What Are Some Good Cryptos To Invest In

8 Best Cryptocurrencies To Invest In for 2022

Cryptocurrency is digital money that isn’t managed by a central system, like a authorities. Instead, it’due south based on blockchain technology, with Bitcoin existence the well-nigh pop one. Equally digital money continues to gain traction on Wall Street, more and more than options become available. There are currently over 21,000 cryptocurrencies on the marketplace.

Read: 5 Things You Must Do When Your Savings Reach $50,000

While you tin can employ cryptocurrency to make purchases, most people treat it as a long-term investment. However, volatility makes investing in cryptocurrency risky, as demonstrated by this year’s freefall amongst cryptocurrencies, including stablecoins pegged to the U.South. dollar. It’s of import to know what you lot’re getting into earlier you buy in.

That said, these are viii top cryptocurrencies that could prove to exist worthy of investment in 2022.

Top 8 Cryptocurrency Investments in 2022

1. Bitcoin (BTC)

Bitcoin has been around for the longest of any cryptocurrency. Information technology’s piece of cake to come across why it’due south the leader, with a price and market cap that are much higher than any other crypto investment options.

Many businesses already take bitcoin every bit payment, which makes this cryptocurrency a smart investment. Visa, for example, transacts with bitcoin. And later on a four-yr cryptocurrency hiatus, Stripe, through its partnership with OpenNode, allows merchants to settle transactions and catechumen payments to bitcoin. The larger banks have begun to incorporate bitcoin transactions into their offerings, too.

While Tesla accepted bitcoin only briefly, it might again if mining information technology becomes more environmentally friendly. In a step toward that terminate, Blockstream and Cake, formerly known equally Foursquare, are launching a bitcoin mine in Texas that will be fully powered by Tesla’southward solar assortment and Megapack battery, CNBC reported on Apr viii.

Bitcoin as well got a boost in May, when the Luna Foundation Guard announced information technology would make $1.5 billion in loans denominated by bitcoin and terra USD to stabilize the latter, Fortune reported. Likewise, the investment firm VanEck seeks to establish a bitcoin exchange-traded fund. The Securities and Exchange Commission denied the company’s first application and has delayed rendering a decision on the company’s latest application. Information regarding the outcome has not notwithstanding been released.

A decision on some other bitcoin spot ETF, this i from ARK 21Shares, has a Jan. 27, 2023 deadline.

Risks of Investing In Bitcoin

The value of bitcoin tends to fluctuate a lot. You may see the price go upward or down thousands of dollars during whatever calendar month. That certainly has been true then far this year, every bit bitcoin prices have correlated to the Nasdaq, as CNBC reported, challenging previous assumptions that bitcoin would serve as a hedge confronting inflation.

Bitcoin besides reacted strongly to the collapse of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange. Withal, United States Article Futures Trading Commission head Rostin Behnam called bitcoin the merely cryptocurrency asset that can be considered a commodity in the wake of the collapse, Cointelegraph reported.

If wild fluctuations like these make you nervous, you may want to avert bitcoin. Otherwise, equally long every bit y’all keep in mind that cryptocurrency could be a smart long-term investment, these fluctuations shouldn’t be besides concerning.

Another reason to reconsider investing in bitcoin is its price. With a unmarried bitcoin costing over $20,000 prior to the FTX collapse and hovering around $16,000 since, most people can’t afford to purchase whole bitcoins. For investors who want to avoid buying a fraction of a bitcoin, this is a negative.

2. Ethereum (ETH)

Ethereum is a network that allows developers to create their ain cryptocurrency and deploy smart contracts utilizing the network. While ethereum is far behind bitcoin in value, information technology’s also far ahead of the other competitors.

Fifty-fifty though it came out years after another cryptocurrencies, it has far exceeded its identify in the market place because of its unique technology. It’due south currently the about popular blockchain and the 2d-largest cryptocurrency behind bitcoin.

It stands to gain even more footing now that an upgrade nicknamed “The Merge” has fully deployed. The September upgrade shifted Ethereum to a proof-of-stake-based consensus that will reduce the number of coins and has rendered mining obsolete.

