Most people know about coins like Bitcoin and Litecoin as well as Ethereum, but there are many other altcoins out there and many ICOs that you can invest into- but what are they and how do you join one? It's actually very simple and can be profitable if you select the right ones.

First of all, Altcoins are just all cryptocurrencies that aren't Bitcoin. Monero, ZCash, you name it, they are all altcoins. There are also tokens like Iconomi in the world that are incorrectly called altcoins- they are actually assets and not even that closely related to coins. Some of them use different algorithms to mine like Burstcoin which uses hdd mining to distribute its coins to users and some even only have PoS, and some with PoS and PoW like Peercoin. No matter what they do and what they are, they are all mostly called altcoins and you can call them altcoins as well.

ICOs are a way for altcoin makers to make money and help distribute coins to the community. Some very successful ICOs include Iconomi and Ethereum, of which the latter was very, very successful. If you invested in the Ethereum ICO you would have made many times your initial investment- this is not common nowadays as there are many more investors than there were previously, but profit is still possible. If you're looking for profit by investing into ICOs, you'll find there are a lot of coins that want attention and money, and it can be difficult trying to find the right ICO.

Some guidelines to follow with altcoins include effort and the method of coin distribution after the ICO, total supply, and also coin price. Be wary of poorly created coins and ones that don't have much effort in them as chances are the coin will be dumped for money or something similar if there is a premine. If a coin has a very fast method of distribution but a high price, the price of the coin will drop very quickly and you will lose money if you invest into it most of the time. Some coins also have too high of a price to be viable to invest in, even if the cause is good. Most such coins with high prices are hype coins and they usually die out very quickly, as do their prices- an example would be Zcash, which had an initial price in the thousands with no ICO or big premine. Price fell like a stone in the following weeks down to where it is, and there was even a big fork dividing ZClassic and normal ZCash. Striking the right balance is rare in the ICO world, but if you find a good altcoin to invest in, go with your gut. It can make you money or lose you money, but you have a good chance of making money either way if you follow these guidelines.

Tips

Look for a dev team not a one man team

Always check the company behind the crowdsale (website whois, members linkedin etc).

Check the portfolio/ skillset of the developers

How realistic is the roadmap; can it be executed

Never, but never invest more that you can afford to lose

With the advent of cryptocurrencies, privacy has gone to levels we would never have thought of just ten or twenty years ago- but despite all of that, there are still issues with privacy everywhere. You need to tumble and mix coins and make new wallets just to be able to send an 'anonymous' transaction that can possibly be traced right back to its source- why not just have a simple platform where all of that is removed and security is still there? Umbra does just that, and if you're interested in a plaform like it, stick with us. 

Encrypted Messages

Many platforms like Skype all have one major flaw- and that is the fact that the ip of the person you are chatting with can easily be retrieved and used. You don't want a DDOS against you, or malicious things done, right? Umbra makes this easy and secure with seamlessly easy transfers- all you need is the address and a private key from that address, and you are ready to go. All transfers are heavily encrypted, so there is no need for mixing, unlike Bitcoin. Note that you can transfer your funds from a private address to a public address and vice-versa; by using the public address transfers, you're getting slightly better support than with the Bitcoin platform, but private is an entirely different story. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, you can even make open channels and groups with Umbra- similar to Teamspeak or Mumble. You can discuss whatever you wish to discuss on that platform, and everybody has access- it's all transparent. Or if you wish, you can opt for private channels that are invite-only- the possiblities are endless. You can even Direct Message with Umbra- they provide a great messaging system for you to send messages, and as always, it's completely encrypted and constantly being updated for your convenience. 

The Currency

As with all cryptocurrencies, there has to be a main currency being used with transfers- in this case, it's Shadowcash- similar to Monero, Umbra's Shadowcash uses dual-key addresses and ring signatures that automatically 'tumble' coins to make sure transactions are completely private- all with a touch of a button. Like we mentioned before a few sentences ago, Umbra has a private and public account- you can stake easily with the public account balance( note that this is not completely anonymous; for complete secrecy, you may want to use the private account) and send stealthy funds to whoever you wish to send the funds to. And all of it is transferrable with a touch of a button- you won't get stuck coins with Umbra! As such, you will be able to create digital marketplaces with this coin using its anonymous sending features- just like with Monero, we expect this coin will be adopted onto darkweb markets; it's not a guarantee, but it's probably a good choice for those sites since this coin is so private. If you want even more added security, because there's already so many basic features inside of it, you can even further encrypt data to make your account and messages even more uncrackable! With so many features added into it and so many way to use it, Umbra will be a very useful coin in the future, especially for those who like keeping their data intact and uncrackable. More about the Umbra project can be found on: umbra.shadowproject.io

