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It was a brutal year for cryptocurrencies. After the boom of 2017, the entire cryptographic market is in red. Some projects are on the verge of bankruptcy while others are taking drastic measures such as staff cutting and reorganization.
However, some cryptocurrencies have had worse results than others. Here, we classify the ten least performing cryptocurrencies of 2018 and look at some of the reasons for their poor performance.
Cryptocurrencies worse, Criteria:
- This list includes only the coins in the top 100 by market capitalization, thus excluding the lower level altcoin.
- We exclude all the stablecoin anchored to another resource, like Tether, PAX and Dai.
- We exclude any projects that have not been in circulation for at least six months.
- All prices have been purchased by CoinCodex, plotted from 1 January and classified according to the percentage decline in market capitalization.
- All prices are correct at the time of publication (10 December 2018).
10. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) -95.5%
Bitcoin Cash has suffered a disastrous end for the year after a tiring polemic has divided the community. A fierce war of words broke out between the two sides and the miners entered the war. The blockchain eventually splits into two, generating a new cryptocurrency, Bitcoin Cash SV. The controversy had a totally negative impact on the value of BCH, which this year lost 95.5%.
Further reading: All you need to know about the Bitcoin Cash fork
9. Elastos (ELA) -95.58%
Elastos (ELA) is a cryptocurrency which aims to be used as part of the first completely secure and decentralized Internet infrastructure. According to comments on various social media channels, here are some negative things to note about ELA. The rate of inflation is too high, not many exchanges list this encryption and specialized hardware (Elastos server) is required to run the applications. As of the end of 2018, there is no ELA support on the main hardware portfolios such as Trezor and Ledger.
8. ICON (ICX) -96.08%
ICON (ICX) launched with the goal of "hyper-connect the world" and "enrich our daily life through" connection "". This is one of many projects that aim to improve blockchain interoperability. Aion, Wanchain and ARK are considered by many to be the best ICON competition.
So far, there have been some significant criticisms of the project. For example, after the launch of the mainnet in January 2018, the token exchange was a slow process that dragged on until the end of October 2018. Although the project has been under development for two years, the website does not yet have a table appropriate gear listed.
7. Verge (XVG) -96.35%
Verge (XVG) announced a large partnership with PornHub in April 2018; however, this did not have a positive impact on long-term prices. The biggest problem for this project in 2018 was the constant attacks of 51%. Although security issues have affected a number of exchanges and blockchain this year, the security problems of Verge are among the most reported in the crypto and for good reason.
In May 2018, one attack hit over 35 million coins in about five hours. The hacker stole about $ 1.8 million in XVG. While other projects suffered 51% attacks, XVG was clearly the most affected this year.
6. Populous (PPT) -96.69%
Populous Platform Token (PPT) is a cryptocurrency for Populous's smart finance finance platform, which works with the Ethereum and RSK blockchains. There seem to be a number of problems with the technical features of the project in 2018. For example, users of the beta platform have received error 502 and have faced other problems. Therefore, many have found it difficult to test the functionality of the platform.
Another common criticism is the lack of responsiveness from the project team to community questions. As highlighted by this article, this problem was also prevalent in 2017. The owner of the Telegram channel has been inactive since July 2017 and this platform had only about 1,300 members.
5. Ardore (ARDR) -96.86%
Ardor (ARDR) is a cryptocurrency designed specifically for business applications. Looking at the project website, the Ardor platform itself is developed for blockchain-as-a-service purposes. This project evolved from the blockchain of Nxt, the first Proof-of-Stake consensus network. Ardor also presents a unique parent-child chain architecture.
Compared to others in this list, there does not appear to be too many negative aspects about this project in 2018. Despite some portfolio and network problems at the beginning of the year, it is difficult to identify the exact cause of the fall in ARDR prices. . Perhaps the biggest problem (as in many blockchain projects) is that technology is still underdeveloped.
4. Bitcoin Diamond (BCD) -97.11%
Bitcoin Diamond (BCD) raises some potential red flags for some people. For example, its two main developers follow the pseudonyms "007" and "Evey" and the source code is not available. Regardless of this, BCD aims to reduce transaction costs and completion time. Compared to BTC, BCD has larger blocks, a higher total supply and simplified extraction processes.
According to the first evaluations of Weiss Cryptocurrency released in April 2018, BCD and some other bitcoin forks are simply copies. While this report highlights some of the positive aspects of these new cryptocurrencies, he notes that BTC, being the first engine, detracts from projects like BCD.
Further reading: 5 Failed Bitcoin Forks that have never done it
3. Bitcoin Private (BTCP) -97.26%
Bitcoin Private (BTCP), as the name suggests, offers the possibility of private transactions. If you are an expert on cryptocurrencies, you know that BTC is not really anonymous. That's why BTCP was created as a fork of bitcoin and ZClassic. BTCP aims to compete with Verge, Monero and other private currencies.
At the beginning of 2018, a big discussion about BTCP subreddit has surrounded the lack of listings from the best exchanges. Since then, low liquidity swaps and conflicts within the team and the community have continued to be major issues. However, it is important to note that BTCP is one of the most recent projects (launched in March 2018), in the first 100 positions of market capitalization.
2. Qtum (QTUM) -97.36%
Qtum (QTUM) is another project that aims to become a leader in the smart contract market. The project made significant progress after its ICO ended in March 2017. The testnet was launched only three months later.
The mainnet was launched three months after the testnet version, very fast compared to the vast majority of blockchain projects. The problem seems to be that Qtum competition has implemented better technology, at least towards the end of 2018. According to an article, Aion and ICON are both ahead of Qtum. There are also other competitors to consider as Ethereum, NEO, Zilliqa and many others.
1. Aion (AION) -97.57%
Aion (AION) is a third-generation blockchain project that (as mentioned above) competes with ICX and others, focusing on increasing interoperability between various chains. Some potential use cases listed on the project website include supply chain logistics, the Internet of Things, online media market, fundraising and digital identities.
As in the case of Ardor, Aion does not seem to have faced too many important issues in 2018. However, some people have stated that the project is too ambitious and finds itself with the highest percentage drop in market capitalization in 2018.
Conclusion
After the euphoria of 2017 and the rapid growth of altcoins, this year has been tough for cryptocurrency projects. It has been predicted that most of the altcoins will "go to zero", but will the projects on this list change into next year? Join us tomorrow for our exhaustion of the best performing cryptocurrencies of 2018.
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