Ravencoin: A Smart Investment Move?

Ravencoin is a cryptocurrency that was launched in January 2018. It is a blockchain designed to allow users to create and transfer digital assets from peer-to-peer. It differs from Bitcoin in that it is not designed to be a payment currency, but it does share some similarities with it, such as there only being 21 billion RVN tokens compared to Bitcoin's 21 million BTC. In this answer, we will explore the topic of whether Ravencoin is worth investing in.

Ravencoin's price history

Ravencoin was launched on 3 January 2018, at the start of the cryptocurrency bear market. Its price history started at just over a penny in early 2018, according to CoinMarketCap data.

In May 2018, Ravencoin's price spiked again to $0.052, before falling and hovering at just over $0.01. A small increase in August was short-lived, with the price dropping below $0.02. In October 2018, the price quadrupled to over $0.06. From this point until the second quarter of 2019, the price dropped and stayed around $0.01, reaching its all-time low.

In March 2019, Ravencoin's price became extremely volatile, ranging between $0.05 and $0.06. In May, there was a slight dip to around $0.045, before the price reached its peak at $0.077. The price then began a long, unsteady decline for the remainder of 2019 and into 2020. During the pandemic, the price dipped to $0.012 before gradually increasing to $0.025 in August. From this point, the price steadily dropped, reaching a low of $0.01 in November.

In February 2021, Ravencoin's price reached 28.5 cents, its highest value as of February 2022. In the spring, the price was above 15 cents, but it dropped by summer. There were two more spikes in the fall, but in December, the crypto market saw a downturn, and Ravencoin followed suit. In the winter, the coin's price fluctuated between 6 and 7 cents.

The potential for price increases

Ravencoin is a cryptocurrency with a unique use case. It is designed to allow users to create and transfer digital assets from peer-to-peer. Its blockchain is designed explicitly for this purpose, giving it an advantage over other blockchains that can also transfer assets but are slower and not ideal for the task.

Ravencoin also has a faster block generation time than Bitcoin, at one-tenth, and it uses a different mining algorithm to prevent ASIC mining. It has a maximum supply of 21 billion RVN tokens, compared to Bitcoin's 21 million BTC.

Ravencoin's price history has been volatile. It started off at just over a penny in early 2018, reaching a peak of $0.073 per RVN token in June 2019 before retracing to prior bear market lows in 2020. In 2021, Ravencoin rallied with the rest of the crypto market to a new all-time high of 29 cents per RVN. Today, it is trading at around 5 cents per coin.

Despite this volatility, experts predict that the price of Ravencoin will increase in the future, with some predicting that it could reach $3.60 by 2030. Wallet Investors sees a long-term price forecast for Ravencoin at around 38 cents per coin by 2028. Capital.com’s high-end estimate is even more optimistic, predicting a price of around 95 cents per RVN by 2028.

However, it is important to note that investing in cryptocurrency is risky, and there is no guarantee that Ravencoin's price will increase. The outlook on the asset's long-term value is mixed, and its sentiment and social volume are low, which could impact its potential for price increases.

How Ravencoin compares to Bitcoin

Ravencoin is a hard fork of the Bitcoin blockchain and uses a similar UTXO model. However, there are several differences between the two cryptocurrencies. Here is a comparison of Ravencoin and Bitcoin:

Use Case

Ravencoin is a use-case-focused blockchain designed to allow users to create and transfer digital assets from peer-to-peer. It is not designed to be a payment currency like Bitcoin. Instead, Ravencoin aims to tokenize assets on-chain and transfer ownership via blockchain transactions. This is something that Bitcoin can only handle in a rudimentary way. Bitcoin was created to be used as a means of exchange, a store of value, and a speculative asset. It can also be used to tokenize and transfer assets, but this is expensive, resource-intensive, and potentially unsafe.

Scalability

Ravencoin is designed to handle transactions faster than Bitcoin. It has a block time of 1 minute, compared to 10 minutes for Bitcoin. This theoretically allows Ravencoin to process a much higher volume of transactions per day than Bitcoin. However, this has not been put to the test yet, as Ravencoin's average block sizes do not currently approach their full capacity. Bitcoin, on the other hand, is close to capacity and favors second-layer solutions like SegWit and the Lightning Network to tackle scaling issues.

