An Absolute Necessity
ChainLink is a project that introduced the world to the need and brilliance of oracles. In short oracles provide a bridge between conventional commerce and the blockchain. This is a service that is pretty much inevitable and imperative for any business that wishes to adopt blockchain technology. Bridging the two worlds and enabling the sharing of data is a very significant development and an area that ChainLink pioneered. Since ChainLink there has been a number of smaller contenders hoping to gain a piece of the oracle pie. In reality ChainLink cannot service the entire world and though they may dominate their field, there are others who are set to play a role in oracles going forward.
Obviously one wants to be exposed to the leader of any particular niche, as gains are naturally guaranteed in a developing market. However, smaller projects that are able to provide a competitive product at a competitive price are also going to see tremendous upside. These projects may in fact outperform LINK in percentage gains as they are moving off of a much smaller base.
This why I do not simply own LINK but a handful of other other contenders both big and small. Oracles will play a massive role going forward and there cannot be only one. Many more projects are going to be needed to service this need in the marketplace.
What Makes BAND An Attractive Investment
There are 2 key components that make BAND very attractive to me. The first being that BAND is a relatively strong participant in the oracle space and is already well connected. The current market cap of BAND is in the region of $250 million, which is not very high but has the project hovering around the 100th spot on CoinGecko. There is still a lot of room for significant growth, which is further compounded by healthy liquidity and recognition within the oracle space.
The second aspect which makes holding BAND extremely compelling is the fact that you can stake BAND and earn rewards on an ongoing basis. Atomic Wallet offers 17% APY for staking BAND and earnings are locked in the protocol until you decide to claim them. When I take these 2 aspects into consideration, BAND appears to be a great long-term investment opportunity.
The ups and downs of bull and bear markets become inconsequential when one considers how early it still is for this project. Compound the staking rewards and it becomes even more attractive!
The Micro Cap & Small Cap
DIA is a much smaller project when one takes the market cap into account. This is a project that I covered 6 months ago as one of my picks. With a market cap of approximately $50 million, this particular oracle has plenty of room for massive upside but is obviously a more riskier play than BAND. DOS is another micro cap oracle project that has a market cap under $10 million at the time of writing and is probably the most riskiest play of them all. However, this is where I like to open small positions and continue to monitor them.
If I see further growth and stability I can add to these positions and build a more significant position. Opening larger positions on micro cap alts can be rather risky, so this is the approach that I feel most comfortable executing.
In short, LINK offers the most guarantee when it comes to securing profit. BAND offers a relatively safe alternative that is further enhanced by a generous staking reward. DIA and DOS are the potential moonshots that could see massive gains in time to come. They do however have a higher risk of failure, making them the calculated gamble options.
This is my oracle portfolio for now and should not be considered investment advice. This is my own personal interpretation of the market and is merely for entertainment. Please do your own research before investing in any projects or products.
