Looking for the best Cryptocurrencies to invest in this year? Cryptocurrency has been gaining a significant amount of popularity in recent times. There are presently over 5,000 cryptocurrencies in the market, with more options becoming available as digital money rapidly gains footing on Wall Street.
Although it is technically possible to make purchases using cryptocurrency, people generally look at it as a kind of long-term investment.
That said, it can be quite risky to invest in cryptocurrency unless you know well about each of them.
In this article, I have listed my choices for the ten best cryptocurrencies that are most worthy of investing in, as of 2024.
Note: This is not a financial advise. Please invest wisely and carefully.
Table of Contents
How have I selected the best cryptocurrencies to invest?
Before we go through the actual list itself, I will help you understand how I have chosen the given cryptocurrencies from the thousands of options that turn up every time you run a Google search. Given below are the factors I considered for this purpose:
Longevity
This is a measure of the time for which the cryptocurrency in question has been around. You do not have to rule out relatively newer cryptocurrencies at once.
Still, by having historical data for comparison, you will be able to take a good look at the concerned company’s track record of performance.
Technology
Does the platform compare well to its peers when it comes to security and usability? You should first observe the speed at which transactions take place; the network shouldn’t have issues with handling transaction traffic.
Also, you must ensure that your investment is secure. Because of the usage of blockchain technology by mots cryptocurrencies, all transactions are transparent and can be checked with ease.
Although blockchain technology may not stop hackers from stealing your cryptocurrency, it makes it easier for your investment to be tracked.
Thus, after an incident of fraud, you have better chances of recovering it instead of losing it altogether.
Track record
You need to analyze the company’s performance when it was in business. Stability in prices is a good indicator of reliability.
It is even better if you observe that the cryptocurrency has been steadily gaining traction and growing in value over time.
However, you should always keep in mind that you cannot always predict future performance accurately by looking at past performance.
It is very much possible for an investment to perform better or worse than it did in the past.
Adoption rate
This refers to the number of people investing in the cryptocurrency you have been considering.
If the level of adoption is noticeably high, it means that the cryptocurrency has better liquidity and it will be much easier to spend, sell, or trade it in the future.
11 Cryptocurrency to Invest
Now that you’ve read the criteria for choosing the cryptocurrencies described in this article let us proceed to go through the actual list itself.
Bitcoin (BTC)
Bitcoin is a veteran among cryptocurrencies, which has been around for much longer than any of its peers. Since its price, volume, and market cap are significantly higher than most other investment options, it is clear why Bitcoin is considered to be the undisputed leader.
Despite thousands of other cryptocurrencies competing with it in the market, Bitcoin continues to cover 40% of the cryptocurrency market cap.
Bitcoin is a smart investment because several companies accept it as payment already. Visa readily transacts with it, and it recently received an investment of $1.5 billion from Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
A number of bigger banks have been incorporating Bitcoin transactions into their offerings as well. However, Bitcoin’s value has been observed to fluctuate a lot –sometimes going up or down thousands of dollars during any month.
If you are concerned about erratic fluctuations like this, you should try avoiding Bitcoin. Otherwise, you should remember that this shouldn’t be a reason for serious concern because cryptocurrency is a smart long-term investment.
Also, Bitcoin’s price is another factor that discourages potential investors.
Many people simply cannot afford to buy entire shares of the stock, every share of which costs over $50,000. It is definitely a huge turnoff for people who don’t want to buy partial shares.
Cardano
The smaller footprint of the Cardano network attracts the attention of investors for various reasons.
For example, transactions with Cardano are much cheaper and faster because they take less energy to complete, compared to bigger networks like Bitcoin.
Also, Cardano regularly keeps improving its development to keep a step ahead of hackers and make itself more secure and adaptable.
Despite its superior network, Cardano is unable to compete with bigger cryptocurrencies because lesser adopters mean lesser developers.
For investors who wish to see a high adoption rate, this is a major turnoff. It is yet to be seen whether this platform is able to reach its full (and promising) potential or not.
Dogecoin
Although Dogecoin is a popular cryptocurrency similar to Ethereum and Bitcoin, it is also significantly different from them. It was originally created in 2013 by software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer, at least partly, as a light-hearted joke for crypto enthusiasts.
Its name and logo have taken from the Shiba Inu dog featured in the “Doge” meme that was once quite popular. In the early days, a group of enthusiasts carried out various publicity stunts to raise Dogecoin’s profile. Early in 2021, the cryptocurrency gained cult status on Reddit’s WallStreetBets message board.
Dogecoin has now grown exponentially in value and gained over 5,000% in 2021. . As of the 7th of May, 2021, it has a market capitalization of about $92 billion after a six-month climb of more than 26,000%. It has been actively endorsed by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who has openly called Dogecoin his favorite cryptocurrency and also promised to plant a physical Dogecoin token on the moon.
Dogecoin utilizes blockchain technology like Ethereum and Bitcoin to securely store all transactions made in a decentralized manner. All holders possess an identical copy of the Dogecoin blockchain ledger, which is regularly updated with all new transactions in the cryptocurrency.