Mining

Ravencoin uses a unique ASIC-resistant algorithm called X16R, which was designed to keep ASIC miners off the network. However, this has recently proved unsuccessful, and there are now ASIC miners on the Ravencoin network. Bitcoin, on the other hand, uses the SHA-256 algorithm, which has led to the rise of regional Bitcoin mining hubs, with over 65% of the Bitcoin hash rate coming from China. The current block reward for Ravencoin is 5,000 RVN, compared to 12.5 BTC for Bitcoin. This gives miners a greater incentive to mine Ravencoin rather than Bitcoin, while also attempting to keep mining open to smaller miners.

Supply

Both cryptocurrencies have a limited supply, but Ravencoin has a much higher maximum supply of 21 billion RVN, compared to 21 million BTC for Bitcoin.

In conclusion, while Ravencoin shares some similarities with Bitcoin, it has carved out its own niche in the cryptocurrency market with its focus on asset tokenization and transfer.

Expert price predictions

Ravencoin's price predictions vary, with some experts anticipating increases in value over the next few years, while others express scepticism about its investment potential.

Wallet Investors predicts a long-term price forecast for Ravencoin at around 38 cents per coin by 2028. This projection is based on the assumption that the crypto market will continue to grow and that Ravencoin will benefit from its unique use case and technical advantages over other blockchains.

Bruce Fenton, a developer from The Bitcoin Foundation, offers a surprising prediction despite his association with the project. He warns that investing in crypto is risky and one could lose all their money. This cautious outlook is shared by other analysts who note the volatile nature of the crypto market and the challenges faced by Ravencoin in terms of adoption and regulatory issues.

Capital.com provides a high-end estimate of around 95 cents per RVN by 2028. This prediction suggests a gradual and steady growth for Ravencoin, which has been observed in the past, characterised by strong peaks and significant volatility.

One of the most bullish predictions comes from Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne, who has invested millions of his own money in supporting the project. He believes that Ravencoin will rise in value in the future, potentially reaching a price of $3.60 by 2030. This optimism is based on the unique capabilities of Ravencoin's blockchain, which allow users to create and transfer digital assets from peer-to-peer more efficiently than other blockchains.

While the majority of predictions lean towards potential growth, it is important to approach these forecasts with caution. The cryptocurrency market is notoriously unpredictable, and Ravencoin's sentiment and technical analysis do not paint a uniformly positive picture.

How Ravencoin differs from other cryptocurrencies

Ravencoin is a fork of Bitcoin that uses the proof-of-work blockchain consensus algorithm. Its core principle has been described by its creators as follows: “Ravencoin is a blockchain and platform optimized for transferring assets, such as tokens, from one holder to another”.

While Bitcoin and Ethereum were not designed to support people holding "auxiliary" assets, and their developers don’t see this as an important aspect of their respective ecosystems, Ravencoin was designed for this purpose. It allows users to create and transfer new blockchain assets that can represent real-world commodities, securities, collectibles, or even things such as airline miles or other loyalty rewards.

Ravencoin features four key differences from the Bitcoin code it was based on:

• The ability for users to issue personalized assets on the Ravencoin blockchain with a block reward of 5,000 RVN.
• Block time reduction to one minute.
• A capped total supply of 21 billion RVN – 1,000 times more than BTC.
• A KAWPOW hashing algorithm that is intended to mitigate the centralization of mining caused by ASIC hardware.

The KAWPOW hashing algorithm hinders the use of ASICs in Ravencoin mining, helping to make the process fairer. Developing an ASIC that could mine Ravencoin is not only difficult but also (as a result of the developer’s policy) pointless.

Another difference between Ravencoin and Bitcoin is speed. With Ravencoin, the block size is over 2 MB and blocks are mined once per minute. The blockchain can process around 116 transactions per second.

Ravencoin also differs from other cryptocurrencies in that it is an open-source project, so there isn’t a company or a team of developers standing behind it. It was created in 2018 by a trio of co-founders – Bruce Fenton, Joel Weight, and Tron Black – all of whom were already old hands in business and software development.

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