours). Even the promised lightening network won’t be able to save it from its inevitable demise. Bitcoin won’t just drop off however. It is still the #1 pairing on exchanges as you still need to buy it to trade. Other currencies are slowly taking its place in terms of pairings, and when it’s no longer needed its value will rapidly decline.

The question is whether we’re already seen the absolute peak (at around $19k USD), or we’ll see $100k+ before it’s not longer a major player in the game.

Ethereum (ETH)

Rating: A

It’s inevitable that Ethereum will take over the #1 crypto spot (in terms of market cap) in the near future. By far the biggest crypto platform and most commonly used.

Ethereum processes more transactions than the rest of the crypto world combined on a daily basis.

More and more use cases are revealing themselves with the great example of Crypto Kitties which allowed people to trade and breed cats on the Ethereum blockchain using a smart contract.

Transaction times are very fast and relatively cheap ($1 for a 2 min confirmation is common). You probably won’t see Ethereum being accepted as a currency, but that’s the the purpose here. It’s the utilize the blockchain to revolutionize the digital world.

Ripple (XRP)

Rating: D-

It’s very debatable whether Ripple is an actual cryptocurrency. Ripple is not decentralized which is a huge selling point of crypto and the blockchain.

Expect Ripple as a currency to die off in the near future, but the technology behind it be widely used by banks and financial institutions.

You will never see a hardcore crypto evangelist invest in this coin as it’s just not a cryptocurrency. People investing are solely doing it for profit in the hope that uneducated money pumps it up so they can get out with a decent profit.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH)

Rating: C-

They are at war with Bitcoin and it’s an ugly mess. There are some benefits of Bitcoin Cash over Bitcoin (cheaper and faster transactions), but those benefits haven’t been tested at scale yet. They do not transact nearly the amount that Bitcoin does so it’s hard to see whether the tech is there yet.

This is a war you should be very careful about getting involved in. You will see very volatile swings from both sides and it can cost you a lot of money if you make the wrong move.

Cardano (ADA)

Rating: C+

This coin can be summed up in 3 words; no working product.

People investing in Cardano are investing in its potential only. This is fine and regularly happens in the crypto space. It can definitely make you a lot of money if it works out.

The problem is deciding whether it’s already overvalued for what it is (nothing at the moment). As of January 2018, Cardano is valued at $16 billion and is the number 5 cryptocurrency. This is extremely alarming as they have billions more market cap value that some legitimate working cryptos.

Stellar (XLM)

Rating: A

We could easily be looking at a top 3 coin here. Stellar is able to process transactions extremely quickly and for almost zero fees.

They have partnered with IBM in an extremely exciting deal which could propel this coin up the rankings in 2018.

It is very easy to see how Stellar could become a payment platform in the very near future, and this will skyrocket its value.

Litecoin (LTC)

Rating: C+

Litecoin is essentially Bitcoin without the major issues. It’s relatively fast and cheap to send and receive transactions, and is 1 of only 4 coins listed on Coinbase. This means exposure to the largest audience of new crypto investors.

Litecoin’s founder, Charlie Lee, recently announced that he was selling all of his Litecoin. He stated that it would not impact the project but that is yet to be determined. This is definitely an alarming sign which means it’s hard to give them a higher rating.

Vechain (VEN/VET)

Rating: A++

Vechain is by far the most promising coin of 2018 and beyond. It’s currently floating around the $8 mark, but it could very easily be around $100 per token by the end of the year.

They are rebranding to include Thor which is similar to NEO’s Gas. If you hold Vechain coins you will be able to stake them and generate a passive income through Thor (which powers the network).

When they go live, it is estimated that 20-40% of all coins in circulation will be held in nodes which means the people holding them are not selling due to the fact that they want to generate Thor. This substantially reduces supply and increases demand.

Vechain have so many partnerships that they are announcing them almost every day and don’t look like slowing down.

They have some giant partnerships including PwC and DNV GL as well as strong rumors of PBOC and a Chinese government level partnership.

This is the coins to watch in 2018.

Nano (NANO) – Formerly RaiBlocks (XRB)

Rating: A

Nano is one of the promising cryptocurrencies of 2018 as they have an already working product (which most of the market doesn’t have), and have extremely powerful technology which could completely disrupt digital currencies globally.

Nano, is the only currency which has instant and free transactions. There is no catch here, it really is instant and free.

Each user conducts a small computation which allows them to send and receive a payment. This removed the need to mining or staking and relying on fees to be acceptable.

If this goes mainstream, it will completely eclipse the value of Bitcoin and actually kill off many older technology-based crypto’s.

Their main challenge at the moment is exposure. As a relatively new coin, they aren’t on big exchanges yet which is hurting its value. It does mean you can get in for a cheap price at the moment.

The challenges they have faced with the current exchanges they are listed on have shown the community that they are very capable and responsive. They post daily updates to Reddit which means full transparency.

Nano can absolutely become the new default online payment currency.

NEO (NEO)

Rating: B-

NEO is constantly touted as the Chinese Ethereum. They have a lot of similar features in terms of providing a platform for smart contracts, but it appeals to the very large Chinese market.

