Guys, what are the hottest ICO in 2018?

I just posted this on another thread. It's three ICOs that I am keeping an eye on this month, I'll be looking at April soon.

http://www.altcoinstalks.com/index.php?topic=9612.msg53088#msg53088

This is another completely subjective question. It all depends on what price you bought Bitcoin at. Ignore the price you could have got if you sold it a few months ago and look at your ROI to date. Are you satisfied with the return? Do you think that the price of Bitcoin will drop further? Do you need the fiat to invest in other coins that you feel could give bigger returns? If the answer to any of the above questions is yes, then you have a good enough reason to sell. If it is no to all three, then it is probably better to hold for the time being and see where the market goes. Keep re-evaluating and make the decision on your own situation, not on other people's situation.

Cappasity was one of my best ICO performers up until recently, and even after the huge drop over the last couple of months, it is still way above my entry point in the first ICO. Currently they are running the second phase of the ICO, but it has been slightly confusing, especially as the price on the exchanges has been consistently cheaper than the price at ICO (currently around half the price - not taking into account bonus or airdrop statistics, but still, big difference). The ICO itself has, in my opinion, partly caused the drop in price.

Project wise they are creating an AR/VR ecosystem whereby content creators and developers are able to create, advertise and sell their product, and on the other side, those interested in buying the content can easily search for and buy the content. Utilising the blockchain to improve access, speed, copyright issues and security of transactions is an obvious benefit, and something that proves a genuine need that they are looking to fill. As an incentive for developers and content creators to get involved, they offer rewards in return for the best and most promising contributors. Developers also get the benefit of using the tools on the platform to create and embed the content, including software for 3D imaging, the JavaScript API, iOS/Android 3D capturing framework, SDK and plugins for Unity and Unreal, etc. (as per an interview last month with Kosta Popov - CEO).

There is no doubt, in my mind anyway, that this area is going to massively increase over the next few years and there will be plenty of competition for Cappasity to stay ahead of. Other projects have similar aims, but Cappasity seems to be more wide ranging, with the others concentrating on niche aspects of AR/VR. They have also got a headstart on their competitors by partnering with the New York Academy of Art, and another 30 US educational institutions planning to utilize the platform in 2018. Another huge coup was the tie up with Alibaba, a massive boost to tackling the Chinese market, especially as China has the largest e-commerce market in the world. More recently they have secured a $2.5 million investment from Decema, including assistance with digital marketing and user acquisition, a key factor in building brand awareness.

They have already released an app on iOS, allowing anyone to make 3D images of objects wherever they are, without the need for complicated and/or expensive equipment (unless you count the phone used to take the pictures!). Later in 2018, they plan to release "free plugins for Unity and Unreal Engine so that anyone could easily integrate content from the Cappasity platform". The team behind the project seems to have extensive experience in both the 3D technology field and in blockchain (individual team and advisor details are all available on the website).

In conclusion, I will be holding my investment in Cappasity; and although I will probably not be investing in the second phase of the ICO, I will definitely be looking to pick up more on the open market.

NB. Most of the information above was sourced from the Cappasity website and social media channels, aside from my personal comments.

Binance seems to be winning hands down when it comes to the popularity stakes, definitely made a mark since it launched - I guess their price reflects this.

Key points seem to be:

* Ease of use (the fact that they offer two trading options - beginner or advanced trading screen - must help with this, although personally I would recommend always using the advanced option, it doesn't take much time to get used to it and is much more visually helpful with the indicators available)

* Liquidity - volume is decent on the majority of trading pairs, unlikely to get stuck with an unrealised trade

* Security - even with the recent news, the majority of people trust Binance

* Low transaction fees, especially when using the native coin

* Reputation - as shown here, Binance has built a solid foundation and this brings new traders/investors to the exchange

Personally I like the Community Coin that they do every month, although last month's round turned into a bit of a spectacle. I presume they'll be introducing new rules for the next one regarding incentives that can be offered by the nominees for voting. The lack of fiat options is seen by some as a downside, and I can't really disagree with that, although I don't know what the legal implications are of introducing these.

Hoping to see more decentralized exchanges making waves over the coming months, have even read a rumour that Binance will be launching a decentralized version of their platform.

