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Analysts believe that the current relatively quiet crypto market is an ideal breeding ground for outstanding projects as well as important upgrades. As such, the general outlook of the market will positively profit from the influx of hard forks and implementations slated for 2019. Here, we will highlight the most anticipated upgrades and how much impact they will have on the crypto market.
Bitcoin
The Bitcoin blockchain has managed to retain its position at the pinnacle of the crypto market. However, its ability to remain at the peak heavily depends on its capacity to resolve lingering scalability issues. At the moment, it takes the network a second to validate 7 transactions and this is a long way from the accepted transaction time rate of a viable payment network. As a result, the blockchain has continued to tweak its functionalities in its search for scalable solutions and this has brought the lightning network to the fore.
The lightning network is basically a network of channels that facilitate off-chain transactions between two entities. Currently, the solution is still in its testing phase and results are beginning to show that it is viable. We expect more upgrades from the developers of the Bitcoin’s lightning network in 2019.
Ethereum
Ethereum is a household name in the crypto market and it recently took the bold step of adding implementations that we expect would bolster its dominance. Exactly on the 28th of February, Ethereum experienced a hard fork, which introduced impressive upgrades to its network, thereby highlighting the development team’s dedication to resolving scalability-related flaws of the blockchain. Apart from scalability, the upgrade facilitated a meticulous reduction of the block reward with the ultimate aim of slashing the inflation rate of Ethereum.
Furthermore, we expect that this upgrade will continue to remain a critical topic throughout 2019 as it stands as the bedrock for future implementations later this year. Apparently, the next scheduled upgrade should include viable scalability solutions, such as the Casper protocol and sharding. Casper is, in fact, a very important implementation as it enables the blockchain to move from the Proof of Work to the more efficient Proof of Stake mechanism.
Tron
Like the Ethereum blockchain, Tron functions as an ecosystem that houses decentralized apps. Due to the long list of Ethereum’s frailties, it has steadily become a powerhouse in the crypto market. Nonetheless, the roadmap of the crypto shows that the development team is not slowing down. The team successfully launched its latest upgrade, Tron Odyssey 3.5, on the 28th of February. Implementations attributed to this upgrade include institutional client-focused account management and multi-signature features.
Judging from the functionalities of these implementations, it is safe to say that the team is looking to build an ecosystem conducive for institutional investors. This does not, however, second guess the network’s commitments to its regular users as the upgrade also includes protocols that would improve existing features. In addition, we expect Tron’s effort to attain mainstream adoption in the form of Project Atlas to start yielding results later this year.
OmiseGo
OmiseGo is one of those crypto projects that is entrenched in a series of delays and deadline failures, which have tainted its prominence in the crypto market. However, these setbacks do not take anything away from the importance of the project, which borders on an alternative scaling solution. Recent report indicate that the development team has found a new spark while hinting that progress in its proposed Plasma MVP solution is satisfactorily ready to go live.
Plasma MVP is basically a scalability-related implementation that would allow Decentralized Exchanges DEX autonomously exchange crypto.
Litecoin
The price of Litecoin has experienced a steady surge for a while now and experts are linking this to the tremendous work the development team did last year. Apart from the numerous vital partnerships the Litecoin foundation secured last year, it made ample improvements in its functionalities and this had led to an impressive run for the crypto since the beginning of the year. In 2019, the foundation has hinted that it would introduce privacy-related implementations while further reducing the transaction cost of the network.
More importantly, we expect that the lightning network initiative that has remained a top priority will experience significant progress. This would go a long way in promoting Litecoin’s campaign for retail driven adoption.
Cardano
Cardano has had its fair share of controversies recently, however, the leadership of this network has done tremendously well in remaining focused on scheduled developments. On the 7th of March, the community experienced a major upgrade that experts describe as the catalyst to a more critical upgrade. This upgrade will lay a groundwork for later updates that would switch Cardono to the Proof of Stake consensus mechanism that also borrows the PoW’s impressive security attributes.
Judging from the recent show of dedication from the Cardano team, we expect that the next phase of the crypto’s development, Shelley’s Phase, would materialize later this year.
Bottom Line
Apparently, history shows that developments play vital roles in the fall or rise in the price of an asset. As such, it is safe to say that above-listed upgrades would contribute to the market trends in 2019 and their successes will determine the future of crypto.
