11/12/2017 Missed the bitcoin boom?

Five more bafing cryptocurrencies to blow your savings on | Technology | The Guardian

Missed the bitcoin boom? Five more bafing

cryptocurrencies to blow your savings on
Regretting not spending a few hundred quid on bitcoin ve years ago? Get ahead of the speculators by
spending thousands of dollars on a imaginary cat or the Paris Hilton-backed LydianCoin

Alex Hern
Monday 11 December 2017 15.25GMT

I f you are worried youve missed out on making millions by betting on bitcoin, dont worry:
there will be plenty more bizarre, borderline-incomprehensible digital bubbles in the future,
and their value is only going to go up (until it all comes crashing down, that is). Here are ve
assets each competing to be the next bitcoin.

Ethereum
If there is a reason beyond market exuberance for the latest boom in bitcoins price $16,900
(12,600) as I write this, though who knows what it will be when you read it then it is Ethereum.
It is hard to buy Ethereum directly, so most investors trade currency for bitcoin, then bitcoin for
Ethereum, meaning a spike in interest in the latter helped revive the former.

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11/12/2017 Missed the bitcoin boom? Five more bafing cryptocurrencies to blow your savings on | Technology | The Guardian

Ethereum, which was launched in 2015, allows users to build decentralised applications,
spending tokens called ether to buy processing power on computers run by other members of
the network. Those applications can oer anything from le storage to nancial services or simple
games, all in a way that is impossible for any centralised authority to shut them down.

CryptoKitties

A Cryptokitty the purrfect investment?

One of the oddest Ethereum projects in operation, CryptoKitties is a three-way cross between
Tamagotchis, Beanie Babies and animal husbandry. Users can buy, sell and breed the eponymous
cats, with traits inherited down the generations. The CryptoKitties network is responsible for 11%
of all trac on Ethereum, according to one report. A new gen0 cat is born every 15 minutes,
which the company auctions o, and it also takes a cut of all other CryptoKittie sales. The typical
cat sells for about $4 these days, but a few of the rarer cats particularly those descended from
some of the oldest bloodlines are worth many times that. The most expensive CryptoKitty sold
to date, Founder Cat #18, went for more than $110,000 on Thursday.

Monero
If lovable algorithmic cats are too cutesy for you, Monero harks back to the dark origins of the
cryptocurrency craze. This alternative to bitcoin lets users make the same sort of digital
transactions as its older sibling, but with vastly greater privacy protections. While bitcoin
transactions are permanently recorded, and visible to everyone (if hard to connect to a real
person), Monero goes to great lengths to obscure what is actually going on: you cant ever prove
the sender, recipient and value of a transaction at the same time. The currency is also altered to
make it easier to generate new coins using the sorts of processors in computers and phones, rather
than requiring specialised mining rigs. This makes it very popular for services ranging from
drug dealing online to monetising malware by taking over the processors of victims.

LydianCoin
Perhaps you want to plough your money into something backed by an authority you trust. In that
case, let me introduce you to LydianCoin, the rst AI big data marketing cloud for blockchain. If
the buzzword bingo doesnt get you pulling out your e-wallet, maybe the celebrity backer will: in
September, Paris Hilton said she is backing the currency.

Want someone else? Boxer Floyd Mayweather posted his support of Stox.coms ICO (a Bancor-
based open-source prediction market platform that is built on Ethereum, to quote industry news
site Coin Telegraph), as well as Hubii Network (a content marketplace). He even dubbed himself
Floyd Crypto Mayweather. Or you could follow Jamie Foxx (Cobinhood, a zero trading fee
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11/12/2017 Missed the bitcoin boom? Five more bafing cryptocurrencies to blow your savings on | Technology | The Guardian

cryptocurrency exchange) or Wu-Tang Clan member Ghostface Killah (Cream Capital, a

blockchain-based ATM network).

PlexCoin
PlexCoin, an innovative attempt to build the next decentralised worldwide cryptocurrency, has
already raised $15m from backers, so youd better move fast to ah, hang on. No. The founder has
just been sent to jail for two months for, among other things, falsehoods on the companys
fundraising documents, as well as taking investor money and using it to fund home
improvements. A statement by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said the
company hits all of the characteristics of a full-edged cyber scam. Oh well. At least PlexCoin is
now a steal on the open market: just 2 a coin, down from 12 before the SEC led charges.
Maybe you could buy low and make a killing after all?

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