My Favorite Altcoins Heading Into 2018

VeriCoin (VRC) and Verium (VRM) — Binary Chain

VeriCoin (Proof of Stake Time Currency) benefiting from Verium (Proof of Work Time Reserve).

I’ve been in crypto since 2014. I have done very well for myself but then again, who hasn’t? It’s easy for anyone to claim they’re good at investing while in the middle of a massive bull market. The reason I think I’ve done well though is because I have largely ignored a lot of the hype and I have studied, learned how the technology works, studied some more and then practiced patience.

I dipped my toes in the water with BitCoin and bought my first one at $720, I got in Ethereum at $12. I invested in Tezos during the ICO which is looking good so far. I have also done well with a few other alt coins.

However, in all my research, there is one project and two assets that I feel are very promising and extremely underrated and they are:

VeriCoin (VRC) and Verium (VRM) — Binary Chain

Yeah, you probably haven’t even heard of them…yet. And that’s a good thing because they are both still extremely undervalued.

There is so much hype in crypto and primarily from ICOs that have more cash than technology and innovation. So what do these ICOs actually do with the cash they raise? From what I see, most of it is to fund hype and marketing campaigns to overcompensate for their lack of actual tech. I see ICOs burn thru their budgets essentially paying ransom to the industry (outrageous amounts of money for listing and promo). I am not saying all ICO coins are bad but if you really want to be a good investor in crypto, you have to look beyond the marketing and focus on the technology and innovation of the project. And this is why I am so high on the VeriCoin project.

Bitcoin and most cryptos fail in that they are mostly trying to be both a store of value and a currency. This project will utilize a Binary Chain that includes VeriCoin (the Proof of Stake-Time currency) and Verium (the Proof of Work Time digital reserve). There are many benefits of having a full digital financial ecosystem with a paired reserve and a currency in the same protocol.

Douglas Pike provides an overview of the Binary Chain (VeriCoin and Verium) benefits

With the Binary Chain, the Verium mining will utilize Aux-Pow (Auxillary Proof of Work). This means the VeriCoin currency system will be able to leverage some of the power from the Proof of Work Time protocol. Verium miners will also receive some VeriCoin as rewards. This essentially provides more incentive to Verium miners but at the same time AuxPoW will enhance the security and speed of the VeriCoin Proof of Stake network.

It’s the first of it’s kind and I think they have a very good solution to the scaling issue facing BitCoin, Litecoin and most other cryptos.

Want more reasons to like this project? There are many.

• It’s been around since 2014 and the network is established and has been growing at a good pace.
• Verium is GPU and ASIC Resistant. It is CPU mineable. Why is that important? Well, this means your Aunt Judy can technically turn on her laptop and start mining Verium. This allows more people to enter the crypto space without buying expensive equipment. More decentralization of the mining network, the safer it is.
• The developers are not anonymous.
• The project is a open sourced and community driven (there was no ICO).
• VeriCoin pays a nice staking dividend. I am averaging a little over 8%.
• Mobile mining is not too far away. ARM processing mining is something the project has been working on and they just improved efficiency by 20% in a recent test.
• The supply of both VeriCoin and Verium have a logical disinflation schedule compared to other coins that either have fixed limited supply or schedules that were not clearly thought out for the long term.
• The PoST and PoWT algorithms are “veri” unique and utilize logical variables to help maintain fairness.
• Transaction fees of VeriCoin are practically zero and transaction speeds are super fast. They will be faster once the Binary Chain is implemented. Of all the cryptocurencies I have actually used (yeah, you can actually use VeriCoin today), it is by far the fastest, cheapest and the best experience.
• As I mentioned, the coin is relatively unknown but a pretty comprehensive marketing campaign is going to launch in 2018 and combined with the growing community, I expect this project to be getting the exposure it deserves.
• Don’t let the market cap fool you. Verium and VeriCoin are a little low on market cap but you have to look at the supply. A coin with 21 Billion supply trading at .00000001 satoshis is going to show a false high market cap.

NOTE: I am heavily invested in this project and also contribute marketing assistance to it. So yes, I am biased. However, the only reason I am heavily invested and involved in the project is because I believe in the technology and team behind it.

I don’t advise anyone to invest in any cryptocurrency until they fully understand what they are investing in. Ideally, you would want to invest in a project because you believe in the potential world changing implications it may have, not just for the potential financial return.

Originally published at www.quora.com.