With the cryptocurrency markets still in an uncertain position, many crypto investors are wondering if it’s time to sell in order to avoid further losses or if the market is going to recover soon.
Even though the crypto markets have so far always recovered from their bearish periods, every bear market has its “casualties” that never make a strong recovery. Therefore, it’s important to choose quality crypto projects that have a good chance of surviving the bear market and thriving in the future.
We’ve analyzed 200 of the top cryptocurrencies based on their liquidity and availability, technology, sector leadership, tokenomics and more key factors. You can read more about our criteria a bit further down in the article.
By doing so, we’ve narrowed the list down to 12 cryptocurrencies that present the most compelling opportunities at the moment. The top three coins on our list are updated weekly to reflect the most up-to-date developments in the crypto and blockchain sector. Here's our roundup of the best cryptocurrency to invest in 2024:
- Solana–High-performance blockchain platform for smart contracts
- Avalanche– Scalable blockchain with customizable subnets
- Bitcoin –Decentralized peer-to-peer cryptocurrency
- Ethereum–The leading blockchain for smart contracts
- XRP – Highly efficient digital currency
- Uniswap– The biggest DEX on Ethereum
- BNB– A popular cryptocurrency utilized in the Binance ecosystem
- Mina Protocol – An extremely lightweight blockchain
- Cosmos– A network of interoperable blockchains
- Litecoin– A cheaper and faster alternative to Bitcoin
- Shiba Inu– The second-largest meme coin on the market
- Sui– Scalable blockchain with parallel transaction execution
Best Cryptos to Buy Right Now
Let’s start off by highlighting three cryptocurrency projects that have seen important developments recently or have big events coming up in the near future. We update these highlighted coins on a weekly basis to reflect the latest developments in the world of crypto and blockchain.
Before we dive into our list of the best cryptos to buy, we should note that choosing which crypto to buy is only the first step in your crypto investment journey. It's also important to choose the right platform to buy crypto, and you also have to decide how you will be storing your cryptocurrency.
In our opinion, the best way to invest in crypto is to transfer your coins to a hardware wallet after you buy it on an exchange. A great starting point is to buy cryptocurrency on KuCoin and store it in a Ledger hardware wallet.
1. Solana
Solana is a smart contracts platform with a unique architecture that allows it to process thousands of transactions per second while keeping costs extremely low. Solana achieves this by utilizing a unique Proof-of-History algorithm and a Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism. SOL is among the cheapest cryptos to transfer on the market, as users pay less than $0.001 per transaction on average.
Solana was founded in 2018 by Anatoly Yakovenko. The platform’s mainnet launched in March 2020, and saw a huge boost in adoption in 2021. While SOL has lost a lot of its value in the 2022 bear market, Solana still has one of the most impressive ecosystems in the cryptocurrency sector.
Why Solana?
The Solana blockchain is the epicenter of the current meme token bull market, as the platform’s low fees and streamlined user experience have made it a popular destination for users speculating on new meme token launches on decentralized exchanges. Tokens such as Dogwifhat and Bonk have triggered by meme token frenzy by displaying massive price surges that new meme tokens are now attempting to replicate.
Last Friday, the daily trading volume on Solana-based decentralized exchanges almost hit $3.8 billion, according to data from DeFi Llama.
Solana on-chain trading activity recently hit new all-time highs. Image source: DeFi Llama.
Meanwhile, data from Google Trends shows that Google search interest for the term "Solana" is currently at its all-time highs, which suggests new crypto investors are interested in getting involved.
Google search interest for "Solana". Image source: Google Trends.
The price action of SOL has reflected this heightened activity, as the coin has gained 39.3% in the last week and surpassed the $200 mark for the first time since December 2021. SOL has advanced to the fourth spot in the cryptocurrency market cap rankings, surpassing BNB.
2. Avalanche
Avalanche is a layer 1 blockchain platform that’s designed with speed and scalability at the forefront. The network achieves consensus through Proof-of-Stake, more specifically through the “Snowman” consensus protocol.
The Avalanche C-Chain is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine, making it easy for Ethereum developers to port their applications over to the Avalanche ecosystem. This has already enabled a flourishing decentralized finance (DeFi) on Avalanche, which currently has the fourth-largest TVL among all blockchain platforms.
The native asset of Avalanche is AVAX, which is used for staking and paying transaction fees. By staking a certain number of AVAX, users can use Avalanche to deploy “subnets”, which are blockchains specialized for particular use cases.