People in today's world were looking for a convenient platform in order to publish content and get paid for them. LBRY came out in order to cater that demand. LBRY can simply be defined as a sharing platform, which is based on the blockchain technology. People can easily publish their content on this platform and monetize them through the built in payment system. It combines BitTorrent and Bitcoin services together in order to impress people who are looking forward to share content. 

People can publish all sorts of content, including eBooks, songs and movies on LBRY and share it in a cost effective manner. On the other hand, people who are looking for content can also think of visiting LBRY. LBRY comes along with a user friendly interface and people will never come across any issues when going through its interface. 

As mentioned earlier, LBRY is a combination of Bitcoin and BitTorrent. As a result, people can expect the unique features that they experienced from these two services through LBRY. They include flawed incentive structure, power of blockchain and many more. In addition, LBRY is a platform that was inspired by Uber and Airbnb. That's because LBRY provides an excellent platform for the young entrepreneurs in order to increase the productivity with minimum resources. 

LBRY helps people who publish content to monetize them in a convenient manner. This is powered by the built-in payment system. It comes along with its own payment system, which is facilitated through a crypto currency named LBRY Credits. When someone publishes something on LBRY, he/she is provided with the ability to set a price to it. People who wants to download or stream that content will have to make a payment. A large percentage of the payment goes directly to the publisher. The remaining amount is sent to the hosting providers who store the uploaded files. Apart from these two parties, nobody else gets a cut out of LBRY. The content publishers can also earn micropayments through LBRY. This flexibility in payment can impress both content publishers as well as people who access them. 

LBRY is designed in such a way so that it can become the first mass market crypto application. A large number of financiers and programmers in today's world prefer to use Bitcoin because of the convenience associated with it. However, people rarely use Bitcoin in their day to day life. LBRY is expected to change that trend. 

People access media content that is published on the internet in their day to day lives. LBRY can help them to make their lives easy. On the other hand, content publishers will be able to earn the right amount of money for the content that they publish on this platform. These benefits can contribute a lot towards the popularity of LBRY in the long run. Therefore, it would soon become the most preferred method among people to publish, share and access content they need. 

TaaS, the principal, ever tokenized shut end Finance (CEF) committed to blockchain resources, today reported its up and coming Initial Coin Offering, initiating March 27, 2017, and running until April 27, 2017. Using the Ethereum blockchain and its spearheading Cryptographic Audit innovation, TaaS will offer another approach to take part in and advantage from capital raising, support administration, and cryptocurrency contributing, all with full reviewing straightforwardness to financial specialists. 

Not at all like regular shut end stores, TaaS will issue tokens based on a benefit sharing savvy contract where token proprietors gather half of quarterly benefits. To develop the store's capital pool without pulling in the other venture, 25% of profits will be reinvested again into the reserve. The commence is, as the Net Asset Value of token increments after some time, TaaS tokens will have its esteem expressly fixing to the execution of its parent extend, hence presenting a Token-as-a-Service (TaaS) plan of action. 

Cryptographic Audit is an arrangement of self-ruling inspecting strategies that track, record and timestamp exchanging work. This innovation was worked by TaaS to guarantee all benefits are appropriately recorded, cash stream is straightforward, and the organization is in control of every pronounced store. By outline, it will disentangle financial specialists' expected perseverance and give instruments to greatest straightforwardness. 

TaaS will be open for speculation solely amid their month-long ICO. By consolidating a reward framework for early speculators, TaaS will offer 25% reward for the initial 1000 BTC raised with the reward framework diminishing all route logically up to 9000 BTC. TaaS will save 2% of the gathered assets for abundance programs. Notwithstanding their reserve, TaaS is building Kepler, a first Bloomberg-like cryptocurrency portfolio administration, and examination stage. Kepler will cover the whole range of the speculation procedure, giving statistical surveying, due to persistence and request management and additionally hazard presentation and execution estimating. 

