As Donald Trump becomes the 11th president to not have won reelection, the world will see Joe Biden be sworn in as the 46th president of the United States. On the inauguration day in January 2021, Joe Biden would become the oldest person ever to take the office. He seems to be pro cryptoverse, and he has the right set of team to advocate for us. His key appointments include Gary Gensler, an ex–Goldman Sachs banker who teaches courses on blockchain technology and digital currencies at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Cynthia Lummis, a former congresswoman who got elected to the U.S. Senate from Wyoming, has publicly expressed confidence in blockchain technologies and even confirmed ownership of BTC as part of her assets.
Fintech giants Square and PayPal have recently embraced crypto inducing a domino effect of FOMO in the community, BTC has been on a bull ride since then. Recently BlackRock CIO of Fixed Income Rick Rieder has recommended BTC as a Store of Value. Some key developments include:
- Square bought 4709 Bitcoins for the price of $50 million (Square, 08 October 2020)
- PayPal launched a new service enabling buying, selling & holding BTC directly with the existing account (Paypal, 21 October 2020)
- MicroStrategy purchased 21,454 Bitcoins for the price of $250 million (MicroStrategy, 11 August 2020)
On 17 Dec 2017 BTC touched ATH of $19,783.06, it has taken 36 months for BTC to reach that level again and this time it is not losing steam. The transaction volume has risen to $36 Trillion (on 21 Nov 2020, price $18,565.41) which is 3X the volume on 17 Dec 2017 ($12 Trillion). The impact of the global covid pandemic was there but for a brief period. On 16 March 2020 price dropped to $5,685.88 from a $9,500 range with a high sell off amount to $32 Trillion. Even BTC halving on 11 May 2020 didn’t have much impact, the prices rose from a low on 16 March 2020. Covid Vaccine developments around the world have added fuel to the fire, the market has responded positively. As of 24th November, BTC is trading in the $19,000-$19,100 range. It will cross $20,000 for sure.
There has been a massive bull run since October 2020 first week and it is likely to continue ahead. In the days to come we may see many new ATHs.
Industry pundits are now recommending BTC as a Store of Value replacing centuries old assets like gold & crude. For a marginal investor its recommended that a portfolio is a healthy mix of good coins to balance out the risk.
Projects Worth Owning in 2021
Helium (HNT) - Creating the largest IoT network in the world
It is a decentralised network of IoT (Internet of Things) devices, these smart devices use very low power and relay data to the internet. It's a peer-to-peer network owned by individual nodes who are rewarded for mining and making sure the network is operational. Nodes will empower the cheapest internet through hotspot technology.
- Industry: Communication
- Coin Supply: 223,000,000 HNT (Max)
- Whitepaper: http://whitepaper.helium.com/
- Consensus mechanism: Proof-of-Coverage, Proof-of-Serialization, Proof-of-Location
- Roadmap for 2021: Google Cloud & Microsoft Azure Integration, Integration with WiFi 6/LTE/5G
- Commercial Partnerships: Nestle ReadyRefresh, Agulus, Lime, Conserv, Careband, BCycle
Voyager (VGX) - The only stock exchange listed company with a native cryptocurrency
Voyager is a digital asset broker based out of New York, it helps individuals to buy & trade crypto coins with fiat. Voyager does the scrutiny and due diligence of the digital tokens and then makes them available to individuals for purchase. Voyager allows customers to commission free trade 50+ assets using USD, and earn a healthy interest of 9.5% on the asset when kept in the account. Voyager’s Native Broker Token (VGX) is a liquid, functional token that will provide value and utility across Voyager’s entire ecosystem including the trading, custody, and wallet products.
- Industry: Financial Services
- Coin Supply: 222,295,208 VGX (Max)
- Whitepaper: https://www.investvoyager.com/VoyagerToken/White_Paper.pdf
- Consensus mechanism: Proof-of-Stake
- Roadmap for 2021: Product enhancement and exchange acquisitions, recent one was LGO Markets, a French cryptocurrency exchange focused on corporate investors
- Commercial Partnerships: Past experience in building Uber, Apple & E*Trade apps. Partnership with Ledger Vault and Ethos
Orchid (OXT) - Decentralised VPN
It is a decentralised virtual private network (VPN) provider, running on top of the public network the connections between devices are truly encrypted and private. Nodes and users both use the native token OXT to either stake for participating to spread the network coverage or pay for using the network & buy the bandwidth.