Why Avalanche?
Avalanche is another blockchain that’s benefiting from the current meme token mania, as AVAX has gained 42.3% in the last 7 days amid rising prices of Avalanche-based meme tokens such as Coq Inu and Kimbo.
Those who have been following the Avalanche ecosystem closely will recall that late last year, the Avalanche Foundation said that it was planning to buy Avalanche-based "community coins" as part of their Culture Catalyst program. Recently the foundation has revealed five tokens it owns as part of this initiative: Coq Inu, Gecko, Kimbo, NoChill and Tech. Per the announcement, the Avalanche Foundation plans to continue supporting various community coins in the future.
In addition, major South Korean video game publisher Nexon announced that they will be launching MapleStory Universe on a subnet on the Avalanche network. MapleStory Universe will be a collection of different gaming experiences tied to MapleStory, a popular MMORPG game that has been live for over 20 years. This will also include NFTs based on MapleStory intellectual property.
— Avalanche ? (@avax) March 11, 2024Look for the new iteration of MapleStory to launch by the end of the year.
Learn more about Nexon, MapleStory and their future with Avalanche. https://t.co/dTFTxQ8O9a
3. Bitcoin
Bitcoin is a decentralized peer-to-peer cryptocurrency that was initially described in 2008 and launched in early 2009. Bitcoin was invented by a person using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, whose real identity is still unknown.
Bitcoin introduced the concept of a blockchain and provides a fully decentralized digital currency that’s extremely secure. It implements Proof-of-Work to make it very difficult to alter the history of transactions or double spend coins. The network is secured by miners, who are rewarded with BTC coins for adding blocks to the Bitcoin blockchain.
BTC can be sent anywhere in the world on a 24/7 basis, and transactions cannot be blocked by any intermediaries. By holding their own private keys, users can self-custody their Bitcoin without requiring institutions such as banks.
Even though countless cryptocurrencies and blockchain platforms have been released after Bitcoin, BTC is still easily the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
Why Bitcoin?
Spot Bitcoin ETFs in the United States hit record weekly inflows and trading volume last week as Bitcoin reached new all-time highs above the $70,000 mark. On March 12, spot Bitcoin ETFs saw a total of $1.04 billion in inflows, according to data from Farside Investors.
Net inflows yesterday as the Boomers bought right into a nasty overnight 8% selloff like nobody’s business capping off a week that saw net $2.2b in flows and $35b in volume (both records) https://t.co/8FdvMg3y4M
— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) March 16, 2024See Also5 Proven Tips to Protect Your Money During a Crypto CrashBitcoin range consolidation sets the stage for SOL, AVAX RNDR and SUIBitcoin rallies 25% as crypto markets rebound | CNN Business7 Cryptos With Market Caps Below $1 Billion That Will Do Well in 2022
We’ve also seen impressive activity related to Bitcoin Ordinals, especially when it comes to NFTs created through the protocol. NodeMonkes has become the second-largest NFT collection in terms of market capitalization per data from Forbes Digital Assets.
It’s worth keeping in mind that Bitcoin has seen a 4.7% decline in the last 7 days while certain altcoins such as Solana, Avalanche and Toncoin registered gains of over 30%. Still, it’s unlikely that such a trend will persist, as the market is likely to follow the pace dictated by Bitcoin in the near to medium term.
In the coming week, it will be important to keep an eye on Bitcoin to see whether the world’s largest cryptocurrency has enough momentum to keep setting new all-time highs or whether we’re due for a stronger price correction after Bitcoin’s +60% year-to-date rally.
4. Ethereum
Ethereum is a blockchain that supports smart contracts, enabling more complex use cases such as decentralized lending protocols and non-fungible tokens. The Ethereum project was founded by Vitalik Buterin, who published the Ethereum whitepaper in late 2013. The Ethereum blockchain launched in July 2015.
One of the first use cases enabled by Ethereum that gained a lot of traction was the ability to issue custom tokens that could be transacted over the Ethereum blockchain. This feature was utilized by many projects to conduct fundraising through Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) and other types of token sales.
Today, Ethereum has an extremely vibrant ecosystem of decentralized applications – including decentralized financial services, NFT marketplaces, publishing platforms, decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges, and more – which makes it a good investment in 2023, in our opinion.
