![alt-cryptocurrencies.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmZ4anLq5pxsVKQgSv97a2wTxx3zfNTV4gj3kbWxGA9KjP/alt-cryptocurrencies.jpg) Alright, so I recently wrote about bitcoin and altcoins and how we shouldn't miss this amazing opportunity to make a lot of money by investing them, mining them and just making money of cryptocurrencies. Now I want to give my specific 5 cryptocurrencies that I personally think that are great investments for 2018 and even further in the future.

#1 Bitcoin

![usebitcoin-4096x2253.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmeLdJCE9Rkv7YNjb5CsuArxBmiFVu2bYT9WCVBj3bU45u/usebitcoin-4096x2253.jpg) I guess you shouldn't be surprised but the first crypto that people should pay attention to, is the FIRST crypto ever and the biggest one. Bitcoin's price has surged from about 800 dollars in the middle of December 2016 to a whopping 16 000 right now and it's constantly changing. Because it's by far the most famous crypto on Earth and because of the amount of attention that it's currently getting, many experts are thinking that it's price is going to reach 40 000 in 2018 and possibly even way more. In fact many are thinking that it's price could reach 100 000 though, of course, nothing is guaranteed. And while percentage while bitcoin is not necessarily the most profitable cryptocurrency to invest in, it is the most stable and trustworthy one. So because of it's stability, attention and amazing potential that it has, investing in it is a great and a pretty safe idea. Especially since many regular currencies are in inflation at the moment, meaning that keeping your money in traditional form often means that it will lose it's original value and have a slightly less buying power, whereas if you converted your money into bitcoin it should increase greatly and give you amazing rewards. And after that you might want to convert your bitcoin into other cryptos that I'm about to discuss.

#2 Monero

![Monero.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmbfbnJFmFz7ycYPQ6AnjwEAXKdsM8QyQpM9fBmZdbq8LU/Monero.png) This bad boy used to cost only 8 dollars a year ago. Now, a year later, it's worth more than 280 dollars. But don't worry, it's still not too late to invest in it, because, in my point of view, it's still massively undervalued and it's going to rise way more in the upcoming years, or even months or weeks, or even days god dammit! because it has risen a lot in a very short period of time. So why do I think that it will rise and it's currently massively undervalued? Because the technology behind it is in some aspects superior to all other cryptocurrencies. It is the single most anonymous and crypto currency on the market. It can't be traced back to anyone, and that's why it uses payment ID's to help to distinguish the person that it was sent from and to. because it's blockchain can't be decoded like bitcoins or many other cryptos. You see, bitcoin is the biggest crypto right now because it's the first crypto, not because it's the best crypto. It's popularity is largely driven by sensationalism and the amount of support behind it, but it's not as secure or anonymous like monero. Not even close. If monero and bitcoin came out at the same time, monero would be the biggest cryptocurrency right now by a large margin. So my recommendtation is to buy it and hold it. Don't pay too much attention to short-term movements, unless you're speculating, because in the long term(months or years) it should increase massively.

#3 Ethereum

![ethereum-bw.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmPhFiT34tdbGdYeGNVFskBUJHq5eZVfQKYHW4jvyyisn4/ethereum-bw.png) And the second biggest crypto currency - Ethereum. It might be dissapointing to some that the examples that I give are pretty obvious and are past the point where investing in them will give you thousands of percents back in a relatively short time, but one great things with these established cryptos is their reliability, stability, usefulness and lack of risk. Now why do I think Ethereum is a great investment? It has risen from about 7.5 dollars a year ago to about 570 dollars right now. It's crazy! it's the second biggest cryptocurrency and the technology behind it - it's algorithm is designed in a way that it's incredibly safe, legitimate and it allows users to adapt it to different circumstances, which has been a claim that bitcoin made but failed to deliver. It's actually not unreasonable to say that ether will be bigger than bitcoin in the future. It's also a lot more profitable to mine and the value increase could be ten fold within a year by some estimates.

