This guide will present you with the top 25 cryptocurrencies you should know this year. It doesn't matter if you are investing or trading cryptocurrencies or not.
In one way or another, you will hear about them this year because these cryptocurrencies are set to disrupt the current financial system as we know it. So it doesn't matter if you want to invest in them and make an excellent return on your funds or if you want to stay on the fence.
Here are the top 25 cryptocurrencies you will hear more about.
What are the best cryptocurrencies?
In 2020, several reputable financial institutions had already recognized crypto's potential. To give you several examples: JP Morgan started banking Coinbase and Gemini. Visa and Mastercard provided services to crypto companies, and PayPal launched a new service, enabling users to buy, sell, and hold cryptocurrencies. Fidelity started a new Bitcoin index fund, which appears to be Wall Street’s latest play for high-dollar institutional crypto bets. But there are more than 7,000 cryptocurrencies on the market today.
With such a broad range of cryptocurrencies, how do investors know the best cryptocurrency? From the most popular cryptocurrencies making headlines worldwide to lesser-known digital currencies you may never have heard of, here are the best cryptocurrencies to buy.
Do you have thought that I would start with Bitcoin? Well...no. I think Ethereum is going to boom in 2024. Continue reading to find out why.
1. Ethereum (ETH)
- Market Cap: $353B
- Established: 2015
- Transfer Cost: $12
- 1Y return: 655%
- ETH Website
- ETH on CoinGeko
Vitalik Buterin created Ethereum and went live on July 20, 2015. It aims to utilize a blockchain to replace third web parties — those who store information, transfer mortgages, and monitor complicated financial instruments.
The team developing Ethereum has started implementing a series of upgrades called Ethereum 2.0, which includes a transition to proof of stake and increased transaction throughput using sharding.
What is Ethereum - Complete Guide
Ethereum blockchain network has always been preferred for decentralized applications (dApps). In addition to its native cryptocurrency, Ether (ETH), the platform supports other crypto platforms such as Uniswap (UNI), Maker (MKR), and Aave (AAVE), which are active in the decentralized finance sector. DeFi is considered one of the fastest-growing crypto trends, transforming insurance, loans, and savings programs, making them independent from banks and other centralized financial institutions.
What is Ethereum, and how to use it? [Complete Beginners Guide]
2. Bitcoin (BTC)
- Market Cap: $752B
- Established: 2009
- Transfer Cost: $15
- 1Y return: 350%
- BTC website
- BTC on CoinGeko
Bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency invented. It was released by someone called Satoshi Nakamoto. We don't know if this person exists or is just a pseudonym. According to this article, Satoshi's BTC account holds 1,148,00 bitcoins, which should be around 46 billion USD in today's money, but the coins have never been moved and keep adding up.
Bitcoin is still the 1st cryptocurrency with a 748 billion USD market cap and a daily transaction volume of 70 billion USD. Today (February 17), for the first time in its history, 1BTC was traded for $51K.
Being the main entrance door for people in the cryptocurrency market and the most known cryptocurrencies will make it relevant for years. But in my opinion, its importance will continue to fade as better blockchain systems appear. We can mention the high transaction fees, low transaction volume (up to 7 per second), and the high energy costs to mine it as downsides.
3. Cardano (ADA)
- Market Cap: $29B
- Established: 2015
- Transfer Cost:$0.07
- 1Y return: 980%
- Cardano website
- ADA on CoinGecko
Cardano is the largest third-generation cryptocurrency, packed with plenty more upside potential in 2021. Here is a short video that explains what Cardano is:
ADA cryptocurrency on the Cardano network is one of the most technologically exciting cryptocurrencies. Its proof-of-stake system means it can operate more efficiently than the standard proof-of-work system. And its use of smart contracts means it can keep track of transactions like Bitcoin while handling payments like Ethereum. In short, it’s a third-generation coin that improves on its predecessors.
4. Polkadot (DOT)
- Market Cap: $15B
- Established: 2016
- Transfer Cost: Nominal
- 1Y return: 650%
- Polkadot website
- DOT on CoinGecko
Polkadot is an open-source project founded by the Web3 Foundation and has commissioned five teams and over 100 developers. The leading figure of Polkadot is Dr. Gavin Wood, who some of you may know as one of the founding fathers of Ethereum and author of the Solidity smart contract programming language. The video below will find what the Polkadot (DOT) is and some of its unique features. Also, you will understand why Polkadot is called the next version of Ethereum.
The Polkadot project aims to enable a completely decentralized web where users are in control. Polkadot facilitates an internet where independent blockchains can exchange information and transactions trustlessly via the Polkadot relay chain.
From a technological standpoint, Polkadot’s key difference is its use of parachains — multiple blockchains that can run parallel. That solves a massive issue for Bitcoin, a single, growing blockchain that all miners (and transactors) need to store.