The Merge has drastically reduced Ethereum’south energy consumption. ETH prices increased past about fifty% during the last two weeks of July in apprehension of the upgrade, Fortune reported, but they dropped in August, when previously announced launch dates passed.

Although ether doesn’t have the widespread acceptance bitcoin does, traditional companies are coming on board. Fidelity, for example, is bulking upwardly its tech workforce to create the infrastructure needed to offer ethereum custody and trading services to its customers, The Wall Street Periodical reported.

Risks of Investing In Ethereum

Although The Merge vastly improved Ethereum’s energy efficiency, it didn’t resolve slow transaction speeds or loftier gas fees. The platform currently has just ane “lane” for conducting transactions. This tin can lead to transactions taking longer to process when the network is overloaded. Transaction fees are likewise high. For improvement at that place, users must wait for Ethereum to implement “sharding,” which CoinDesk describes equally existence similar adding lanes to a highway.

Some take grown tired of waiting. The Dydx cryptocurrency derivatives exchange, for example, is moving to its own blockchain.

3. Binance Coin (BNB)

After years of relatively level prices, at to the lowest degree past cryptocurrency standards, binance coin took off at the showtime of 2021, surging from about $38 on Jan. 1 of that year to an all-time high of $683 in May.

Because of its operation over fourth dimension , binance coin has proven to be one of the more stable investment options — relatively speaking . It’southward the native token on Binance, which is the world’southward largest cryptocurrency exchange, according to CoinMarketCap — and on Binance.US, the version U.S. residents must use. But despite its extensive functionality and the coin’due south success in Binance sub-projects, binance money is still a highly volatile investment.

1 thing working in BNB’s favor is that Binance burns, or destroys, coins once per quarter. The most contempo burn, which took place on Oct. 13 and reduced the coin supply by over 2 meg tokens — nearly $600 million worth — didn’t affect prices in the short term, but managing the number of tokens tin take a positive issue over time by creating scarcity. BNB has a total supply of 200 one thousand thousand coins, lxxx% of which are circulating.

It’s worth noting that Binance has taken a leading office in stabilizing the crypto industry post-obit the collapse of the FTX exchange. It has devoted $i billion to a recovery fund established to keep struggling players afloat, CNBC reported.

Risks of Investing In Binance Coin

Although binance coin’s position as the native cryptocurrency on the world’due south largest exchange “legitimizes” information technology in some respects, information technology likewise makes the currency specially vulnerable to regulatory problems — issues probable to rut up equally a upshot of the FTX bankruptcy. BNB lost 7.3% of its value in June when news bankrupt of a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into whether Binance followed proper procedures in its 2017 initial coin offering, Fortune reported.

4. Cardano (ADA)

The Cardano network has a smaller footprint, which is highly-seasoned to investors for several reasons. It takes less energy to consummate a transaction on Cardano than on a larger network like Bitcoin. This ways transactions are faster and cheaper.

Last year, Cardano launched a “difficult fork,” an upgrade that increased functionality — in this instance, enabling smart contract deployment. Another hard fork, this one called Vasil, launched on Sept. 22 and should ameliorate the Cardano blockchain’s scalability, Mint reported.

Cardano recently launched a test version of a platform chosen AdaSwap where developers can build decentralized finance apps. AdaSwap could elevate Cardano’s status equally a Web3 network and drive upwards the price of its coin. While the coin is No. nine in terms of market value, Cardano’due south non-fungible-token protocol is the world’s third largest, according to Forbes.

Risks of Investing In Cardano

Even with a amend network and the increased functionality smart contracts provide, cardano may not be able to compete with larger cryptocurrencies. Fewer adopters mean fewer developers. This isn’t appealing to most investors, who want to see a high adoption charge per unit.

The platform has large plans, such as launching an incubator that would help Africa reach its potential every bit a major economy, merely information technology remains to be seen whether it can live upward to that potential.