ETH is the native asset of the Ethereum blockchain, providing an incentive for users to secure the network. The Ethereum network originally implemented a Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism but switched over to Proof-of-Stake in September of 2022.
Why Ethereum?
The Ethereum price has surpassed the $4,000 mark for the first time since December 2021, as the world's second largest crypto asset extended its strong rally, which kicked into a higher gear at the start of February.
A positive factor that's influencing the Ethereum market in the short term is that the next major upgrade for the Ethereum protocol, Dencun, is scheduled for March 13.
— timbeiko.eth ☀️ (@TimBeiko) February 27, 2024Blobs are coming .oO
Dencun is scheduled for mainnet activation at epoch 29696, occurring March 13 at 13:55 UTC. See the announcement below for client release versions and other useful info about the upgrade ?https://t.co/9Wa3Y5M5k4
One of the most notable improvements that Dencun will bring is reducing fees for layer 2s built on top of Ethereum. This is because the EIP-4844 upgrade will reduce the costs of storing data on the Ethereum blockchain. The upgrade will introduce 9 different EIPs (Ethereum Improvement Proposals).
Although Ethereum has been largely overshadowed by Bitcoin recently, we could see ETH strengthen its position against BTC in the coming months. In addition to the beneficial effects of the Dencun upgrade, ETH could stand to benefit from the ongoing speculation regarding spot Ethereum ETFs in the United States.
5. XRP
XRP is a cryptocurrency that was launched in June of 2012. It was developed by David Schwartz, Jed McCaleb and Arthur Britto, who started a company called OpenCoin together with Chris Larsen. 80% of the XRP supply was gifted to the company by the developers of XRP. OpenCoin has since been renamed to Ripple, and the company has put the majority of its XRP holdings into escrow.
XRP provides very fast and low-cost transfers, making it suitable for use-cases like remittances. It uses neither Proof-of-Work nor Proof-of-Stake, but instead implements the XRP Ledger Consensus Protocol. Every participant in the XRP network can choose a set of validators that they trust to behave honestly.
Ripple has implemented the XRP cryptocurrency into its products, most notably On-Demand Liquidity (ODL). ODL works in partnership with cryptocurrency exchanges uses XRP to provide efficient cross-border money transfers.
Why XRP?
Through a new partnership, Ripple and Axelar Foundation will be teaming up to improve the interoperability between the XRP Ledger and several other blockchain networks. The integration between the Axelar platform and the XRP Ledger is slated to go live in May.
According to the announcement, one of the main goals of the initiative is to strengthen the XRP Ledger’s decentralized finance ecosystem by ensuring sufficient liquidity for stablecoins and other large crypto assets.
Axelar’s GMP (general message parsing) feature makes it possible to execute calls on more than 50 different blockchains. This will help bolster the XRP Ledger’s DeFi capabilities by making it possible to build interchain decentralized applications that involve the XRP Ledger.
XRP has been a solid performer in the markets as of late, registering a 22.4% gain in the last week. This is a better performance than Ethereum (+17.4%), but worse than Bitcoin (+27.7%). XRP is currently trading at its highest levels since August 2023.
6. BNB
BNB is a token that was launched by the Binance cryptocurrency exchange in 2017. BNB serves two primary functions. Holders of the token get access to special benefits when using Binance – this includes lower trading fees, access the exchange’s Launchpad and Launchpool programs, cashback on Binance Visa card purchases, and more.
The token is also used as the native asset of the BNB Chain blockchain. BNB Chain is a variant of Ethereum that offers significantly lower transaction fees to users, and it allows developers to easily deploy EVM-compatible decentralized applications. Previously known as Binance Coin, BNB has now gone through an extensive rebranding.
Why BNB?
The Binance cryptocurrency exchange has been on a streak with its Launchpool platform, as three different Launchpool projects have been announced in very quick succession. The most recent announcement came on December 27, when the exchange unveiled the Launchpool program for the Sleepless AI project.
Since BNB is the only non-stablecoin crypto asset that can be used for Launchpool staking, the Launchpool announcements have significantly boosted demand for BNB. At the time of writing, BNB is posting a +38.5% change against the US dollar.
Users can stake their BNB via Binance Launchpool to earn tokens from upcoming blockchain projects. The BNB can be unstaked at any time, which means that users can receive a nice perk by getting some new tokens while assuming relatively low risk (holding BNB or stablecoins for the staking period).
