Top Crypto Picks - Week 1, January 2018

https://bitcoinmacroeconomics.com/2018/01/02/top-crypto-picks-week-1-january-2018/

Ok, we all saw insane rises in 2017. It cannot go without saying that was insane. Don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining. BitcoinMacroeconomics.com started this site in early 2014 for a reason. The theme is the worldwide Bitcoin Economic Development Experience!
One of my greatest strengths in life is seeing things from the 1,000 foot view. And this is why I love crypto. I can analyze, I can spot trends, and I can rake it in. I love the ability to time stamp it, and that’s part of it. I’ll put my analysis up against the best.
And here are my picks for Week 1 of January 2018:

Ark.io (www.ark.io) is going to take off like that balloon you had when you are a kid and it got away and just kept going. Don’t let this one get away! I think Ark has been one a project that has kept it’s nose to the grindstone developing; you don’t see a lot of hype about this coin. It has proven NOT to be a pump and dump. And that’s a good thing. This company is legally incorporated. This project has deep pockets. And this project is working on some interesting projects and concepts not seen in blockchain. I’ve been learning and studying up on this project but have also had the pleasure of meeting some of their team and community. I realize this project has too much to offer that I cannot do any justice other than to tag this one as a top pick.
I am aware that Ark.io is working with Internet of Technology (IoT) and is leading the way with open source and is moving into Ark.io hardware. This is a huge step for blockchain. Want a glimpse? https://github.com/btcmacroecon/Ark.io—IoT-Hardware
Currently Ark.io is trading at $8.05 as I timestamp this.
Target: $36 by end of Q1

Espers
https://espers.io/
Espers is one of the originators of the Airdrop! They had a widely successful airdrop campaign, created a following, and has seen it’s shares of ups and downs. What captivates me about Espers is the potential to surge. Espers has been working on some wallet issues, a mobile wallet, a masternode program that is yet to be announced further, but what intrigues me most are these two things, 1) The attempt to stop DDoS Attacks by way of distributed ledger and launching of websites from Espers blockchain. 2) The attempt to stop hacking by way of distributed ledger and launching of website from Espers blockchain.
Those two things COULD be huge. Espers hit 40 satoshis last year, though was hard to hit that level with the lack of volumes in the exchanges, but it dipped all the way UNDER 1 satoshi even recently. But today it’s 5. This one is on the move.
Current Price: 5 satoshis
Target Price: 60 satoshis by 12/31/2018
*This is my wild card guys. There is a lot of ifs with this analysis and contingent on the capabilities of launching websites from Espers blockchain, but if they can thwart DDoS, this will prove to be brilliant. This could see huge gain in early 2018, but I’ll timestamp my target of 60 satoshis by year end.

Gbytes – This DAG technology is proving useful. The distribution for Byteball or GBYTE https://byteball.org/ was unique and everybody had an equal opportunity, and the airdrops are still going on! I think the next one is in March of 2018. Check that above link for more details. The bot technology has been cool to see, I mean Byteball offers so much that when people figure it out, the price will keep climbing. You can bet on the UFC or sports with this one, and do so with the chat bot. You can even bet on if airplanes will arrive on time or late! And they haven’t even gotten started! They are seeking adoption and have an interesting cash buyback program that is worth investigating, and this is important for market penetration.
https://medium.com/byteball/byteball-cashback-program-9c717b8d3173
This project has too much going on as well to describe it all, but it offers so much as a platform, that’s why I like it.
Current Price: $795.46
Target Price: $1200 by February 1, 2018

RaiBlocks
https://raiblocks.net/ Again, DAG technology. While Bitcoin is content with $20 or more transaction fees, I am not. From RaiBlocks website:
“Frequently Asked Questions

RaiBlocks is a new way of thinking about money, take some time and educate yourself on the benefits and uses for this network.

NOTE: You can now also download a copy of this FAQ to share! Choose language: English, Spanish
What is RaiBlocks?

RaiBlocks is a trustless, low-latency cryptocurrency that utilizes a novel block-lattice architecture, where each account has its own blockchain and achieves consensus via delegated Proof of Stake voting.

Offers feeless, instantaneous transactions, as well as unlimited scalability, making RaiBlocks ideal for peer-to-peer transactions.

The network requires minimal resources, no high-power mining hardware, and can process high transaction throughput.

To date, the RaiBlocks network has processed over four million transactions with an unpruned ledger size of only 1.7GB.

For a more in-depth look at RaiBlocks, please read our whitepaper

How does RaiBlocks work?

Unlike conventional blockchains used in many other cryptocurrencies, RaiBlocks uses a block-lattice structure. Each account has its own blockchain (account-chain), equivalent to the account’s transaction/balance history. Each account-chain can only be updated by the account’s owner; this allows each account-chain to be updated immediately and asynchronously to the rest of the block-lattice, resulting in quick transactions. Since blocks can only be added by each account-chain’s owner, transferring funds from one account to another requires two transactions: a send transaction deducting the amount from the sender’s balance and a receive transaction adding the amount to the receiving account’s balance.

Refer to sections three and four of the whitepaper for a more thorough look at how RaiBlocks’ works.

What are the advantages of RaiBlocks?

Zero Fees
Because the protocol is incredibly lightweight and running a node costs next to nothing, RaiBlocks transactions are processed with no fees. One transaction fits within a single UDP packet, and transactions are handled independently, eliminating any block size issue.
Instantaneous Transaction Speed
Wallets pre-cache the anti-spam Proof of Work for the next transaction once a transaction is sent, making transactions instantaneous, as both sides have the proof of work ready to go. For ongoing transactions there may be delays, but this is intentional to prevent transaction spam.
Scalability
Transaction lookups scale with the logarithm of the data set size logNO with a tree-like structure or O1 if they are based on a hash table. To get an idea of how this scales, if it was a simple binary tree with 1,000 entries it would take 10 lookups. With 1,000,000 entries it takes 20 and 1 billion would take 30. Pruned nodes only need to keep the latest block of each account-chain, even further reducing lookup time and system resources.”

RaiBlocks is only traded at a couple of places, but has emerged in December, with huge volumes for only trading at like Mercatox, BitGrail and BitFlip. I mean look at the volume despite that fact. If these volumes can suddenly emerge in December 2017, imagine what RaiBlocks will achieve in 2018.
Current Price: $33.05
Target Price: $175 by 4th of July, 2017

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1HE858Ln14qUWdwv48dwnkCyXMQUeTaDCY (BTC)

0x059Ac735C1a9200698e571b3Bce23ed5A0883634 (ETH)

AFuLB6j6wdooEW21nuGVDH2W9t8R3brk3c (ARK)

ESKk3BQ12uDyfuQwtZuFZqJCbLLAMLHsMQ (ESP)