Are you ready for the next leg up? I’m talking about the next leg up of the 2024 bull run. It’s imminent and Q4 could give us quite a show and some spectacle. So, is your portfolio ready for these altcoin gems? Are you set to enjoy a 10x, 50x, or even better, a 100x?
It’s still not too late to do some last-minute shopping. So, don’t miss out. Get yourself all set before this bull gets on a roll. That’s why my team and I have three under the radar altcoin gems for you. They all have the ingredients to give you a 10x to 50x. So, what are we waiting for?
Goldfinch ($GFI)
Today I start out with one of my fave altcoin gems; Goldfinch ($GFI). This also brings us to the popular RWA sector. Remember BlackRock’s Buidl funds and a $16 trillion market by 2030?
Well, Goldfinch allows for crypto borrowing. However, the twist is that you don’t need crypto collateral. Instead, your collateral is off-chain. In DeFi, the norm is to over-collateralize. However, that puts it out of reach for those in developing regions. 1A So, instead, Goldfinch assesses a borrower in a different way. It looks at a mix of off-chain collateral, income, and reputation.
That’s where the three key members come in.
Investors — They provide the $USDC that you can borrow. Borrowers — These are looking to get financed by Goldfinch. Auditors — They approve Borrowers.
So, Borrowers propose a Borrower Pool to the protocol. Investors supply liquidity to these pools. The Auditors check the Borrowers and approve them. Once that’s done, the Borrowers can withdraw stables, like $USDC, from a pool. Now they can swap it for their local fiat.
The current $GFI token price is $2.17. It has a $180 million market cap. Out of the 114 million max supply, 82.9 million already circulate.
Rootstock ($RBTC)
Rootstock ($RBTC) is next on today’s list of altcoin gems. This is the largest and longest running L2 on Bitcoin. It allows developers to deploy EVM compatible dApps. You can send $BTC to Rootstock, and it becomes $RBTC. These peg 1:1 to each other. For this, Rootstock uses PowPeg. Check Rootstock’s WTC campaign.
$RBTC is also known as ‘smart Bitcoin’. That’s because you can use it now in DeFi dApps on Rootstock. PowPeg can do two things,
Peg-in — that’s swapping $BTC to $RBTC. This uses a vault on the Bitcoin network. Here it locks the $BTC. This unlocks $RBTC on Rootstock.
Peg-out — That is the reverse procedure. However, now you send $RBTC to a smart contract. In turn, this unlocks $BTC in the Bitcoin vault.
There’s also another bridge, between Ethereum and Rootstock. This allows you to send ERC-20 tokens between Ethereum and Rootstock, and back. Now you can use your ERC-20 tokens in Rootstock’s DeFi ecosystem. That’s because of the RVM or the Rootstock Virtual Machine. It’s compatible with EVM, so, Ethereum smart contracts can run on Rootstock.
$RBTC allows you to pay for your transactions on Rootstock. Another neat feature is that you can store $RBTC in EVM wallets. Like your MetaMask or Rabby wallets. However, you can also buy $RBTC with other cryptos besides $BTC or with fiat. Rootstock also has its own DAO with governance token $RIF.
Merged Mining
Rootstock also uses a feature called ‘merged mining’. Rootstock was built on top of Bitcoin. As a result, it also uses PoW (Proof of Work). That’s the consensus mechanism.
Merged mining means that miners can mine both chains at the same time. Both chains use the same computing power and tech. So, besides that they use the same consensus mechanism, they also use the same hash function. In this case, the double SHA-256.
In other words, miners can be more profitable without the need for extra resources. This allows Rootstock to do four things,
Validate transactions. And faster. Create blocks. Mine blocks faster in 30 seconds instead of 10 minutes. Send them to Bitcoin.
So, Bitcoin secures the Rootstock chain, the Layer 2. It’s the same principle that L2s use on Ethereum. They use Ethereum’s security in the same way that Rootstock uses Bitcoin’s security.
Roadmap
Rootstock has already been around since 2015. Nonetheless, it keeps building. There’s a busy roadmap from Q4, 2024 onwards. This includes, for example,
Q4, 2024 — An upgrade to PowPeg. This makes transfers faster and more secure. Q1, 2025 — Faster Transaction Confirmations. This improves scalability and transaction throughput. Transaction confirmation time goes down from 30 seconds to 5 seconds.
Rootstock has a Galxe campaign going on now called the Rootstock World Tour. Check it out here.
Presenting the Rootstock Innovation Roadmap for 2024-2025 – a big year to make Bitcoin work for everyone!
Near Protocol ($NEAR) is the third and last of today’s altcoin gems. It is one of the many Ethereum competitors out there. In other words, it’s fast, scalable, and offers low-fee transactions. All the things that Ethereum lacks.
For this, it uses sharding. You can compare sharding with a busy supermarket that only has one cashier open. As a result, there’s a queue. However, once the supermarket opens with more cashiers, the queue disappears.
Near also brings AI to the blockchain. It brings Web3 and AI together. As a result, it ranks the list of all current AI protocols, measured by market cap. As you may know, with RWA and DePIN, AI is one of the current hottest sectors in crypto.
Five hundred thousand dollars.
Hybrid hackathon.
Where AI meets Web3.
Build across the entire Web3 and AI product suite from AI agents to Chain Signatures.
Double, triple, quadruple dip – there is no limit to the amount of tracks you can enter and rewards you can earn.
The current $NEAR price is $3.94. It has a market cap of $4.3 billion. $NEAR ranks #25 measured by market cap. However, $NEAR has an unlimited supply. I’m not a big fan of that. From the total supply of 1.18 billion tokens, 1.10 billion circulate. Nonetheless, it’s up 248% over 1 year.
So, are you familiar with these protocols? Which one is your favorite and why? Or did I miss your favorite protocol?
Disclaimer
The information discussed by Altcoin Buzz is not financial advice. This is for educational, entertainment and informational purposes only. Any information or strategies are thoughts and opinions relevant to accepted levels of risk tolerance of the writer/reviewers, and their risk tolerance may be different from yours.
We are not responsible for any losses that you may incur as a result of any investments directly or indirectly related to the information provided. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are high-risk investments, so please do your due diligence. This article has been sponsored by Rootstock.
By Nermeen Nabil 
Nermeen Nabil Khear