In the coming days, it will be worth following Binance to see if they will perhaps be announcing another Launchpool program or perhaps even a new Launchpad program. If they do, we could see another increase in the price of BNB.
7. Uniswap
Uniswap is a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange that introduced and popularized the AMM (automated market maker) model. This unique design removes the need for order books, providing an elegant way for swapping between different tokens directly on the blockchain without relying on intermediaries.
The Uniswap protocol is decentralized, and anyone can create liquidity pools for any token. This means that the newest crypto assets are often traded on Uniswap before they make their way on centralized cryptocurrency exchanges.
The model introduced by Uniswap has been adopted by many decentralized exchanges on different blockchain platforms. However, Uniswap remains the most active decentralized exchange in terms of trading volume.
Uniswap is governed by holders of the UNI token, who can submit and vote for proposals. UNI was distributed to past users of the Uniswap protocol via an airdrop in 2020, and the token is now available for purchase on a variety of both decentralized and centralized trading platforms.
Why Uniswap?
The Uniswap Foundation has submitted a proposal to use the protocol’s fee mechanism to reward UNI token holders who stake and delegate their tokens. According to the proposal, the change is designed to incentivize "active, engaged and thoughtful delegation" in the Uniswap governance process.
If the community vote approves the proposal, it would allow for the automatic and unrestricted collection of protocol fees, which would then be distributed evenly among UNI token holders who have staked their tokens and delegated their voting rights.
— Erin Koen (@eek637) February 23, 2024? Biggest week in Uniswap Protocol Governance... ever?
I just proposed a large-scale upgrade to the system. Specifically, I believe we should upgrade the protocol so that its fee mechanism rewards UNI token holders that have staked and delegated their tokens. ?
The market has received the proposal very positively, as UNI’s price spiked from $7.16 to $12.27 (+71%) in a little more than an hour after the proposal was published. Although UNI has seen a price correction since, the token is till trading at $10.56 at the time of writing, which is significantly above its pre-spike levels.
8. Mina Protocol
Mina Protocol is a project that’s building an extremely lightweight blockchain. With the help of zero-knowledge technology, the size of the Mina blockchain is kept at just 22 kilobytes at all times.
The Mina Protocol’s version of decentralized applications is called zkApps. The smart contracts these applications are built with support zero-knowledge proofs, which can allow users to prove ownership of their data without disclosing the data itself to the party they’re interacting with. zkApps can also source data from any website privately, providing easy access to real-world data instead of relying on complicated oracle systems.
Why Mina Protocol?
Zero-knowledge technology is likely to become a very important trend in the crypto and blockchain space moving forward, and Mina Protocol could be positioned very well to take advantage of this.
In addition, the lightweight design of the Mina Blockchain makes it easier to participate in the network, which is especially relevant for mobile devices. If we’re going to see widespread adoption of blockchain technology, it’s most likely that a large number of people will be using blockchain through mobile devices. This could make Mina a candidate to becomeone of the next cryptocurrencies to explode.
9. Cosmos
Cosmos is a network that’s designed to allow different blockchain platforms to interoperate with each other. The Cosmos network is coordinated by the Cosmos Hub, a Proof-of-Stake blockchain. The Cosmos Hub is also designed to facilitate connections with blockchains outside of the Cosmos ecosystem, for example Bitcoin and Ethereum. The different blockchains that make up Cosmos communicate through a protocol called IBC (Inter-Blockchain Communication).
The Cosmos Hub and other blockchains in the Cosmos network are built using the Cosmos SDK framework. Blockchains launched on Cosmos benefit from a robust Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism, fast transaction times (about 7 seconds) and low transaction costs (about $0.01 per transaction).
The native asset of Cosmos is called ATOM. Users can stake their ATOM tokens to contribute to the network’s security as well as earn staking rewards and a portion of the transaction fees collected by the network.
Why Cosmos?
The Cosmos community has approved a proposal to cap the inflation rate of the ATOM token at 10%. The current inflation rate is at about 14%, while the cap is set at 20%. Once enacted, the proposal will reduce the amount of new ATOM tokens entering circulation. However, it will also reduce the APR of staking ATOM tokens from about 19% to roughly 13.4%.
According to the proposal, research indicated that the Cosmos Hub blockchain is currently overpaying for its security. The proposal also argues that reducing the inflation of ATOM could have a positive influence on decentralized finance protocols and money markets in the Cosmos ecosystem.