Board individuals incorporate store management master John Wong and legal advisor Sergey Rabenko. Wong, in the past a venture investor at Lehman Brothers, has over 25 years' experience taking organizations openly and overseeing reserves. Rabenko is a legal advisor at the International Finance Corporation (an individual from the World Bank Group) with over 12 years' experience exhorting on legitimate, mergers and acquisitions, and duty issues.Token-as-a-Service (TaaS) is the last era shut end subsidize that permits its financial specialists to benefit from the ascent of blockchain markets. Using Ethereum blockchain and its Cryptographic Audit innovation, TaaS offers a fresh out of the box new far-reaching way to deal with capital raising, finance administration, and reviewing with full straightforwardness to its speculators. TaaS was helped to establish by Blockchain pioneers Konstantin Pysarenko, Ruslan Gavrilyuk, Dmytro Chupryna, and Maksym Muratov and has proficient colleagues from USA, Ukraine, Poland, South Africa and China.

Bitcoin ICO and crowd sales is a way of raising funds by floating a new cryptocurrency in the bitcoin market. It's more or less similar to a company's initial public offer (IPO) of shares in the stock exchange market. Whereas IPO's are highly regulated, ICO is not. Regardless of the above, bitcoin has enjoyed high success rate and this explains why many bitcoin altcoin ico projects are popping up. Indeed, going public is a pleasant experience and an exciting event as it offers countless advantages to both the bitcoin operations as well as the investor. Sadly, the move also has certain disadvantages.

Here are the pros and cons of bitcoin ICO and crowd sales to the investor.

Pros

Capital gain

Capital gain in ICO is an increase in the value of the initial investment that results to a higher worth than the offer or purchase price. Without a doubt, this is perhaps the major advantage of undertaking an ICO. A capital gain may be realized in short-term (a year or less) or in long-term (more than a year). There are countless bitcoin investors out there who have joined the millionaire's club by taking advantage of ICO's.

Ease of trade

Whether you intend to fully immerse yourself into cryptocurrency market or engage the services of a market expert, investing in bitcoin is as easy as a click of a mouse. Remember, the market is unregulated and so there are few hurdles or restrictions to its accessibility and participation. But just like any other investment, utmost diligence, as well as in-depth research in the sector, is critical to success.

Flexibility

There are a greater ease and flexibility of investing in Initial coin offer. There are no strict regulations and so one can choose to invest as much or as little capital as she wants. Actually, to hedge against the future poor performance of a given bitcoin, you can spread the risk by investing in several ICO's. Should the venture not go as predicted, an investor can easily change the strategy by simply chickening put. In ICO, no one is locked in for a fixed term and there aren't penalties for exiting.

Liquidity

Most cryptocurrencies are highly liquid assets. Should there arise a need of cash after a successful ICO, the investor can easily sell the bitcoins. So long as the bitcoins are from reputable platforms they will be sold within a short notice.

Abundant and rich Information

Investing blindly without understanding and knowledge is just pure speculation and relies entirely on luck. This need not happen when undertaking an ICO. Today, there is a lot of valuable information available online and from industry experts. Indeed, this information can help even greenhorns in the industry make an informed decision before buying into an ICO and afterward help them manage their bitcoin portfolios.

Cons

Scams

Bitcoin market isn't immune to scams and up to now, many investors still consider the industry new and simple industry jargons like bitcoin, cryptocurrency, ICO's and much more are new to them. Well, lack of knowledge common with new investor may be considered a risk in bitcoin altcoin ico projects. Many investors have fallen into scams in the name of ICO ripping them off their hard earned money. Therefore, transparency is key in any ICO and the investors need to be on the watch out before parting with their money. To be on the safe side, learn to work with industry experts.

Volatility

Like any other financial instrument, bitcoins are highly volatile. Do not be surprised if a well-performing bitcoin acquired in ICO suddenly fall in price. Countless factors can lead to this including industry speculation.

Privacy is getting more and more important, which is why I invest in privacy friendly coins like; Dash, Monero and ShadowCash. Today I will learn yo usomething about Dash, formerly known as Darkcoin.

Dash, released in early 2014, is privacy-centric, open-sourced digital currency with instant transactions. DASH, formerly known as DarkCoin (DRK), is an example of an altcoin. An altcoin, on the other hand, is an abbreviation of "Bitcoin alternative" and describes all cryptocurrencies except for Bitcoin. The name change from DRK to DASH was an effort to put emphasis on Dash's relative speed in comparison to Bitcoin, as well as it's low fees. Mixing is not required when sending Dash transactions, unlike the more advanced coins.

