Altcoins like Ripple, Ethereum, and Tron posting significant gains in the first week of 2018. Decred Project Lead Jake Yocom-Piatt explains why these alternative currencies are surging.

"For all we know Bitcoin may fall, but for right now it's the dominant cryptocurrency," said Yocom-Piatt. "Currently there's 1,500 cryptocurrencies out there and the collective market cap of these keeps going up."

Decred's market cap has recently exceeded $700 million. Yocom-Piatt says he's seen a 200 x increase in exchange rate. Decred is centered around decentralization. "It's nice to see the financial metrics catching up with what I perceive to be the technological achievements," said Yocom-Piatt.