There are about 3000 different cryptocurrencies on the market and it can be really difficult to choose a worthy one. Hundreds of projects have failed to revive after cryptowinter. You can see this with NEM, StEEM, Statis, etc.
When choosing the best cryptocurrency to buy, you should consider a project’s development prospects, the quality of the team behind an asset and how large and active its community is. We decided to pick out the best cryptocurrencies for you to hold now. All the projects reviewed below check out in terms of the criteria above and have high trading volumes so it won’t be a problem for you to buy them.
Bitcoin
Bitcoin still abides as the number one cryptocurrency. As the first crypto it has become the equivalent of digital gold. The disputes about its value aren’t gonna stop. Bitcoin is relevant today and currently serves as the litmus test for all cryptocurrency markets. The market is dependent on BTC and when Bitcoin goes up almost every altcoin goes up with it. Interest in Bitcoin is still high and can be explained by several factors:
- It’s historic maximum was $20,000 and the total amount of individual coins is limited, meaning that the price can only increase when the demand grows.
- People expect the BTC price to rise after the halving in 2020. Throughout its short history Bitcoin has experienced halving only twice and each time the coin’s price significantly increased.
- The financial infrastructure around Bitcoin is growing. Previously, the industry was focused on the retail consumer and working to provide BTC payment gateways, PoS terminals, etc. Today BTC is seen as a store of value which attracts a lot of institutional traders – 22% of them already own digital assets and another 40% are planning to acquire other cryptocurrency. This has led to industry players creating regulated exchanges such as Bakkt to facilitate this.
Litecoin
If Bitcoin is above your pay grade and you want something cheaper, take a look at Litecoin. Litecoin was created by Charlie Lee and was designed to improve some of Bitcoin drawbacks.
- The most important factor affecting the price of Litecoin is that LTC is a fork of Bitcoin. Their code is very similar – that makes both coins move in the same direction, so their price behavior is very similar. If BTC will grow – Litecoin will follow.
- Litecoin is one of the best cryptocurrencies in terms of willingness to adapt and upgrade to newer technology. The dev team was the first to integrate the SegWit protocol and Atomic swap as well as the Lightning Network – a groundbreaking protocol which significantly increases speed for micro transactions in the blockchain.
- Litecoin works as a payment tool today. The cryptocurrency is widely used by various businesses, merchants and services all over the world. You can buy clothes, furniture, beauty and health services with Litecoin. More places accepting LTC can also have a positive effect on the rate of the cryptocurrency.
Ethereum
The creation of Vitalik Buterin – Ethereum is the second largest cryptocurrency today. Unlike Bitcoin, ETH doesn’t have a limited supply and each year the equivalent of about 10% of the overall supply is added in the form of newly issued coins. Here are the main factors behind the success of the project:
- The launch of Ethereum 2.0. The team plans to launch a network update in 2020, which will allow miners to participate in staking due to the appearance of mining in the PoS protocol. This update will reduce issuance to 2.5% and will encourage the removal of ether from free circulation for long-term storage.
- The power behind Crypto Economics. Keep in mind that Ethereum facilitates the DApp ecosystem. This means that millions of developers and companies need ETH to release their smart contracts, launch their own decentralized applications and pay commissions.
- A huge team of professionals. Despite his young age, Vitalik has proven himself to be a true expert in cryptography. His professionalism helped him to attract thousands of developers from around the world. Today the Ethereum Foundation is one of the largest crypto dev communities in the world.
Binance Coin
Utility tokens are experiencing a second life and becoming really popular on exchange platforms. One of the largest is BNB by the Binance exchange. Binance Coin is an altcoin that has shown steady growth throughout its existence. It is one of the fastest growing cryptocurrencies in 2019 and there are several reasons for this:
- The main driver of the coin’s growth is the correctly calculated tokenomics of the Binance platform. Using this coin, users can pay trade commissions on the Binance exchange, receive discounts and participate in IEOs.
- Every quarter Binance burns a small percentage of Binance coins limiting the supply of BNB. As a result, ultimately only half of the original amount of BNB (100 mln. coins) will be left.
- Binance coin is one of the most liquid crypto assets today. The trading volume of the currency is constantly growing.
- The exchange platform is actively acquiring new markets and thereby expanding its user base. In 2019 they opened new divisions in the USA, South Korea and Russia providing access to their platform and BNB coins to new users.
LINK
LINK cryptocurrency by Chainlink was a surprise in 2019. Starting the year worth less than a dollar, the coin managed to jump to $4 in the middle of the year.
- The project boasts an impressive list of partners including Celer, Harmony, Hedera Hashgraph, Matic, Ocean Protocol, Synthetix, Zilliqa. The Google Cloud team uses Chainlink technology in their product. So it’s not really a surprise that LINK is getting so much attention in the crypto community.
- Chainlink continues to evolve and in the near future the devs will integrate staking. The holders will be able to stake their coins to help the platform and earn more LINK.
- One more thing that community is looking forward to are more integrations with DeFi (Decentralized Finance) products like Aave – the creators of the “flash-loan”. They’ve partnered with ChainLink to integrate their technology into the Aave oracle network. If you don’t know what DeFi is, check our blog post on the trends of 2020.
TRON
The main aim of the TRON cryptocurrency is to create an ecosystem for entertainment content on blockchain. Any user can distribute videos, pictures, music etc. in the TRON network. The content will be shared and stored in a decentralized manner without depending on a single server and users can pay content creators with TRX cryptocurrency.
- The PR machine behind the TRON project knows no chill. TRON founder Justin Sun is a regular at cryptocurrency conferences and meetups. He is constantly in media headlines and doesn’t miss any opportunities to promote his project.
- The project is focused on the entertainment sector – one of the largest industries out there with a trillion dollar market turnover. Some experts note that the entertainment market is looking at decentralized databases and considering transferring business processes to the blockchain. To achieve this they need ready-made solutions, and Tron could become one of those solutions.
- TRON is famous for its high volatility. Thanks to energetic and eccentric Justin, it is likely that we will see this coin rise and fall several more times. I
makes sense to get TRON into a portfolio, and then sell it once it climbs back on top in the future.
VET
VET is the cryptocurrency of the VeChain project from Asia that focuses on the supply chain industry. VeChain is one of the most promising cryptocurrency projects nowadays with a solid technological base and a lot of partnerships.
- The project has a list of impressive partnerships and supporters. Among the most notable are Walmart China, PwC, Fanghuwang and BYD. These are Chinese companies which will use VeChain technology to improve their products.
- One more thing which has increased faith in the project is that VeCahin is supported by Tim Draper. Draper is one of the biggest Silicon Valley figures that has invested in Tesla, Twitter, Coinbase, Skype and Twitch.
Final thoughts
How to spot the right cryptocurrency for you? It should have high liquidity, stable price growth, prospects for further development of its ecosystem and a good reputation.
Please remember that cryptocurrencies are highly volatile assets. Don’t forget to do your own research and remember to buy no more than you can afford to lose.
Disclaimer: This article should not be considered financial advice and serves only as informative material. The cryptocurrency market is subject to high volatility and regulatory uncertainty. You should do a substantial amount of research before engaging in financial activities with cryptocurrencies.