The vote was quite contentious, as the "Yes" option received 41.1% of the vote. The "No" option received 31.9% of the vote, the "Veto" option received 6.6%, while the remaining 20.4% of the votes were for the "Abstain" option. Interestingly enough, this proposal saw the highest voter turnout in the history of the Cosmos ecosystem.
10. Litecoin
Litecoin is a cryptocurrency that was initially launched in October 2011, making it one of the oldest “altcoins” on the market. Litecoin is heavily based on Bitcoin, as it started off as essentially a modified version of Bitcoin’s codebase.
Litecoin has a maximum coin supply of 84 million, which is 4 times larger than that of Bitcoin. Its targeted block time is 2.5 minutes, which is 4 times faster than Bitcoin’s targeted block time. Just like Bitcoin, Litecoin also uses Proof-of-Work to reach consensus about the state of its Ledger. While Bitcoin uses the SHA-256 hash function, Litecoin uses the scrypt hash function.
Sometimes, Litecoin has been used as a proving ground for technologies that were later implemented into Bitcoin. For example, SegWit was first implemented into Litecoin before it went live on the Bitcoin network. However, Litecoin also has some unique technological aspects to it, most notably its support for MimbleWimble privacy technology.
Litecoin fans often describe Litecoin as the “silver to Bitcoin’s gold”. LTC transactions are cheaper and faster than BTC transactions, making Litecoin a more suitable option for everyday payments.
Why Litecoin?
The next Litecoin halving is expected to take place on August 2 at 1:30 PM UTC. Litecoin has been a strong performer in the past couple of months as traders have been accumulating their LTC positions ahead of the upcoming halving. LTC is up +38% since the start of the year and is currently the 11th largest digital currency by market capitalization.
Racing to the HALVING!! Less than 2000 blocks to go! #Litecoin $LTC #sundayvibes #Litecoinhalving pic.twitter.com/5HP9iIuSf3
— Litecoin (@litecoin) July 30, 2023
According to blockchain analytics firm LunarCrush, Litecoin has had “the strongest combined social and trading activity across the crypto market” as of late. “Social engagement continues to spike higher, indicating increased community activity and participation within social posts,” LunarCrush wrote about the trending coin.
In addition to the excitement surrounding the halving, the institutional investor narrative has been very strong in crypto as of late – firms like Blackrock, Fidelity, and several others filed Bitcoin ETF applications over the past couple of weeks, signaling that institutions consider crypto as a part of their long term strategies. In the midst of this mounting investor interest, LTC has been listed on the EDX Markets exchange as one of the four cryptocurrencies on the platform. EDX Markets is a cryptocurrency trading platform backed by financial industry heavyweights, including Fidelity and Citadel Securities.
Another reason why Litecoin has been doing well as of late could be that LTC doesn’t appear to be in danger of being labeled an unregistered security by U.S. regulators. In its recent lawsuits against Binance and Coinbase, the SEC has alleged that several cryptocurrencies offered by the exchanges are unregistered securities, but didn’t mention Litecoin as one of them.
11. Shiba Inu
Shiba Inu is a meme cryptocurrency that was launched in 2020 by a person using the pseudonym “Ryoshi”. The project is heavily inspired by the Dogecoin cryptocurrency, and also features the Shiba Inu dog breed in its branding. In contrast to Dogecoin, which has its own blockchain, Shiba Inu is issued on the Ethereum blockchain as an ERC-20 token.
During the SHIB token launch, half of the supply was sent to Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin (who is not involved with the project in any way). The project framed this as a token burn. Buterin did eventually burn the vast majority of his SHIB holdings and sold the rest of his tokens to fund charitable donations.
SHIB saw a significant spike in popularity in 2021 and became the second largest meme coin by market cap, second only to Dogecoin. In addition, SHIB is one of the most popular penny cryptos at the moment.
Why Shiba Inu?
The team behind the Shiba Inu project is trying to obtain the .shib Top-Level Domain (TLD). TLDs are domains such as .com, .org, .net and .io, and they are used to organize websites based on categories such as use case and geographical location.
The Shiba Inu team has partnered with web3 domain project D3 in their attempt to obtainthe .shib TLD.The implications of .shib being added to the global Domain Name System go beyond just vanity websites. D3 explains that current crypto domain names like .crypto don't natively function across platforms, whereas Shib aims for true cross-compatibility with services people use daily.
