With the cryptocurrency market value is sitting at $2.06 trillion this October, and despite the recent dips, the cryptocurrency industry seems to be booming.
There are over 6,500 cryptocurrencies at last count. Not all of them are equally desirable of course, just as not all of the real world’s currencies are on the same footing. The young cryptocurrency market changes very quickly. Weeks or even days later, the value of any cryptocurrency could dramatically change.
Good cryptocurrencies to buy in one month could plummet in value the next, and the opposite is also possible. A coin that everyone was hyping up can overnight become irrelevant and side-lined to the backs of our memories.
The best 5 cryptocurrencies to invest in 2022
Bitcoin (BTC)
The first cryptocurrency has already plummeted in value many times, but each time, it has risen even higher again. Perhaps now it’s no longer the most profitable cryptocurrency for investing, but it’s certainly the most reliable.
Some of the big tech players such as PayPal and Visa have been adopting Bitcoin in their processes in order to seamlessly push the cryptocurrency into the mainstream.
It’s up over 60 this year, and it’s currently trading at about $68,016.98 USD per coin at the time of this writing. There are 18.9 million Bitcoin’s in circulation right now, with a total max cap of 21 million Bitcoins that will ever be created. So in terms of investing.
Ethereum (ETH)
Ethereum is the second-largest coin by market capitalization with around 567.4 billion dollars in market cap. It’s important to note that Ethereum is the platform, but Ether is actually the currency you will be investing in when you’re buying Ethereum.
Currently, Ethereum is trading at about $4,795.07 a coin, which is pretty crazy considering it was trading for around 150 USD- 200 USD a coin a year ago.
All this activity taking place on the Ethereum network shows how useful it is to the wider cryptocurrency community, and as decentralised finance grows, it will certainly have a knock-on effect on Ethereum.
Ethereum allows computer programs to run “smart contracts”.
With a smart contract, you don’t need a third party to perform credible transactions. And because these smart contracts live on blockchain technology, they are trackable and irreversible.
Then secondly, and perhaps more importantly, is Ethereum 2.0, the long-awaited move to proof-of-stake. Now, it should be mentioned that this will take place over several stages, with the process starting in December 2020.
Solana (SOL)
Solana is a decentralized computing platform that uses SOL to pay for transactions. Solana aims to improve blockchain scalability by using a combination of proof of stake consensus and so-called proof of history. As a result, Solana claims to be able to support 50,000 transactions per second without sacrificing decentralization.
Solana is an open-source project that aims to be the world’s first web-scale, high performance, permissionless blockchain.
Solana is on a tear at the moment, hitting all-time high after high with some deeming this rise due to its major improvements and increased interest in the NFT space.
Solana is also an Ethereum competitor. Many decentralized apps run on the Ethereum network, but Ethereum has several issues, including slow transaction times and high gas fees. Solana, on the other hand, plans to offer a more scalable, faster network that Ethereum is struggling to offer.
Keep in mind, though, that Solana is still an experiment. The Solana team has hopes to surpass Ethereum, but it has yet to prove that it can outperform the world’s most popular crypto network.
Chainlink (LINK)
Chainlink was created to address this issue by incentivizing data providers (called “oracles”) to act as a bridge between blockchain smart contracts and external data sources.
Chainlink looks to connect smart contracts to the outside world, and I think it’s making for a really great use case right now. Chainlink jumped leaps and bounds in 2020 and has continued to grow in 2021 and has at times been included in the top 10 by market capitalisation (typically included within the top 20).
Every oracle within the Chainlink network is incentivized to provide accurate data since a reputation score is assigned to each. Further, when nodes follow the software’s rules and provide useful data, they are rewarded in Chainlink’s cryptocurrency, LINK.
The total supply of linked tokens is capped at 1 billion tokens, and right now, there are about 464 million of them in circulation. The current price is around 35.12 USD per link coin, and out of all the cryptos listed today, this will probably be my smallest position. So Chainlink is my smallest position, but if I do increase it, I will let you know now.
As always, a cryptocurrency it’s extremely volatile. Not only could it go up 20x could also go down by 80% in a single day so keep that in mind when you are investing cryptocurrencies and doing your own research.
Polkadot (DOT)
Polkadot is a protocol that enables cross-blockchain transfers of any type of data or asset. Its main aim is to provide a platform that delivers high-level security and scalability in an innovative and functional manner.
Similar to Ethereum, it offers a new way to build an entire ecosystem of projects.
As a multichain project, it bridges the gap between blockchains, allowing them to communicate. Devs can also build customisable parachains off Polkadot’s ‘Relay Chain’ (the central chain that ties all other chains together).
Polkadot uses a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism (as opposed to the proof-of-work system Bitcoin uses) to secure the network, verify transactions, and create and distribute new DOT. There are several ways DOT holders can interact with staking system — depending on how much time, technical knowledge, and money they want to devote. By staking and participating in the network, you may be able to receive DOT rewards.
Polkadot has positioned itself as one of the top ten cryptocurrencies suitable for crypto investment in November 2021 with its record-high trade on November 4, 2021. The cryptocurrency token is popular among crypto investors to use for staking, bonding, and governance. It is expected that the price of the cryptocurrency will increase the post-impending vote for allowing para-chain auctions on the network.
