6 best cryptocurrencies to buy:
1. Bitcoin (BTC): the cryptocurrency par excellence
It needs no introduction, it was the first cryptocurrency and it dominates the market in terms of capitalization. It is currently trading at 29,831.70. Anyone considering investing in cryptocurrencies should reserve a portion of their portfolio for Bitcoin .
It is currently the cryptocurrency with the greatest stability in its price, as many investment funds, companies and large investors have bought large amounts. The irruption of large investors has provided a lot of stability in its price and has reduced its volatility, being today the most conservative option for any investor .
Bitcoin is displacing gold as a refuge value , as explained by the investment bank JP Morgan . Indeed, the American bank believes that there is already a considerable flow of money flowing from gold to Bitcoin , and that this phenomenon will increase as the years go by.
There is a certain consensus among financial analysts and investors when it comes to placing the price of Bitcoin above $100,000 in a relatively short period of time. The Stock to Flow mathematical model , which has so far managed to forecast the price of Bitcoin with great accuracy, places its price at $288,000 in the next growth cycle.
2. Ethereum (ETH): the revolution of decentralized applications and smart contracts
Ethereum is the second largest cryptocurrency in terms of market capitalization and its appearance represented a true revolution in the world of cryptocurrencies . It is currently trading at 1,795.35.
Vitalik Buterin, the creator of Ethereum, realized that the blockchain that supports cryptocurrencies and acts as an unalterable ledger could be used for more purposes.
He saw that he could use the entire vast network of computers that make up the block chain (or blockchain) to store information and run applications in a decentralized way .
Until then, applications worked – and continue to work – running on a computer, on a server or, in the best of cases, on a finite number of servers. However, decentralized applications (DApps) that run on the blockchain run on an indeterminate number of machines, are capable of replicating themselves, cannot be altered or manipulated … They are the future, simply put.
At the same time, Ethereum also incorporated smart contracts or smart contracts. As the name suggests, they are contracts written in a programming language that are stored and executed on the blockchain . They do not require the intermediation of third parties, they are unalterable and all the participating parties obtain absolute transparency.
The union of decentralized applications with smart contracts is creating a real revolution that could be even bigger than Bitcoin . The possibilities are literally endless: decentralized financial applications such as banks or exchange houses, buy-sell markets, video games, loan platforms between individuals, betting platforms, social networks, dating platforms, etc. can be and are being created.
With the imminent arrival of Ethereum 2.0, this promising cryptocurrency is expected to solve some of the bottlenecks and limitations that it is currently experiencing, and its price could predictably reflect these improvements, reaching new all-time highs.
3. Solana (SOL): A Fearsome Ethereum Competitor
Solana is currently trading at 0.2255 and is the seventh cryptocurrency in market capitalization at the time of publishing this article.
It is one of the cryptocurrencies that has experienced the greatest growth this year (14,000%, yes fourteen thousand percent) and is positioning itself as a firm competitor of Ethereum.
A few lines above we said that Ethereum is experiencing certain bottlenecks that limit the scalability of its applications and increase transaction costs. Due to this, several cryptocurrencies have appeared that claim to solve these problems and offer a better solution than Ethereum.
Solana is the most successful of them.
And he has reasons to do so. Solana has incorporated interesting innovations such as a hybrid consensus mechanism, which makes use of Proof of Stake and Proof of History , and which allows it to be much more efficient and scalable than Ethereum.
Proof of this is that although the Solana blockchain is still in beta version, it already has more than 400 decentralized applications that make use of its infrastructure, some of which have migrated from Ethereum.
Solana is challenging Ethereum and could dramatically increase her dominance if Ethereum doesn't fix its limitations. From the point of view of the cryptocurrency investor, we find it to be a great addition and a purchase with good potential.
4. Cardano (ADA): A cryptocurrency based on academic research
Cardano is currently the third largest cryptocurrency by market cap, trading at 0.5602.