Ethereum is established whereas NEO is only getting started.

There are only a few tokens running on the NEO network compared with the thousands on Ethereum.

Never underestimate the Chinese market however, which could see the value of NEO increase steadily over the next few years.

IOTA (IOTA)

Rating: D-

IOTA has some amazing partnerships and technology, but there are a lot of red flags to watch out for.

They are valued at over $6 billion yet the founders are extremely unprofessional as they have been seen to swear at people online in public places as well as insult and be downright rude. This is absolutely unacceptable for a company of their size.

The do not deny this either, they actually defend it.

The problem here isn’t about whether they are right or wrong in offending people, but the impression they give off to potential investors.

Regardless of whether they think so or not, they are damaging the price of their coin. They might have a great product, great team, or great partnerships, but it doesn’t matter. If people won’t invest the price won’t go up.

It’s also worth remembering that it is still a very centralized system as they require a coordinator to run properly. This means that IOTA can control the whole network at any point – this defeats the purpose of the blockchain.

As a final point, many users of their wallets have complained of losing their funds through bugs in their software. It’s extremely important that if you do invest, you closely follow instructions or you risk losing your coins forever. Another major issue which turns non-tech savvy investors away from using their coin.

Monero (XMR)

Rating: A+

Monero is what Bitcoin was meant to be. A coin which is completely anonymous and has fast and free transactions.

Monero is a sleeping giant, and when support is released for the Ledger Nano S and Blue it will start to gain traction (likely in the next month or so).

Monero is completely anonymous so it is impossible for anyone to track any specific transaction. The dev team behind Monero are great and are always focused on the community and transparency. They very rarely run into issues or bugs they cannot solve in a quick period of time.

The only potential downside is that government regulation might hurt this coin as they are scared of its anonymity. Many experts think that government regulation might actually boost interest in the coin as it shows that governments are scared of its potential.

If this coin was top 3 by end of 2018, it wouldn’t be surprising at all.

TRON (TRX)

Rating: D-

Be extremely careful with Tron. They have been caught out stealing parts of other coins whitepapers for their own, and their founder is constantly pumping up the coin on social media.

Most solid coins in the crypto space don’t need to constantly shill themselves because the technology or project speaks for itself.

Tron has been on a constant downward trend lately as investors start to wise up to the fact that they have no product, and a lot of the details around the coin are very sketchy.

OmiseGO (OMG)

Rating: A

There is a lot of hype around OmiseGO, and rightly so. They will revolutionize the way people in Asia transact on a daily basis.

Many people in Asia do not have bank accounts and this presents a great opportunity for OMG to solve this problem.

They will aim to have their own blockchain which allows easy payments regardless of your situation. They have already partnered with McDonald’s in Thailand which shows how big they can be.

Early in 2018 we will start to see some developments. Any sign of a working product will see the price explode and leave many other coins behind.

Basic Attention Token (BAT)

Rating: C-

BAT is a very interesting investment. They have an extremely powerful team behind them including the founder of the web browser, Firefox.

The problem here is their use case. BAT aims to be used to pay website visitors to view ads as well as pay content creators in BAT.

The problem is that people just don’t want to see ads. People would likely pay not to see an ad at all instead of getting paid to see it.

If they can integrate into platforms such as Twitch, they might be able to breakthrough, but trying to disrupt services like Google AdWords is just going to end badly.

Keep an eye on BATs direction and that will tell you whether to invest or not.

FunFair (FUN)

Rating: A+

FunFair is aiming to disrupt the online gaming market, and it has a very strong chance of doing so.

The purpose of this token is to provide fair online casino games backed by the blockchain. They will licence their software out to online casinos who will use it and the FUN token as part of their casino.

The benefit to both the casino and the user is that you can guarantee that the casino game you are playing is fair. Users will have more trust in the casino and the casino operators can use this as a marketing ploy to get people to use their fair games.

They have a strong team of former senior employees of PokerStars and William Hill. This is an extremely undervalued token at the moment, and as soon as they start releasing their software and signing deals, it will explode into the top 10-20.

NavCoin (NAV)

Rating: B+

There are plenty of privacy coins, and while NAV is a privacy coin, it is also much more than that.

They are aiming to be a privacy platform, and we all know how well platforms perform (Ethereum, NEO etc.). This creates a very unique selling point which will see it have a competitive advantage over other platforms.

On top of this, the NavPay wallet easily allows you to send and receive private transactions very quickly and with a minimal fee.

If you hold this coin, you are able to stake it too, which means you will get an extra 4% per year for keeping the wallet open. Recently the community voted to allocate 1% (around $1m) to the developers fund which is a massive sign that the community support is real.

NAV has a very small market cap at the moment and could multiply easily with very short notice.

Bitconnect (BCC)

Rating: F

Bitconnect is a scam. It’s a Ponzi scheme which recently stopped its lending service and refunded everyone with BCC coins. Prior to this announcement 1 BCC was worth over $400. It’s now under $20.

Do not be fooled by this company. See the below video for one of their events. They promise the world but are happy to take your money and run. The fact that they ran into regulatory issues in the United States should tell you something.