- Industry: Communication
- Coin Supply: 1,000,000,000 OXT (Max)
- Whitepaper: https://www.orchid.com/whitepaper.pdf
- Consensus mechanism: ERC20 based
- Roadmap for 2021: Network expansion
- Commercial Partnerships: PIA (privateinternetaccess), BolehVPN, VPNSecure, LiquidVPN, MetaMask, imToken, Trust Wallet, BitGO, BRD, Ledger, Coinbase, Bittrex Global, Gemini, OKEx, COINLIST, Bloq, Blockchain Association, Chamber of Digital Commerce
Parachute (PAR) - Making crypto accessible to all through Social Engagement
It's a unique project integrating the DeFi ecosystem with chatting. The native PAR token is used as a tool to engage the audience, users reward each other with PAR tokens and the others listed with PAR by typing a short command. PAR wallet gives a summary of tokens received and options to transfer it to some other wallet on blockchain.
- Industry: Cross Industry, DeFi over social networking
- Coin Supply: 999,628,334 PAR (Max)
- Whitepaper: https://t.me/partokenomics/8847
- Consensus mechanism: ERC20 based
- Roadmap for 2021: Web-based global private sending, DAO creation https://t.me/parachutetokengroup/393183
- Commercial Partnerships: 75+ projects eg: AERGO, AXPR, BOMB, DAI, DRGN, HYDRO, MATIC, OMG, SWAP, UNI, YFI, ZRX
Stacks (STX) - Building the New Internet
The new internet is about making the Individual owners of their own digital entity. This will ensure safety and security of the users in true sense. Very different from the current internet where big internet giants are selling our identities to marketing agencies, Blockstack implementations ensure that we are always at peace when it comes to the outside world that is closely watching us to leverage.
- Industry: Internet Services
- Coin Supply: 2,048,913,388 STX (Max)
- Whitepaper: https://blockstack.org/whitepaper.pdf
- Consensus mechanism: Proof of Transfer (PoX)
- Roadmap for 2021: Mainnet, Request for Startups (RFS)
- Commercial Partnerships: Spartan Group, Starfish, Chainlink
Be part of the community and earn BTC/STX for being a contributor: Freehold
Uniswap (UNI) - Creating the world’s largest Decentralised Bank
It's a decentralized protocol for making financial services like investing, trading, borrowing & lending simpler and accessible to a wider audience. Many projects on the Uniswap platform reached millions of transactions within days of listing and became very popular. It’s a disruptive platform, DeFi has been the trending use case in 2020 and it will continue to be most useful in time to come. There are more than 24000 pools and $1.5B liquidity locked with Uniswap.
- Industry: Finance
- Coin Supply: 1,000,000,000 UNI (Max)
- Whitepaper: https://uniswap.org/docs/v2/
- Consensus mechanism: ERC20 based
- Roadmap for 2021: Uniswap V3, increasing capital efficiency
- Commercial Partnerships: WalletConnect, WalletLink, Portis, Fortmatic
XIO Network (XIO) - Startup accelerator empowering startups from Logo to Launch
This network has built an ecosystem for all the upcoming startups in the crypto space. They have a pool of community which powers the idea right from the ideation phase to acquiring customers and help them build a sustainable customer base. From Logo to Launch, XIO tokens are built to solve for X, the undiscovered opportunities yet to be found in the decentralized world. They support the projects in various phases: Explore, Build, Launch and Scale.
- Industry: Startup accelerator
- Coin Supply: 100,000,000 XIO (Max)
- Whitepaper: https://xio.network/what-is-the-origin-and-inspiration-behind-the-xio-incubator/
- Consensus mechanism: ERC20 based
- Roadmap for 2021: Launch of FLASH token ensuring initial liquidity for startups, incubation of startups
Disclosure:
The author has no vested interest in any of the above projects and does not own any of the above tokens.
About the Author:
Saurabh is a blockchain enthusiast and has been in the crypto space since 2017. He has partnered and collaborated with multiple projects. He is actively involved in BUIDLing websites, blogs, communities and platforms from the ground up. For feedback and reviews please get in touch @ https://twitter.com/hasijasaurabh
Be part of the community and earn BTC/STX for being a contributor: Freehold