I use a number of different review sites to find ICOs that I find interesting. The ones I have found to be most useful are the following.

https://icobench.com/

A useful site, with an added 'expert review' on most projects. These reviews are helpful, but should be taken with a pinch of salt as the definition of expert can be fairly loose (they do operate a weighting system which balances the reviews slightly). Filters on offer here are great, you can select based on category, restricted areas, documentation required, accepted currencies, platform and more. More involved info available once clicking on the project. Ratings calculated from the expert reviews and based on ICO profile, team, vision and product.

https://foundico.com/

Another decent site with some helpful filters (category, country and platform), as well as the usual ongoing, upcoming, past and an additional scam option. Sponsored links at the top (standard for all the ICO review sites), easy to navigate to projects you are interested in. Both pre-ICO and ICOs listed, plus a percentage completion count to the end date of the ICO. Rated on main info, finance, product, team and marketing. Also have a section to check on performance of completed ICOs.


https://icodrops.com/

Popular ICO review site, with an active whitelist addition (direct link to join the whitelist of projects listed). Keeps a running total of projects' funds raised against target figure as an indicator for popularity. Organised by finish time (for ongoing ICOs) and start time (for upcoming ICOs), helpful if you like to see progress and don't want to wait around for projects, or if you want to get in early when bonuses are likely to be higher. Rating system slightly different to other sites, focus on hype, risk and ROI (return on investment). Not sure how these ratings are calculated, presumably by site team, who then give an overall score.

There are loads more sites out there, but these are the three I currently find to be most helpful. Any other recommendations?

I was just looking through the historical prices of Bitcoin on bitcoin.com (https://charts.bitcoin.com/chart/price) and noticed that the high points and low points seem to be (give or take a bit) fairly predictable. The highest price of Bitcoin each year always seems to be towards the end of the year, normally December; and the lowest price always seems to be at the beginning of the year, normally January. Obviously throughout the year there is plenty of market movement up and down, and some periods may over or under run slightly, but as a general pattern, it's an eye opener.

2010 -

Low - No real action on the price until July, when it jumped from virtually nothing to about $0.09. Therefore lowest price January to June.
High - Hit $0.35 in November

Percentage rise from lowest to highest point almost 300%

2011 -

Low - Started the year at around $0.30
High - Hit $29 in June

Percentage rise from lowest to highest point almost 10,000%

2012 -

Low - Dropped to around $4 in February
High - Rose to just under $14 by December

Percentage rise from lowest to highest point around 250%

2013 -

Low - Carried on from December at around $13 in January
High - Huge rise up to over $1100 by November

Percentage rise from lowest to highest point almost 8,500%

2014 -

Low - Low point right at the end of the year, when it dropped to just over $300
High - Hit it's high right at the beginning of the year in January at around $950 before immediately dropping like a stone

Percentage rise from lowest to highest point just over 200% (pretty irrelevant this one, as the high was in January and the low in December, so would show a loss unless trading throughout the year)

2015 -

Low - Didn't drop too much lower than December 2014, and was at around $190 in January
High - Crept up to $460 by December

Percentage rise from lowest to highest point almost 150%

2016 -

Low - Standard January drop to about $370
High - Steadily moved up, roller coaster style, to almost $1000 in December

Percentage rise from lowest to highest point just over 150%

2017 -

Low - Just under $800 in January
High - Around $20,000 in December before...

Percentage rise from lowest to highest point almost 2500%

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None of this really means anything I guess, but interesting nonetheless.

Another random fact, August 2013 was the last time you could buy a Bitcoin for less than $100. And hopefully that won't be changing anytime soon.

According to ICObench (https://icobench.com/stats), investments in ICOs were over 1.5bn in December, around 1.1bn in January and less than 200m in February (although this will no doubt increase by the time the full statistics are calculated, it seems that it will still fall considerably below the previous two months).

Average per project for previous 12 months (Amount raised/Number of ICOs)

March 2017 - 5.85m
April 2017 - 6.41m
May 2017 - 11.44m
June 2017 - 27.29m
July 2017 - 14.03m
August 2017 - 5.77m
September 2017 - 11.38m
October 2017 - 7.22m
November 2017 - 5.90m
December 2017 - 7.93m
January 2018 - 7.55m
February 2018 (ongoing) - 1.48m

In my humble opinion, this drop can be accounted for because of 3 reasons.

1. People were hoping to use profits from other investments to invest in further ICOs, then the market dropped & tied them in since.
 
2. Crash slowed down investment from newcomers to the market, scaring off people who were looking to make quick returns.

3. Number of quality projects on offer; there has been a huge increase overall in the number of ICOs, not all of which have the same level of ambition/innovation (to put it nicely)

I'm sure there are other mitigating factors, but I believe these three reasons definitely played a major part in the drop. Looking forward to a market recovery over next couple of months, and hopefully moving towards new all time highs by year end.