Disruptive Times: Two Areas For Cryptocurrency Investors To Watch

The recent dip in mainstream markets due to trade tensions could be just the beginning of more disruption ahead. Bitcoin reacted like a safe haven asset and climbed 9%, creeping over the $11,000 mark once again around mid-July.

The fact is there continues to be improved sentiment towards the major cryptocurrencies and new developments, with major players now wiser and more ambitious.

Not just Facebook’s Libra project, but also Fidelity, the financial services titan setting up its own unit, along with the crypto-focused Bakkt venture involving Microsoft and Starbucks.

Beyond Bitcoin

While Bitcoin may now be proving itself as a strong contender for an alternative to gold, pushing down ‘altcoins’ with less utility, there will be some that will see renewed price increase too.

Cryptocurrencies vary considerably, with their own unique technical attributes, governance issues and challenges, so uncertainty increases when attempting to identify the networks that are attracting the most investment or utility.

EOS

One network platform that has suffered with Bitcoin’s recent gain is EOS, but this could change with the advent this year of a new product, a social network, called Voice, which Block.One has been working closely on.

Monetized, decentralised apps – dapps – are still working hard to achieve widespread, sustained usage beyond gambling and trading games, so perhaps personal, unified social ‘spaces’ on EOS is for now a good bet to demonstrate the many advantages of blockchain. It could help to feed the EOS ecosystem with better quality dapps that will then integrate with Voice.

Payment Cards

A second area worth paying attention to is the diverse realm of crypto payment cards.

They are filling a big gap until more direct adoption of crypto, by providing a means for crypto-holders to trade, manage their assets (via sleek mobile apps) and hold them to the very last minute before making a purchase.

Bitcoin is, of course, well-integrated with these options, but exploring other related cryptocurrencies which tap into more established platforms and provide token-based benefits could also be wise moves.

NEXO and its new card (providing a credit line backed purely by crypto) plus newer ones like WXT (Wirex) could be worth researching at this point, where the turnover of crypto payments is increasing.

Exchange-based tokens BNB (Binance), NEX (Nash Exchange), KCS (KuCoin) and the latest BEST (Bitpanda Global Exchange token) look to offer interesting potential.

As ever, the spectre of heavy regulation can still knock down the entire space in the short-term, but it gets more and more difficult to halt the growth and interest in crypto, currently led by Bitcoin, but which continues on a global scale.