People known as miners solve complicated equations to process transactions and record them on the Dogecoin blockchain – a “proof of work” system, as it is called. Dogecoin can be used for purchases and payments, but it isn’t a very effective store of value because, unlike Bitcoin, there’s no lifetime cap on the number of Dogecoins that can be created by mining. This is an extremely inflationary cryptocurrency by design. However, people who bought Dogecoin to start 2021 have been well-rewarded. It can be purchased at cryptocurrency exchanges like Kraken and Binance.
Tether (USDT)
Being tied to the US dollar, Tether is arguably the most stable of all cryptocurrencies as of now.
There is one dollar in the Federal Reserve Bank for every unit of Tether.
As a result, it is an excellent option for investors who wish to make transactions with their cryptocurrency.
However, there have been questions raised over the actual reserve stock. Some investors have also questioned whether there actually is a US dollar in reserve back for every Tether unit or not.
Binance Coin
This is among the few cryptocurrencies which were created by a company and not a group of tech developers.
During 2017, there was a bull market and the price of all cryptocurrencies rose on it to attain a peak before slowing down and falling in value.
Unlike its peers, Binance Coin kept rising upwards slowly but steadily after 2017. By virtue of this remarkable performance, it has proven to be one of the more stable and secure investment options.
Binance Coin’s determination to maintain a strong blockchain has received a lot of appreciation, but some investors remain skeptical about its potential security issues.
Ethereum (ETH)
Unlike Bitcoin, Ethereum isn’t merely a cryptocurrency but is also a network that lets developers create their own cryptocurrency with the help of the Ethereum network.
It is just behind Bitcoin in market value but way ahead of other competitors in value.
Thanks to its unique technology, it managed to overtake many veteran competitors in the market.
Although Ethereum utilizes blockchain technology, it features only one lane for carrying out transactions.
As a result, transactions can take much longer to process if the network is overloaded. Due to a flaw in the Ethereum wallet, over $60 million Ether dollars were lost following a hack in 2016.
Ever since then, the company has worked hard to improve its security. However, risks are always associated with cryptocurrency investments of every sort.
Ripple (XRP)
Ripple is the company behind the XRP token and has been attracting a lot of investors because it offers international transactions, unlike most of its competitors. International money transfers can take up to 10 business days with a bank, but take mere seconds with Ripple. It also has contracts with major banks worldwide and is thus more accessible to adopters.
Although Ripple witnessed a seemingly remarkable jump of 36,000% in its value in 2017, this percentage represents growing to a $2.40 stock value. Thus, you should not get distracted by high percentages when researching cryptocurrencies. Instead, you must look at the actual numbers and ascertain the real meaning of the growth.
Polkadot (DOT)
Developed by Ethereum leaders who want to create their own cryptocurrency with a superior network, Polkadot has many lanes to complete transactions in.
It was created for the benefit of genuine investors and designed to weed out people merely intending to trade on the stock market to earn cash quickly.
Investors engaged in the company also help to make decisions regarding network upgrades, fees, and establishing or removing parachains.
However, because of its relatively short history, Polkadot does not have any track record for comparison. Thus, it comes with quite a few risks for potential buyers.
Stellar’s Lumens (XLM)
Stellar’s Lumens or XLM was developed to serve as a bridge between blockchain networks and banks. It wouldn’t be inappropriate to say that it is the PayPal of cryptocurrency networks.
Being a decentralized network, it can convert any currency and then trade it across channels. Thus, it helps in making these transactions much faster and cheaper than they would be with a regular bank.
However, since Stellar largely serves a niche market, it will likely attract a lot of competitors. In case another cryptocurrency network develops a superior platform and takes users from Stellar, its stock value is definitely going to be affected.
Chainlink
Chainlink is noticeable for having affordable shares that are also priced high enough to not be considered penny stocks. Since there is a lot of potential for growth and it has proven that it can increase in value, this makes Chainlink a great option for investors. It is also available for trading on Coinbase, and it is even more appealing to investors by virtue of its greater accessibility.
However, despite being above a number of other cryptocurrencies, Chainlink has a lower market cap and volume than more popular cryptocurrencies. This is the prime reason for its low ranking in this list.
Litecoin
Although it arrived in the market along with Bitcoin in 2011, Litecoin completes transactions four times faster than Bitcoin. It became the first cryptocurrency to complete a Lightning Network transaction in 2017.
This particular transfer was completed in less than one second. Litecoin’s value will definitely increase exponentially if it expands its use of Lightning Network for speedier
transactions.
Litecoin and most other cryptocurrencies are intricately tied to Bitcoin, and thus their value tends to fluctuate along with Bitcoin, although at a lesser rate. You should consider avoiding Litecoin if you are bothered by Bitcoin’s volatility.
Conclusion
Cryptocurrencies are undoubtedly not going anywhere anytime soon. However, you need to know which cryptocurrency is the best investment for you. For that purpose, you need to bear certain things in mind, such as:
- The fees associated with transacting
- The ability to use your cryptocurrency for bank transfers and regular purchases
- The speed at which transactions are completed
- If you want to invest without transacting within the network, keep in mind that cryptocurrency is not a scheme for getting rich overnight. Rather, you should look at it as a long-term investment.
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