Despite the bearish pressure on coin prices, many projects continue to progress well, hitting development milestones, releasing working products and building partnerships that can help grow the adoption of blockchain in the long term.

As we roll into the last quarter of 2018, it’s time to take stock of the happenings and developments in the cryptocurrency market and look ahead.

Here, we asked some crypto experts to share their top coin picks for Q4 2018 and beyond, and why they’re positive about the future of the projects they’ve selected.

When it comes to the best picks for Q4 2018, there are 3 projects that we’d like you to take a closer look at.

One of them was featured in our most recent London Letter issue and it’s Civic (CVC). In a nutshell, we believe that the feature it brings is the future we need. Civic revolutionizes the KYC industry — it’s gotten so far already you just can’t ignore it.

Another incredible project is Basic Attention Token (BAT), created by Brendan Eich who, we had the pleasure to interview in his office in San Francisco. The fact alone that Coinbase is exploring listing BAT on their exchange should make you pay attention — just like they’re paying you for your attention.

But if that’s not enough, then take a closer look at their numbers (4.6 million monthly active users). They’re growing at an unstoppable rate in spite of the current bearish sentiment.

Last but not least, there is MakerDAO (MKR) with their stable coin DAI. With the constant controversies around USDT and an increased interest in stablecoins due to a bear market, there is no doubt MakerDAO & DAI are going to be bigger than most expect it.

If you’d like to learn more about this project then be sure to read our in-depth write up about it.

Jorn von Zwanenburg, Cryptocurrency Analyst & Writer

Here are my picks:

Bitcoin (BTC). I’m not expecting the first crypto’s reign to end anytime soon, especially with the Lightning Network coming up (first real-world roll-outs are happening as we write).

EOS has theoretically solved blockchain’s scalability issues, has blockchain wunderkind Dan Larimer in charge, and over 250 dapps and counting are strengthening the ecosystem. Account recovery, free transactions, and a blockchain operating system — what more we do want?

IOTA is making impressive progress towards becoming the backbone of the IoT. Project Qubic is the most recent addition to the IOTA ecosystem and promises to give a lot more applications of the Tangle. Notwithstanding the partnerships who are actually planning to implement IOTA’s tech in the near future.

Even though these are major cryptocurrencies, I’m convinced they have exactly the same upside potential as small cap coins, but significantly less downside risk.

David Olarinoye, Cryptocurrency Analyst & Writer

My top pick for Q4 2018 is Binance Coin (BNB).

Binance is coming up with Binance DEX. They have slated Q4 2018 or Q1 2019 as the time Binance DEX will be launched. My guess is that it will be in Q4 2018.

And to encourage users to the platform, they might create an extra incentive that will drive more demand for BNB (just like they did with the 40% referral bonus for holders of over 500BNB).

Kirill Bensonoff, Blockchain Entrepreneur and Investor

While it’s impossible to predict the future and this isn’t advice, I am personally very bullish on 0x (ZRX). They recently released v2 and there are more and more applications using 0x for decentralization.

I believe they will continue to outperform.

Abhimanyu Krishnan, Cryptocurrency Analyst & Writer

I consider OmiseGO (OMG) a prime pick because of how thought-out and well executed their use case is. The void that they’re trying to fill could boost an entire continent’s economy.

With the Plasma DEX, Plasma scaling development and a transition to Proof-of-Stake all expected in Q4 2018, we get to see tangible evidence of the project’s road to unbanking the banked.

Should outcomes be positive, I think OmiseGO will be a platform that will revolutionize the Asian economy — and of course rise in value itself.

Matias Dorta, Founder of ICO Informer

My pick for top coin in Q4 2018 is Maker (MKR).

Here are three reasons why MKR is primed to take off:

1) The demands for stablecoins is on the rise. MKR is the fuel to the Dai stablecoin which recently cracked the Top 100 on CoinMarketCap.

2) Tether FUD is real. The uncertainty around Tether is causing consumers to look for another stablecoin option. MKR’s Dai stablecoin performed very well during the downtrend, it is decentralized and transparent unlike Tether.

3) Andreessen Horowitz’s fund, a16z, just made a $15 million investment into MKR. That is a hefty investment into a utility token by a company with a proven track record. a16z venture portfolio includes companies like Facebook, Skype, Slack, Twitter, and many more. Investors in MKR, or perspective investors, should feel confident that a fund like a16z decided to make MKR one of its early crypto utility token investments. MKR has a real use case and the token contains valuable utility and big players are starting to take notice.

Daniel Frumkin, Cryptocurrency Analyst & Writer

My top coin for Q4 is Scorum (SCR).

I’ve been a huge fan of sports all my life, and even blogged about sports for a couple years when I was in college. But I really didn’t have a way of getting traffic to the site, and monetizing it was even further outside the realm of possibility. If Scorum has been around back then, things might have been different.

