Cryptocurrency investing is a lot of things, including rewarding, exciting, and risky. The market is highly volatile, and in fact, the last two years have seen it become more volatile than ever, first due to COVID-19, then due to people turning to it as a safe haven, and then finally, due to a correction caused by a massive spike up.
This is why some people tend to turn to investing, rather than trading cryptocurrencies. Investors who believe that a certain coin can survive the test of time and thrive over the string of several years tend to invest a larger amount into digital coins, lock them up in their wallet, and simply wait for months or even years until the price grows enough that cashing out would have a notable effect on their wealth.
With that said, it is crucial to choose the right coin for your investment, as buying the wrong one could end up costing you not only your profit, but also a major portion of your initial investment. This is why we have made the following list of cryptocurrencies that we believe are worth considering and investing in, as they have either proved their resilience to the test of time, or have the technology that is bound to ensure their survival, and they are not simply popular due to short-term hype.
1. Bitcoin
Bitcoin is by far the safest investment if you aim to go for a long-term investment. It is the world’s first and oldest cryptocurrency, the one that inspired the creation of every other coin out there to this day. It is also the biggest brand in crypto, and the most dominant digital asset, holding as much of a market share as all other cryptos combined.
While the original intention of Bitcoin’s creator, the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto, was to offer BTC as the global currency and allow people to use it for making payments, the coin’s limited technology prevents it from achieving this goal. However, its value, reputation, transparency, immutability, limited supply, and other qualities make it ideal for becoming the next version of gold.
As a result, we — as well as many financial experts — believe that Bitcoin will, in fact, continue its rise in following years, and that this makes it an excellent investment right now.
To learn more visit our Investing in Bitcoin guide.
2. Ethereum
Just like on any marketplace, Ethereum holds second place on our list. Not only is it the second-largest coin by market cap, but it is also the second most important coin that was ever created. About six years after Bitcoin’s launch, Ethereum emerged and changed the crypto industry forever.
The project did it by introducing smart contracts — a product that allowed the creation of all other products and trends that came after it. Thanks to Ethereum, people stopped focusing so much on cryptocurrencies, and more on the blockchain itself, as a development platform. In the years that followed, Ethereum has given birth to dApps, token models, stablecoins, NFTs, DeFi, the metaverse, and more, significantly enriching the crypto industry and showing that the use cases of blockchain are near-infinite.
This also largely affected the adoption of blockchain technology around the world, and it nullified any arguments of crypto/blockchain only being used by hackers and scammers. It gave it real value, and allowed it to become what it is today.
To learn more visit our Investing in Ethereum guide.
3. Cardano
In the third spot, we have Cardano. This is a project that was created by one of the developers who previously worked on Ethereum itself – Charles Hoskinson. However, Hoskinson was not satisfied with the way Ethereum was designed, especially due to its inability to scale, which led to massive transaction fees and long waiting periods for transaction processing.
Hoskinson moved on and founded Cardano — a new blockchain that is more technologically advanced than Ethereum in every way. Cardano’s scalability is extremely high, and the project can process massive numbers of transactions per second. Furthermore, it has all the qualities of Ethereum, including decentralization, immutability, a loyal community, and alike.
Cardano split its development into 5 Eras, and so far, only two have been completed. The second one was finished in October 2021, and it introduced smart contracts to Cardano’s network. The network then exploded with projects and development which placed it on the road to becoming one of Ethereum’s competitors. And since this was only the second of 5 phases that Cardano is supposed to go through in total, we definitely expect to see a lot more growth in every possible way from the project.
To learn more visit our Investing in Cardano guide.
4. Solana
Halfway down the list, we have Solana. Like Cardano, Solana was invented to offer a more scalable and technologically more advanced system than what Ethereum has to offer, and so far — it succeeded. Of course, Solana is still far behind Ethereum when it comes to the diversity and popularity of its ecosystem, but thanks to cheap transactions, fast processing speeds and other qualities that it has, it has been attracting developers and users at a rapid rate.
It is too early to say whether or not Solana could ever take Ethereum’s spot, but given the information available to us now, we can say with certainty that the project certainly has a bright future ahead.
Solana has already attracted a number of projects that left Ethereum due to its high gas fees, and it is also working on achieving interoperability. With Web 3.0 in the making, Solana could easily become one of the most important projects in the crypto industry.
To learn more visit our Investing in Solana guide.
5. Decentraland
Moving on to the fifth spot, we have Decentraland. Decentraland has been around for years, but over the last six months, it started attracting a massive amount of interest. This is due to the fact that it is one of the oldest and best-developed metaverse projects out there, and with metaverse being the latest major trend in crypto, Decentraland has seen a great spike in the amount of popularity and interest.
The project allows users to purchase digital plots of land, each of which is tied to an NFT. By purchasing the NFTs, users are becoming the owners of the land, and they can use it for the development of pretty much anything, for organizing events, playing or building their own games, and more.
Users can even rent their land to others, and make a deal to receive rent in exchange. Projects like Decentraland have also seen an increased amount of interest due to the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic is still ongoing, and there are still strict rules in place to reduce its spreading. As a result, meetups and gatherings of various groups are still not allowed in a lot of places, but that does not include the digital world.
To learn more visit our Investing in Decentraland guide.
6. Binance Coin
Nearing the end of our list, we have Binance Coin. This is the native cryptocurrency of Binance, the world’s largest centralized crypto exchange by trading volume. Binance Coin has been receiving plenty of new use cases over the last several years, and as a result, the demand for it would surge. At the same time, Binance has been organizing regular token burnings which also significantly contributed to the growing demand and reduced supply.
Binance owns two blockchains now, with one of them being its original one, while the other was developed for DeFi, NFTs, and other products that are in high demand. Meanwhile, doing anything on these chains, or even buying new tokens on Binance Launchpad requires the use of BNB.
And, while it is true that the exchange had its fair share of troubles with the authorities in 2021, it is still the dominant platform, and it is likely to remain at that position in the future.
To learn more visit our Investing in Binance Coin guide.
7. Dogecoin
Lastly, we have Dogecoin. This is a popular cryptocurrency that doesn’t really have any particular use case. DOGE was created back in 2013 as a joke, and as such, it became the first memecoin. At the time, even its developers expected it to simply survive for a few weeks, or maybe months, and then slowly fade away. However, against all expectations, the coin became quite popular and it managed to stick around in the higher sections of the crypto industry.
Then, in 2021, it skyrocketed until it outperformed some of the best and most technologically impressive projects that have “real” use cases and that are helping with improving the world. This sparked the creation of an entire memecoin trend, which DOGE still leads to date.
Despite Dogecoin not having real use cases, it is a funny, humorous coin, which is something that investors can appreciate. It also has a loyal community that hyped it up and kept it alive for nearly a decade now, which gives us hope that DOGE will remain popular and high-ranking for quite a while longer.
To learn more visit our Investing in Dogecoin guide.
Conclusion
The cryptocurrency industry is huge, and at the time of writing, it has over 18,330 live projects. However, the ones that grow to the top are typically doing something better than the others. That doesn’t mean that they might not be replaced by some newly-launched coin, once it catches the eye of investors. However, with the information available right now, these are some of the best projects for long-term investments, thanks to their potential to change or improve the world.
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