— D3 (@D3inc) December 19, 2023We're partnering with @ShibToken to apply for and obtain the .shib Top-Level Domain (TLD) ?
Learn more here ? https://t.co/ZBWtO4ubtA pic.twitter.com/zO3rZPavWi
If Shiba Inu is successful in obtaining the .shib domain, this could enable websites,personalized usernames and even email addresses ending in .shib.
Whether the .shib TLD will be approved or not will depend on ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). In any case, the results of the collaboration between Shiba Inu and D3 won't be immediate, as it can take between 3 and 5 years for a new TLD to receive approval.
12. Sui
Sui is a blockchain project that’s creating a highly scalable and efficient platform for smart contracts. The Sui platform is being developed by Mysten Labs, a company led by co-founder and CEO Evan Cheng.
Notably, the Sui blockchain uses a smart contracts language called Sui Move, which is derived from the Move smart contracts language. The Move language has attracted a lot of interest, as it was initially developed for the purposes of the Facebook-led Libra stablecoin project. Today, Sui and Aptos are the most notable projects to implement the Move language.
The Sui blockchain is capable of executing transactions in parallel, which results in very low latency and more efficient CPU usage for validators. In testing, the Sui blockchain has demonstrated the ability to process 120,000 transactions per second.
Why Sui?
Sui’s decentralized finance ecosystem has been on a tear as of late, with the TVL (total value locked) in DeFi protocols on the chain surging by 181% since the start of the year. Recently, Sui’s TVL set an all-time high just above the $600 million mark. This places it above protocols including Cardano, Near, Cronos and Aptos.
According to data from decentralized finance aggregator DeFi Llama, the largest DeFi protocol on Sui is Scallop Lend. Decentralized exchanges Cetus and KriyaDEX rank second and third, respectively.
The TVL of Sei’s DeFi ecosystem since the network’s launch in May 2023. Image source: DeFi Llama.
Sui has also become one of the hottest destinations for users that are bridging cryptocurrencies from blockchain to blockchain. According to Wormholescan, a platform that tracks activity on the Wormhole blockchain bridge, some $40.8 million worth of crypto assets has been bridged from Ethereum to Sui in the last 7 days alone.
Bridging activity from Ethereum to other blockchains via Wormhole. Image source: Wormholescan.
This increased interest for DeFi on Sui comes amidst a strong performance for the SUI token, as the digital asset is up a whopping 65.71% in the last 30 days. SUI is currently ranked 47th by market cap, which means it could still have some further room for growth.
| Native asset | Launched in | Description | Market cap* | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Solana | SOL | 2020 | High-performance blockchain for smart contracts | $91.1 billion |
| Avalanche | AVAX | 2020 | Scalable blockchain with customizable subnets | $23.5 trillion |
| Bitcoin | BTC | 2009 | Decentralized peer-to-peer cryptocurrency | $1.33 trillion |
| Ethereum | ETH | 2015 | The leading blockchain for smart contracts | $427 billion |
| XRP | XRP | 2012 | Highly efficient digital currency | $33.1 billion |
| Uniswap | UNI | 2020 | The biggest decentralized exchange protocol | $7.2 billion |
| BNB | BNB | 2017 | BNB Chain's native asset and token used in Binance ecosystem | $83.6 billion |
| Mina Protocol | MINA | 2021 | Extremely lightweight blockchain with ZK technology | $1.3 billion |
| Cosmos | ATOM | 2019 | A network of interconnected blockchains | $4.6 billion |
| Litecoin | LTC | 2011 | A cheaper and faster alternative to Bitcoin | $6.2 billion |
| Shiba Inu | SHIB | 2020 | The second-largest meme coin on the market | $16.3 billion |
| Sui | SUI | 2023 | Scalable blockchain with parallel transaction execution | $2 billion |
*Data as of March 18, 2024, at 13:30UTC.
Best crypto to buy for beginners
If you're a new entrant in the cryptocurrency space, it's probably best to stick to cryptocurrencies that have been around for a longer period of time and have a well-developed ecosystem of resources for users. This will make it easier for you to set up your wallet and find answers if you encounter any problems along the way.