Communication

Don’t exist discouraged by fluctuations in the market. Your investment may lose coin one day and make a profit the next. Instead of getting defenseless up in the day-to-day changes, look at the big flick.

v. Polygon (MATIC)

Polygon was created past a development team that fabricated significant contributions to the Ethereum blockchain platform. Polygon is designed for Ethereum scaling and infrastructure evolution, according to CoinMarketCap. Every bit a “layer two” solution, information technology expands Ethereum into a multi-chain organization, improving transaction and verification speed.

Polygon has backing from the Binance and Coinbase cryptocurrency exchanges. Its token, MATIC, is used for payment services, transaction fees and as a settlement currency.

On July twenty, Polygon announced in a press release that it had launched Polygon zkEVM, “the first Ethereum-equivalent scaling solution that works seamlessly with all existing smart contracts, developer tools and wallets.” It does this with a type of cryptography called zero-knowledge proofs, which lower transaction costs and increment throughput.

Polygon currently hosts over 37,000 decentralized applications, including some from companies similar Meta and Stripe — virtually a 400% increase since the outset of the year, according to a tweet from the Polygon Twitter business relationship. In improver, Polygon fully supports the tether stablecoin, which could contribute to the network’s hereafter growth. Another plus is its investment in carbon neutrality, which occasionally has prompted cost rallies.

Risks of Investing In Polygon

Late final year, Polygon disclosed that it had patched a vulnerability that put nigh $20 million worth of its coins at adventure, CoinDesk reported. A hacker discovered the exploit and notified Polygon, which had a fix in place within two days. However, black-lid hackers had already stolen over 800,000 tokens, leaving Polygon on the hook for about $1.four 1000000.

6. Terra 2.0 (LUNA)

The Terra Classic blockchain used stablecoins — that is, coins pegged to fiat currencies such every bit the U.Due south. dollar, Due south Korean won and the International Monetary Fund’s Special Cartoon Rights currencies — to power global payment systems, according to CoinMarketCap. Its native coin, now using the symbol LUNC, stabilized the prices of the blockchain’south stablecoins.

However, terra crashed and burned in early on May, spurred by stablecoin volatility and overall skittishness in cryptocurrency markets, halting the cryptocurrency’southward strong year and driving some crypto platforms into bankruptcy.

Afterward the crash, Terra rebranded the original network as Terra Classic (LUNC) and launched Terra two.0 (LUNA), a new blockchain without an algorithmic stablecoin, in an effort to stabilize the Terra ecosystem and help investors who lost money recoup some of their investment. LUNC coins trade separately from the LUNA coins that come up with Terra 2.0.

Risks of Investing In Terra 2.0

The launch of Terra 2.0 was a controversial motion, and industry watchers are undecided over its long-term viability. That said, several new projects accept already launched on the new network, and its native money may be worth watching if you accept a high tolerance for risk.

Good To Know

LUNC wasn’t Terraform Labs CEO Do Kwon’s first failed stablecoin. Basis cash, a coin he launched on Ethereum in 2020, never reached parity with the U.S. dollar, CoinDesk reported. Its price was about $0.0041 on Dec. 1.

7. Barrage (AVAX)

Avalanche is a relatively new “layer one” blockchain — a blockchain that improves the base protocol to brand the system more scalable, as Binance described information technology. It was founded as an Ethereum competitor past Ava Labs and reckoner scientists at Cornell University, i of whom, onetime professor Emin Gün Sirer, is a veteran in cryptographic enquiry, according to CoinMarketCap.

Barrage’due south three individual blockchains can validate transactions independently. This makes Avalanche scalable and able to handle large volumes of transactions — upwardly to half-dozen,500 per second. As a upshot, information technology’s increasingly popular among Ethereum projects, U.S. News reported.

Every bit for the money itself, Bloomberg reported on Apr vii that barrage crush out ether every bit Terra’s reserve currency for its own UST stablecoin. Luna Foundation Guard, the nonprofit system that supports Terra, intended to learn $100 million worth of avalanche equally office of that initiative.

AVAX began trading in 2020, in a 24-hour initial coin offer. Its price has fluctuated from a low of $11.49 to a high of $127.42 over the past year. Equally of Dec. ane, the coin trades for $13.xx.

