While a rating of ‘A’ indicates strength (or an equivalent of ‘buy’ in equity market terms), a rating of ‘E’ reflects the underlying weakness (or an equivalent of ‘sell’ in equity market) in the cryptocurrency. On the Weiss Ratings scale (from A to E), D is described as “weak,” and E is “very weak.” The plus and minus signs indicate the upper and lower third of each grade range, respectively.
Must avoid list
The list of 12 cryptocurrencies with a rating of D- or lower are as follows:
• Auraracoin (D-),
• Comet (E-),
• Electroneum (E+),
• Expanse (E),
• Gulden (D-),
• Matchpool (E),
• Magacoin (E-),
• Novacoin (E),
• PotCoin (D-),
• Quark (E-),
• Rise (D-)
• SaluS (E-)
In January, much to the disappointment of crypto currency traders and investors, Weiss gave a C+ grade to crypto currency heavy weight Bitcoin. Ripple fared much worse with a rating of C, while Ethereum got a rating of B. None of the cryptos were given a rating of A.
In the recent list, Bitcoin’s rating has improved to ‘B-’. Weiss cited price price stability, relative to other coins, as the main reason for the improvement in the ratings. Additionally, Weiss analysts considered the increasing adoption of ‘Lightning Network,’ a technology which facilitates instant Bitcoin transactions at almost zero fees.
In its Bitcoin white paper, Weiss has mentioned
“While we continue to monitor its progress with interest, our Technology Index is not designed as a crystal ball of future upgrades, but as a tool to evaluate the state of the art as it stands today. Thus, as soon as the Bitcoin network becomes more efficient, our ratings model, updated daily with new performance data, will reflect the improvement.”
Based on the above statement, we can expect further improvement in the rating of Bitcoin when Lightning Network becomes the norm. Presently, there are over 1,000 mainnet nodes supporting Lightning Network.