As in the case of Solana, Cardano also intends to establish itself as a direct competitor to Ethereum . And, although at a theoretical level Cardano promises a lot, in practice it only has 66 DApps that are testing its blockchain, which is still in the process of implementing decentralized applications and smart contracts.
The Cardano cryptocurrency has its origins in academia . It was created by Charles Hoskinson, a mathematician and one of the founding fathers of Ethereum. Its consensus mechanism is based on Proof of Stake , a validation method to which many cryptocurrencies are migrating and which allows low energy consumption and remarkable scalability.
All Cardano innovations are subject to academic protocols (such as "peer review"). Cardano will supposedly allow enormous scalability, security, stability and interoperability between different blockchains.
We speak in the future because for practical purposes Cardano has not yet released its Goguen update to the public, which will be the one that allows the execution of decentralized applications and smart contracts at the production level.
In other words, Cardano promises a lot on paper, but for practical purposes it remains to be seen if its ecosystem and technology will live up to its promises . The Goguen update is expected to roll out this October, so we won't have to wait long.
5. Polygon (MATIC): A cryptocurrency powered by its real applications
Polygon is currently trading at 0.597 and is ranked 21st in market cap.
So far this year it has experienced a growth of more than 7,000% due to the undoubted real applications it offers . Polygon was created to solve problems, and it does just that efficiently and easily.
Polygon is a cryptocurrency of the so-called layer 2 (that is, layer 2) and works entirely on Ethereum . While the cryptocurrencies we have seen above intend to compete with Ethereum, Polygon is allied with it to improve its technology.
Indeed, Polygon is a cryptocurrency that works on the Ethereum blockchain, making it more scalable, faster, interoperable and drastically lowering its transaction costs.
Polygon has a blockchain based on Proof of Stake that works on top of the Ethereum blockchain. Its mechanism is quite difficult to explain, but roughly it accumulates transactions on its own blockchain to transmit them only when it has a large batch of them to the main Ethereum blockchain . In this way, the transactions are immediate (as they are instantly registered in the Polygon blockchain) and extremely cheap (as they share the transaction costs of the Ethereum network with thousands of other operations).
What is most important about Polygon is that the Ethereum ecosystem itself has amply validated its usefulness: over 1,200 decentralized applications have left the Ethereum network to migrate to the Polygon blockchain.
It may be that the future of decentralized applications is a scenario where several layer 2 blockchains run on top of the Ethereum blockchain. It's a plausible scenario, and if it happens you're going to wish you bought Polygon in time.
6. Uniswap (UNI): The cryptocurrency of the largest decentralized exchange
Uniswap is currently trading at 14.70 and is ranked 12th by market cap.
Uniswap is the largest decentralized exchange (DEX) out there.
Within the decentralized applications, there are those that are included in the financial field, the so-called DeFi ( Decentralized Finances ). Although this type of application is generally in a fairly early stage of development, we can find more than a hundred decentralized exchanges that are quite successful among the specialized public.
These decentralized exchanges, called DEXs, are still quite difficult for the average user to use and are often used to maintain anonymity or to buy very minority cryptocurrencies.
However, they are gaining popularity and transaction volume with each passing day , and it is expected that in the future they will compete directly against traditional and centralized exchange houses.
Of all the decentralized exchanges, there is one that has long held the first position in terms of popularity and trading volume: Uniswap, an ERC20 token exchange.
Uniswap has introduced exciting innovations in the DEX industry through its liquidity pool liquidity management and Automated Market Making (AMM) protocols.
It is expected that Uniswap will continue to maintain a leading position in the DEX sector in the coming years and that the sector as such will continue to experience remarkable growth. It is worth mentioning that DEX still have many threads to tie and the risks they face are not few. Currently they do not require any type of identification from the client, something that can lead to serious legal consequences from governments and international regulators, as has already happened in some cases.
That is to say, we consider that it is a risky bet but with great potential . That is why if you decide to invest in this cryptocurrency, we recommend that you occupy a small portion of your portfolio.