Risks of Investing In Barrage

Sirer introduced the cryptocurrency via a white newspaper in 2018. Its launch took identify in 2020. With such a short history, avalanche doesn’t have a track record for comparison, making it a riskier investment for potential buyers.

viii. Chainlink (LINK)

Chainlink uses a decentralized oracle network to facilitate secure interactions between blockchains and external data feeds, events and payment methods the developers hope will allow smart contracts to go the dominant grade of digital payment, according to CoinMarketCap.

One thing working in Chainlink’s favor is a strategic partnership with Google under which Google uses Chainlink’southward protocol to connect users to its cloud services, Benzinga reported.

Chainlink is also the choice for the new inflation index from decentralized finance visitor Truflation, congenital to serve equally an culling to the Consumer Price Index. Whereas the CPI measures inflation using survey data, Truflation’due south index uses cost data with the CPI’s calculation model, CoinDesk reported. The Truflation alphabetize is designed to be more than authentic, more than transparent and more resistant to censorship than the CPI.

Chainlink Labs’ advisors include quondam Google CEO Eric Schmidt, DocuSign founder Tom Gonser and former LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner.

Risks of Investing In Chainlink

Despite its proven utility and back up from major players, chainlink has experienced the aforementioned kind of volatility every bit other cryptocurrencies. Its price dropped from about $twenty on Jan. 1 to about $seven.50 by December. 1.

Communication

Don’t settle on whatsoever number of cryptocurrency investments without continuing to learn virtually the market. A new cryptocurrency network could easily climb the ranks and sally as a leader higher up other platforms. As an investor, the smartest thing you can do is to stay abreast of market happenings.

Rating the Top Cryptocurrency Choices

Run a quick online search and you’ll find dozens of recommendations for how to invest in cryptocurrency. In choosing the superlative viii picks, the post-obit factors were considered.

Longevity

How long has the cryptocurrency been around? New cryptocurrencies aren’t immediately ruled out, just having historical data for comparison helps you run across how a company has performed upwards until now.

Track Tape

How has the company performed during its years in business? If you see stability in prices, that’s a good sign. If you discover that the cryptocurrency is gaining traction and becoming more valuable with time, that’s even meliorate.

Good To Know

Past performance is non indicative of future performance. At any fourth dimension things can change, and an investment may perform better or worse than information technology has in the past.

Technology

How does the platform compare to others in terms of usability and security? The first thing you want to await for is the speed at which transactions occur. The network should be able to handle transaction traffic with ease.

You also want to make certain your investment is secure. Most cryptocurrencies utilise blockchain engineering, making all transactions transparent and easy to track. Blockchain technology doesn’t necessarily brand information technology harder for hackers to steal your cryptocurrency. It does make it easier to rails your investment so it tin be recovered instead of beingness lost post-obit fraud.

Adoption Rate

How many people are investing in the cryptocurrency you’re considering? When you lot see a high level of adoption, that means the cryptocurrency has better liquidity. Trading, selling or spending will exist easier in the future.

Last Take

There’s no question almost it: Cryptocurrencies are hither to stay. The question becomes, where is the best place to invest your money in the market?

Every bit y’all determine which cryptocurrency is the best investment for you, here are some other things to keep in mind:

• The speed at which transactions are completed
• The fees associated with transacting
• The ability to utilise your cryptocurrency for regular purchases and bank transfers

If you’re strictly looking to invest without transacting within the network, remember that cryptocurrency isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme. Instead, yous should consider information technology a long-term investment.

GOBankingRates’ Crypto Guides

• What Is Cardano? (ADA)
• What Is Bitcoin Greenbacks? (BCH)
• What Is Chainlink? (LINK)
• What Is Dogecoin? (DOGE)
• What Is Litecoin? (LTC)
• What Is Polkadot? (DOT)
• What Is Ripple? (XRP)
• What Is Stellar? (XLM)
• What Is Tether? (USDT)

Daria Uhlig contributed to the reporting for this article.

Data is accurate as of Dec. 1, 2022, and is subject field to change.