#4 Litecoin

![litecoin.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmSgzF1khmn2LTUjJuUq3aCTT9gC6bcz9dVooYEwP8pjJK/litecoin.png) Again one of the biggest and most known crypto currencies. The technology behind it is very promising and it has risen from nearly 100 dollars to over 300 dollars in a matter of days! it's actually way more advanced than bitcoin. And why is that? It has 8 times more transactions than bitcoin in a 10 minute period. It has significantly faster confirmation times. It's blocks aren't full. The faster block time of litecoin reduces the risk of double spending attacks. Anti-spam. Fast well established network. Current Hashrate is 7,153 GH/s. Since scrypt is memory intensive it is known to be approximately 1000 times slower hardware wise in comparison to SHA256. Fair comparison to the Bitcoin network requires multiplying that hashrate by 1000 (7,153TH/s). The fact is for most of Litecoins history the hashrate has been relatively high and secure. Those comparing it to the Bitcoin network without considering this 1k factor are either being disingenuous or just ignorant of the facts. *Continuous development look here at number of releases in past few years: https://github.com/litecoin-project/litecoin/releases Upcoming new features and active development look here for whats happening in 2017: https://litecoincore.org/ Longevity. Many coins have temporarily eclipsed litecoin as they were marketed for the purpose of increasing the fiat accounts of a small group and emptying the accounts of new users. Unfortunately this has been detrimental to crypto-space in general. Great community. Definitly helps when consensus is needed. Unlike bitcoin, it is possible to make changes to litecoin. Fully supported by GoCoin a growing merchant payment processor used by thousands of merchants https://www.gocoin.com/ as well as other processors such as coinpayments, Asmoney, Alfacoins and Coinify. Liquidity. You can sell thousands and not crash the market. Maintains value. Look at the chart here indicating volume in the last 24 hours relative to other coins http://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/litecoin/#markets in fact volume has remained high month after month for years. The speed, liquidity and value of Litecoin is useful to traders seeking arbitrage opportunities between exchanges. Now on coinbase and will be on bitstamp in June. Fair release. In a crypto world of premined and ICO releases many appreciate this fact. The code was released well before the Genesis block was mined and everyone knew when it would be going live; therefore, individuals could anticipate and get their miners and software ready. It's primary function is to be a cryptocurrency. Still mineable in many western countries even after electrical costs are factored in. Here in Canada my Titans still make a profit long after shutting my Neptunes down. Many low value coins can be merge mined with it increasing profits for miners. It will always maintain the integrity of the blockchain (no hard forks for special interests). Recently activated segwit on it's network with virtually 100 percent consensus. The possibility of utilizing sidechains for smart contracts without the possibility of corrupting the original non-turing complete blockchain. Potential of using the Lightning Network as a method of increasing transactional capacity. It has great security. So it's a great stable investment.

#5 Ripple

![Screen-Shot-2017-07-18-at-11.32.34.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmfYixfekKrEFh9YYY1zibKCzmkYA8Mn4VJ29HgTCgtoxX/Screen-Shot-2017-07-18-at-11.32.34.png) Alright, here's an interesting coin which doesn't cost half a dollar as of right now. Ripple or XMR is sixth cryptocurrency by market cap and has seen some expedential growth since the beginning of the year and is expected to reach 1, 2 oreven 3, 4 or 5 dollars in 2018. Though nothing is guaranteed. There are a lot of things that make this coin special, but one of the is something that a lot of crypto maniacs hate and that's it's not as decentralized as most other coins are. In fact, many are claiming that ripple is a direct attempt of government and banks to introduce they're own cryptocurrency into the market. So if you are one of the people who won't support a cryptocurrency just because it's not as decentralized as others are, don't. but if you're an investor who's looking to make a lot of money, you need to go the the money goes. And ripple seems to lead that way. You see, in some aspects ripple is the most technologically advanced cryptocurrency. Bitcoins speed is about 7 transactions per second, whereas ripple's speed is a whopping 1500 transactions per second. That is unheard of, and many major banks and exchanges form all around the world are now changing they're transaction systems to ripple's and investing into the company which owns it. This is expected to raise it's market cap significantly and make it's investors a lot of money. And well, while it's price is less than 30 cents, it could be a great long term, or even short term investment.

Conclusion

![1386895182_money.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmXRxzzw8ccDathJYXerMEL49pLUfitMY6rbdcS2H43756/1386895182_money.jpg) So, in the end I have to say that the list that I made is filled with pretty stable currencies that are expected to make their investors a lot of money in a relatively short period of time while also being safe and risk-averse. To some of you it might seem like a very simple list, since they are all in the top 10 cryptocurrency list, but I simple doesn't mean stupid and if we take they're technological potential, backing, interest and stability into account, I'd say invest into one or few of these cryptocurrencies. And with that being said, we are all exposed to an opportunity of a lifetime and a historical moment and let's not let it pass without taking full advantage of it and let's all make a lot of money!