LTC - long term

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For the past few days I have been analyzing all major crypto-currencies (that is the ones that have fiat pairs: BTC, ETH, LTC, XRP and BCH) from a more fundamental perspective, besides TA. While all of them have pros and cons, I personally believe that after a very "stormy" end of the year, out of them LTC came out the cleanest.

And here is why:

- there is a clear entity behind the development of the coin and not a large community of ego-driven devs., prone to arguments and frequent splits
- the public face of the coin (so to speak) is also its "father" and it is very well known to the community. No surprises here as to who or where he is. Not much of a PR talent but for sure an excellent developer
- there is no more speculation about the "founder" having a personal monetary interest in P&Ds of the price of the coin - he sold almost all of them just days before the "Christmas crash"
- the market / community has reacted positively to all of the above and rode admirably the Holiday`s sell off. Major Fib level of 0.5 or $230 held three times already, the price making recoveries right afterwards
- from a technical point of view, the coin is faster than BTC thus making it better suited for transfers; of course it is way behind XRP, but they are two totally different "animals"
- there are 4x more coins than BTC, giving LTC more flexibility and more potential liquidity; also, the price is way below what I believe it should be. Mathematically, if tied to the BTC as the charts suggest, it should be around $3500

Those are a few reasons I believe LTC might have some spectacular jumps in the coming days / months so maybe you want to keep an eye on it.

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ملاحظة

I will list below the pros and cons IMHO about the others, as comparison:
BTC
Pros:
- the most widely known crypto-currency with the biggest market capitalization
- the only "bridge" crypto-currency for all the others
- the biggest community of devs, miners and supporters
- the exorbitant price that draws greedy money and FOMOs
Cons:
- technically it is very slow, transfers take 2 hours at best with high fees
- dev. community is frequently split over future actions
- a lot of hard forks aka new "coins" all the time, diluting its credibility as well as the support community
- the exorbitant price scares new players sending them towards more attractive (lower) entry levels

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ETH:
Pros:
- known "founder" and lead development team
- more features then other coins
- wide range of apps being developed on top of the ETH ecosystem

Cons:
- very obfuscated code and white-paper / standards
- a lot of confusion among app developers
- prone to being clogged by too many apps
- high price already for its use cases

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XRP:
Pros:
- known business entity leading its development
- very clear and focused business approach to its promotion and marketing
- the fastest coin, transfers take 3 seconds
- growing community of IFNs, banks and exchanges adopting it
- real use cases constantly being tested with success
- small price making it very attractive for new comers

Cons:
- huge supply of the coin: 100 bln out of which the distribution is very "dangerous" for an open market
- small price with bad coin distribution makes it prone to market manipulation and huge price fluctuations by P&Ds
- centralized, thus the company behind it has all the leverages to control its future from the technical point of view, including termination

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ملاحظة

As a final thought, I think 2017 was the year the crypto-world entered main stage and established a major foothold. From now on, even if all those initial coins will disappear the glimpse of the future they showed will mark the financial realm forever.
2017 was the year when regulations started to appear that eventually will lead to a much more "civilized" market, where wild west practices will be reduced thus opening the door wide open for bigger investors. Also, 2017 was the year when a lot of brokers entered the space by offering derivative products (like CFDs and Futures) thus opening the path for further offerings. This might reduce the price fluctuations in the long term (at least for the major pairs listing with fiat) and bring in a flux of retail traders.
So, 2018 I think will be more the year of the traders, on all exchanges (with the actual coins or just with the derivatives).
Those being said, Happy New Year to all of you and may 2018 bring you joy and fun trading ! And why not, some money as well :)