Hype value aside, the usage of LINK depends on public chain projects becoming widely used in society, instead of being massively outcompeted by private chains.

It's a very good thread for less experienced traders. When I just started I had an impression that I'm the only one making mistakes in predictions and losing as a result. It's true, that crypto trading doesn't follow the same rules and the market is still extremely volatile. Some things are actually outside of our possible judgment, though most losses are caused by things we can see but just don't take them into account

IOTA started this year with a new chat application running on IOTA controlled agent.
The project has gained a strong interest in the IoT and business community, with growing number of industries and firms showing their interest in it. Still it does not reflect much on the price. It is kind of looking to shape up to rise once again, but is its place in top 10 lost for good?

The shouldn't be years of Altcoins in general. There should be years of good coins, not all alts fall into this category. The market has a lot of different players now, I would prefer to see it more numerous in terms of users and holders and less numerous in terms of the coins (especially shitcoins) offered, that would show real adoption of cryptos. We see now, that most coins follow the same movement in price as BTC (more or less), I'd like to see more diversity in that in 2019. Coins that live their own life not depending on BTC so heavily

Most altcoins use the same or similar technology as BTC, for the market to develop and grow we need diversity, it can finally lead to better solutions and to a fster way of solving the existing crypto problems. Alts bring their own value to the market and add to a wider adoption of crypto by general public. I might sound very naive, but we won't move far if we all hold only BTc and consider other coins only from the "sell as the price goes up" perspective. What's more, I do think that with time some of altcoins can overtake BTc as the market leader, I'm not saying it's going to happen in 2019 or even in 5 years time, but this opportunity can not be dismissed. So I do keep some of the coins I consider promising in the long run and I hope for more good alts to appear

That is a very good point. A big number of people who are currently holding BTC are more interested in the opportunity to get profit from price changes, it's just a way to make more usd or eur or whatever else

I don't see how it can be called a scam. It's a working project with some big names as their partnerships. The good coin doesn't mean it should be a couple of K price coin.

Well, if i'm really optimistic, I would say it can hit 300$. I think it can get to 180$ if the market just stabilizes a bit, from a more realistic perspective

Now as the market looks more optimistic and with all the news of some of the coins going up substantially it's easier to forget, that most of them underperformed in terms of the forecasts that were made previously. Iota is up 67 percent, stratis 108 percent, and bitcoin cash 150 percent. It’s an impressive recovery, but it’s certainly not a reversal. Back in January, “expert” traders were throwing out wildly ambitious end of year targets that, amidst full bull market hysteria, may not have seemed that outlandish at the time. So, what is ypur opinion on 2018's altc performance?

To me it seems that if BTC is replaced, it won't be by BCH. There can be some new project with an innovative vision, as BTC was at its time. For now, I do not see much potential competition in any other crypto

If such project appears they will need to ensure some kind of profit for themselves, so they will either buy your shitcoins extra cheap or will buy them for their own shitcoin. If I'm wrong and a project you are describing appears without the conditions I mentioned, I'll be extremely happy to be wrong

It pushed into top 20, it has secured $120 million in funding for integration of its Vostok private blockchain into government an institutional IT systems.
If we look at the project's roadmap, getting into top 10 next years seems challenging, but not unrealistic.
What are the chances for them to make it?

If you look at what are the project's goals and how they want to develop, I wouldn't call it a shitcoin. At times the good way to develop is use the existing technological solutions and try to improve what's not good in them. Is Waves an ultimate solution to all the crypto problems? It obviously isn't, but they offer competition to ETH, for example, and it's good for both and for the new projects that are choosing the platform for themselves.

I will be sure it's a bullrun when BTC breaks resistance around the $4K mark, that can open the door for a move towards $4,5K.

Recently we first saw an impressive increase in price followed by a sharp reversed movement. So it jumped from almost 20$ to significantly below 10$ in quite a short period of time.
Factom is a decentralized protocol currently consisting of over 25 ANOs and they receive FCT tokens for the operation and maintenance of the designated servers. While the project has some really impressive partnerships, the price of the coin looks a bit erratic and as a result very difficult to predict.
So, what is your forecast for the first quarter of 2019? Will it move upwards overcoming the recent fall or is this movement down is a more likely tendency for the coming months?

DASH has created a unique interface for the token to be used for off-line transactions. The vital link between in the use of any cryptocurrency is the bridge between offline and online world. Many cryptocurrencies have not found any off-line takers. So, to me it seems that inherent value of the project itself should help the coin to stay above 15$ price range. At least that is what I see logical thing to happen, though with cryptos we are always basically guessing.

The bearish side is still strong now. It will most probably stay bearish in the upcoming week. Will it be over finally? It should. Here's a forecast poll on its movement: https://www.fxstreet.com/rates-charts/btcusd/forecast I'm personally agree with more optimistic experts. And hope to see it up in the 2019

The long-term forecast are often misleading. Though I do think that the price will go up, it shows this tendency today. There are also clear signs of increasing volatility, so time only will show

For sure not in China, they banned STOs. And security tokens need to be registered with the relevant financial authority, which often cuts US buyers, for example, off from such projects as well

There is a sense of nervous anticipation heading into the Constantinople upgrade, mid January. We've seen how the hard fork hit the BCH, but in ETH case it can be the other way round.