Now, I see Scorum as a very young competitor for ESPN with the potential to one day be the biggest sports media platform in the world. I know that there are so many brilliant sports fans out there who are creating free content that isn’t being seen by enough people, and I hope those fans all learn about Scorum and start publishing and/or reading content there.

I also hope that people check out the fantasy sports use case, as I think it’ll be by far superior to existing fantasy sports platforms. For any sports fan who is enthusiastic about cryptocurrencies but hasn’t found a suitable use case for them yet, I highly recommend checking out Scorum.

In choosing projects for investment/speculation for Q4 2018 and 2019, we first must consider where our money is most likely to fail.

As we see a move away from utility to security tokens, we see a heavier focus on assets, revenue, and usable technology — traits a lot of the 2017 ICO poster-boys do not have.

Many projects failed to deliver on their roadmaps, due to a number of factors. These include but are not limited to, lack of understanding of what was possible, overambitious promises, under-skilled tech teams, immature tech and most importantly a lack of business knowledge coupled with an inability to manage finances.

As we see the emergence of STOs and exchanges on which they can trade, we will also see an influx of reverse ICOs (so to speak). This will see real-world businesses with paying customers and assets, tokenize their business.

Compared to concept stage start-ups, these companies will hold tremendous appeal to investors. I am looking at all things STO and enterprise platform support for opensource projects. After all, the tech that supports the migration to tokenization is paramount.

I will invest mainly in platforms, STO exchanges, STOs and any tech that supports these. Of the existing projects, I am unable to comment on Komodo Platform due to my affiliation — however, the tech seems light years ahead.

Of the other existing projects, these are my picks for Q4 2018 and 2019:

Cardano (ADA) – Brilliant team building something amazing. Will take time but this is one of the few exceptions to the above rules. Stellar (XLM) – This is an amazing project with the inability to shill or promote itself, and without the need. I see this being a massive mover in 2019. VerusCoin (RSC) – With a gifted developer and no ICO or hype, this coin, built on solid tech will explode once it hits a mainstream exchange. Ethereum Classic (ETC) – Yes, I hear the boos from afar. This is no Mickey Mouse project and it benefits from its ties to IOHK through Cardano. It’s listed on Coinbase and therefore with upcoming uncertainty with classifications, it remains a solid pick.

Polymath (POLY) – This is a dicey one, but If it gets everything out that it has promised, the sky is the limit in the role it can play. Looks a solid mid-tier pick for 2019.

Thomas Alford, Head of Content at TotalCrypto.io

Fundamentally all cryptocurrencies are a medium of exchange. At some point, there will need to be widespread adoption to back up crypto valuations. This is particularity true of peer-to-peer cryptocurrencies. What’s overlooked by so many cryptocurrency projects is practicality and making them easy to use. These components are essential for mass adoption to occur.

In the West, adoption levels are still low. However, the type of adoption we see right now is driven by either speculation or ideological reasons. The truth is that developed nations have a perfectly functioning medium of exchange right now called fiat currency. This means there is little incentive for true adoption.

However, there are many places in the world like Venezuela, Iran and Argentina with unstable and highly inflated fiat currencies. That’s where fiat is failing as a medium of exchange and it is these conditions where it appears crypto has the best chance of real mass adoption.

Nimiq is maybe one of the most suitable cryptos for adoption in these types of environments. Simplicity and convenience is at Nimiq’s core. It’s one of the few cryptocurrencies that can actually pass the “mom test.”

It’s also completely browser-based and doesn’t require any downloads. This is actually a huge deal in emerging markets where most people simply do not have access to desktops or laptops. What type of device would most people use in these countries to use crypto? Well, it would be mobile devices. Nimiq doesn’t force users to make large data downloads to use the crypto.

This is actually a big deal in emerging markets where most people simply cannot afford a lot of phone data. By being browser-based, Nimiq removes this barrier to adoption as much as it can be. PayNim also provides a super easy browser-based solution that enables people to receive NIM with just an email address. It goes without saying that pretty much everyone has an email. The simplicity of this solution makes it much easier and more likely for cryptocurrency newcomers to truly adopt.

I believe that Nimiq has gone completely under the radar. Many people talk about mass adoption — however, most don’t think about where it’s most likely to occur and which cryptocurrencies best solve the barriers to true adoption. Nimiq seems to be one of those projects and I admire their tech-focused approach.

That’s why Nimiq is my top coin pick for Q4 2018 and beyond.

Disclosure: I own some NIM and am compensated in a long-term independent consulting capacity for Nimiq. This opinion should not be construed as investment advice. Always do your own research.

What are your top picks for the Q4 2018 and beyond? Let us know in the comments!

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Tags: 0x, ADA, basic attention token, bat, Binance Coin, Bitcoin, BNB, Cardano, Civic, Dai, EOS, ETC, Ethereum Classic, Expert Opinions, Investment Opinion, IOTA, Maker, MakerDAO, Nimiq, OMG, OmiseGO, PayNim, POLY, Polymath, Roundup article, RSC, Scorum, SCR, stellar, Top Coin Picks, VerusCoin, XLM

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