If you're a beginner, consider sticking to cryptocurrencies that satisfy the following criteria:
- The coin has a significant market capitalization ($1 billion and up)
- The coin is listed on many cryptocurrency exchanges and can easily be exchanged against fiat currencies
- The coin has solid liquidity (at least $100 million in 24-hour trading volume)
- The coin is already a working product and is not based on future promises
If you stick to coins that meet these criteria, you'll automatically be filtering out a lot of low-quality projects and reducing your chances of falling victim to scams. You will also easily be able to sell your coins and convert them to fiat currency if you ever decide to do so.
Here's a few examples of cryptocurrencies that are worth considering for beginner investors in crypto. These coins have a lot of liquidity, well-developed ecosystems and a lot of educational resources and toolsthat will help beginners get up to speed.
- Bitcoin
- Ethereum
- Litecoin
- Polygon
- Solana
Please note that cryptocurrencies are risky investments and typically display a lot of price volatility. This is true even for established cryptocurrencies with multi-billion dollar market capitalizations. Never invest more than you are willing to lose.
Best crypto to buy for long-term investors
Many crypto investors prefer to passively hold their cryptocurrencies over the long term instead of actively trading them. Frankly, this is a good decision if you don't want to put a lot of time and effort into following everything that's happening in the crypto and blockchain space.
If you're trying to invest in crypto for the long term, we recommend that you only stick to the most established cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. While they are still risky, their fundamentals are much more robust than projects that heavily depend on just a few developers and community leaders.
In order to invest in crypto successfully over the long term, we recommend that you store your coins safely using a hardware crypto wallet. Although there's plenty of high-quality hardware wallets out there, Ledger's devicesstand out as the best choice overall in our opinion.
How we chose the best cryptocurrencies to buy
With thousands of different cryptocurrencies on the market, it can be challenging to narrow down the list to only about a dozen coins. When creating this list, we aimed to showcase a variety of cryptocurrency projects, ranging from well-established projects to more speculative projects that could potentially have a lot of upside. Here's the factors we considered when deciding which cryptocurrencies to feature.
Availability
It's important for a cryptocurrency to be easily available across a variety ofcryptocurrency exchanges, including both centralized and decentralized options. We also considered whetherthe cryptocurrency can be traded directly against fiat currencies, which makes the process of buying and selling much more straightforward.
Market capitalization
The coins featured on our list of the best cryptocurrencies to buy in 2023 are all among the 100 largest crypto assets by market capitalization. By itself, a large market capitalization doesn't mean that the project is of high quality. However, it is a good indication that there's a lot of community interest in the project, and coins with a larger market cap are more resilient to market manipulation attempts as moving the market requires large amounts of capital.
Sector leadership
The cryptocurrency market can be divided into several sectors. For example, we have Proof-of-Work cryptocurrencies and Proof-of-Stake cryptocurrencies, which represent two of the main approaches towards achieving decentralized consensus. We can further identify other sectors such as decentralized finance, non-fungible tokens, layer 2 projects, meme coins and others.
We attempted to highlight projects that are leaders in their respective sectors in order to showcase the variety that can be found in the crypto and blockchain space.
Working products
It's important that the cryptocurrency we're featuring has a working product already and isn't simply based on future promises. When it comes to cryptocurrencies, we generally avoid highlighting coins that don't have a working mainnet yet. When it comes to tokens, we try to focus on tokens that are used as utility tokens ina working product or as governance tokens in an actively used decentralized protocol.
Occasionally, we will highlight coins that are about to launch their mainnet or key product soon. However, we try to limit this only to top tier projects that are highly anticipated by the crypto community.
Team and development
Most high-quality crypto and blockchain projects are transparent about their team and their credentials. We prefer to highlight projects developed and managed by highly qualified individuals. In addition, we put a lot of value on activity. If a project is being developed actively, we're much more likely to feature it over a project that is only improved occasionally.
Of course, a project's team or founders being anonymous is not a dealbreaker in every single case. After all, we still don't know who created Bitcoin.
The bottom line: What crypto to buy now?
What is the best crypto to buy now is mostly dependent on your own individual risk profile and investment goals. If you are interested in cryptocurrencies that have long-term potential, then staples like BTC and ETH are probably the right choice for you.
If your risk appetite is greater, you can try to pursue investments in cryptos under 1 cent or participate in the latest crypto presales if you are feeling especially frisky.
In any case, please keep in mind that the cryptocurrency market is highly volatile and that investing in cryptocurrency is subject to considerable risk. Always do your research and consider your financial situation before making any investment, and never invest more than you are willing to lose.
