The cryptocurrency market as a whole has taken a slight correction, with no specific reason for doing so. There have been crickets lately with new worldwide government regulations, which is a great thing as those announcements have driven crypto prices down exponentially in the past. With prices down today, there are still a few coins seeing gains and leading the market.

DigixDAO (DGD)

Source: CoinMarketCap

DigixDAO coins are entirely backed by bars of gold. Yes, that’s right, actual gold. A single token represents 1 gram of gold. The team’s reason behind this is to provide stability and store value of the digital tokens within the cryptocurrency space. Also, participants that bought these tokens initially participated in the first-ever crowd-sale on the Ethereum (available on Coinbase) blockchain.

To distribute these tokens backed by gold, Digix uses a Proof of Asset (PoA) protocol. The process includes recording the possession of an asset on the Ethereum (available on Coinbase) blockchain and the creation of PoA Asset Card occurs. The company’s website explains, “The asset cards are certified using sequential digital signatures from the entities in the chain of custody, namely, the Vendor, Custodian, Auditor, which are further validated with proof of purchase and depository receipts provided and uploaded onto the InterPlanetary File System for permanent record.”

The cryptocurrency entered the market mid-2016 but towards the end of 2017, has begun to soar. Investing in Gold brightens the future of the token, and the token will attract many gold investors into the cryptocurrency market.

At press time, DGD is trading at $552.55 a coin, up 15.51%, in 24 hours time. For the month, the cryptocurrency is up 135% and in 90 days, the cryptocurrency is up 360.7%. A gram of gold today is currently selling for $42.44.

NEM (XEM)

NEM is another cryptocurrency that is leading on the market. The most recent news surrounding this project is that the country of Venezuela has decided to use XEM’s blockchain to run their own government launched ‘Petro’ cryptocurrency. There have been rumors circulating that the country is in major financial trouble and is trying to dig itself out of a hole.

The big question is if the NEM blockchain can handle a large number of transactions, but with its release of the upgrade ‘Catapult’ it should be more than equipped to handle them. Currently, NEM’s network can handle 120 transactions every minute but with the upgrade, that number jumps to 4,000 per second. To put it in perspective, Bitcoin (available on Coinbase) is only able to handle seven per second and Ethereum (available on Coinbase) 20.

If this ‘Petro’ coin flops, this could be bad news for the cryptocurrency but if it soars, XEM holders will be pleased.

At press time, XEM is trading at $0.41 a coin, up 2.98%, in 24 hours.