With DASH, no ledger is publicly available as there is with other currencies, making it tricky for third parties to calculate your holdings and analyze your transactions. The altcoin can be said to be the most privacy-conscious cryptocurrency available today. Its inbuilt funding and governance system allows projects to be voted and proposed on by the community. The projects are paid for directly from the Blockchain if approved.

Privacy

DASH lets you privately store your transactions when conducting payments without waits, similar to cash. Also, transaction fees are lower than credit cards banks, often even free. Thanks to InstantX, the other party receives payments immediately and the cryptocurrency adopts a network that is decentralized, so you do not have to put trust in a third party. Anonymity remains Dash's main value proposition which is accomplished through a modified version of CoinJoin called PrivateSend. PrivateSend is comparable to the CoinJoin feature in that it has been built into some Bitcoin wallets. DASH is currently ranking at 7th place while trading at $17.13 with a market cap of $122,754,620.

Dash Evolution

Dash Evolution is a type of cryptographic currency platform with various features which are advanced that help in the creation of a technology that is decentralized. Dash introduces a network design that is tiered and allows users to perform various tasks on the network, along with API access that is decentralized. The platform is merchant friendly in that you can direct transactions to your mobile app or site in minutes. Also, build relationships which are direct with your clientele by incorporating the blockchain and forget about 3rd party reliance to work with customer payments. Furthermore, users can shop online and pay friends just as they do with Google Wallet and PayPal without losing control of their money. No additional software is needed, and the service is 100% free, open source and decentralized. With Evolution, accounts can easily be set up and invoices can be cleared off.

Flat currencies are overrated, it will soon to be past. In today's digital age, centralized traditional banking systems are less prune to vulnerabilities. Crypto currency is now considered real money & why not it be? Total net worth of cash in the world is estimated $241 trillion, out of which net worth of internet is $19 trillion.  

Crypto currency

Crypto currency in now considered one of the most secured form of asset in the world. There are around 740 Crypto currencies at present but only 26 out of 740 has market value of more than $10 million.  

Monero

Monero is considered one of the top trusted, secure, untraceable & private Crypto currency available today. Founded in April 2014, it has been widely accepted around the world. With market capital of over $169 million, it is currently ranked 4th in the list. With block time of 2min, it uses timestamping of Proof of work (POW) . 

Privacy Features

Now a days as most of Crypto currencies are still somehow traceable, Monero has developed robust system to beat traceability. To provide anonymity to the users, it uses particular protocol of CryptoNote. 

CryptoNote

It is one of the advanced Applications layer protocol which makes transactions, amount, sender & receiver identities, source & destination addresses and related credentials literally untraceable through back chains. It should be noted that most of other renowned Crypto currencies are easily traceable through back chains. Main advantage of CryptoNote is that it uses state of the art hash algorithm of CryptoNight. 

CryptoNight

CryptoNight is wonderful proof-of-work hash algorithm, which is specially designed to work with general purpose home PC's and Desktops. The crust of its success relies in its simplicity, robustness and minimal processing & memory load, unlike other hash algorithms. It is fully optimized to work with regular processors. 

RingCT

As world in becoming internet of things, privacy in secure transactions is really a challenge to all development and financial experts. This method is developed by Monero for confidential transactions analogues to bitcoin which uses Confidential Transaction (CT) method instead. 

OpenAlias

It is widespread aliasing system based on back chain & is made by Monero developers which makes transactions private. 

Kovri

Invisible internet project (I2P) is an overlay network specifically designed to make file transfer, messaging, blogging & web surfing privately. In order to implement this network into Monero system, Monero development team has introduced Kovri. 

URS

To make voting system secret, URS is designed which uses ring signature topology, the best available today. 

MONERO CORE GUI BETA 1

Clients can now connect with Monero daemon service through 0MQ. Which is a C API (Application Protocol Interface). 

With all above exciting & kind of its own feature's developments has made Monero a champion in digital asset management. Monero has some of the best known development teams. They are constantly working to make Monero truly reliable Crypto currency. Each of the above features are constantly updated regularly. Each of bugs & issues are instantly resolved and updated.  

Monero is just 3 years old but it has evolved rapidly and had strong customer base which is progressing day by day. 

Find more information on Monero visit getmonero.org