Interoperability and scaling are the next major steps in the blockchain industry that Polkadot aims to resolve, making it a reputable cryptocurrency.
Now that you know what Cardano and Polkadot are, it's time to take a step-by-step comparison between these blockchain models because I believe smart contracts (which both these blockchain supports) will be the future.
It's essential to start learning about digital currencies like Polkadot so that you can make the most of their potential. The video below was created by CoinBureau and compared side by side with Cardano and Polkadot.
5. Ripple (XRP)
- Market Cap: $25B
- Established: 2012
- Transfer Cost: Nominal
- 1Y return: 48%
- Ripple website
- XRP on CoinGecko
Ripple was created as an alternative financial payment system to transform and facilitate cross-border payments, making them 100% safe, almost accessible, and instant. According to the report by OMFIF (the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum), Ripple, with its distributed ledger technology (DLT), could “position itself as an alternative to SWIFT,” solving five significant issues: security, speed, traceability, cost, transparency, and risk management.
On December 22, 2020, the SEC announced that it had “filed an action against Ripple Labs Inc. and two of its executives, who are also significant security holders, alleging that they raised over $1.3 billion through an unregistered, ongoing digital asset securities offering.”
After this, many big US cryptocurrency exchanges dropped Ripple's support, but the price remains relatively stable as XRP sees considerable support overseas, especially in Japan.
6. Stellar (XLM)
- Market Cap: $11B
- Established: 2014
- Transfer Cost: Nominal
- 1Y return: 433%
- Stellar website
- XLM on CoinGecko
Stellar offers low-cost, cross-border transactions. After lagging behind bitcoin in 2020, Stellar surprised analysts and investors by rocketing 200% in the first week of January. 2021 is shaping to become Stellar’s year. Check the video below, created by the guys at Exodus Wallet, to find out why Stellar (XLM) is:
7. Chainlink (LINK)
- Market Cap: $14B
- Established: 2014
- Transfer Cost: Nominal
- 1Y return: 433%
- Chainlink website
- LINK on CoinGecko
The problem with smart contracts or agreements on a blockchain network is that these transactions can only occur on a platform like Ethereum. They need some way to draw real-world data into the platform to execute smart contracts when certain conditions are met.
The solution is data providers called oracles. While several crypto platforms have created ways for oracles to retrieve data for their network, Chainlink has developed a reputation system that guarantees accurate data, ensuring smart contracts' validity. This system builds confidence in the platform, and the growing popularity of decentralized finance, or DeFi, helps make Link a contender for the best cryptocurrency.
The robust development of the ecosystem (already over 350 partnerships) and the increasing adoption in various global economy areas are just some of the fundamental reasons making Chainlink an increasingly accelerating enterprise. So, we can expect the LINK cryptocurrency to be one of the dominant cryptocurrencies in 2021.
8. Aave (AAVE)
- Market Cap: $5B
- Established: 2020
- Transfer Cost: Nominal
- 1Y return: 1000%
- Aave website
- AAVE on CoinGecko
The Aave project is a decentralized lending system that helped drive the DeFi sector's interests to new heights. This next-gen protocol was one of the first to enable users to lend, borrow and earn interest on crypto assets. Best of all, there is no need for a middleman when you use Aave because the entire system is run autonomously via smart contracts that live on the Ethereum blockchain.
One of Aave’s best features is that the protocol allows a borrower to gain exposure to various cryptocurrencies without owning them outright. Using Aave, you can earn rewards without trading your favorite digital assets. This strategy reduces the risk of loss.
9. Yearn.finance (YFI)
- Market Cap: $1.5B
- Established: 2018
- Transfer Cost: Nominal
- 1Y return: 3004%
- YFI website
- YFI on CoinGecko
Yearn.Finance is a portal for various DeFi products. And given that DeFi now has nearly $8 billion in crypto assets committed to it, mainstream traders could start rolling in any day. If that happens, a front door might end up being very valuable.
10. Tether (USDT)
- Market Cap: $33B
- Established: 2015
- Transfer Cost: Nominal
- 1Y return: 0%
- Tether website
- USDT on CoinGecko
Tether is called a "stablecoin" because it was initially designed to be worth $1.00, maintaining $1.00 in reserves for each tether issued. Stablecoins are helpful for entities and individuals who want to store or pay using cryptocurrencies but don't want to risk market fluctuations.
Cryptocurrencies traders sell cryptocurrencies like BTC, ETH, and XRP, buy stable coins when the market is bear, and sell them when they predict the market will go bull. There is some controversy around Tether.
On March 14, 2019, they claimed that the funds were based on US dollars and loans to affiliate companies. Tether's price decreased to lows of $0.90 on October 15, 2018, on speculation that investors are losing faith in the token. We've included Tether/USDT in our top because it's a huge market cap, but we recommend caution using it.
Here are several other stable coins you can use to preserve value: USD Coin (USDC), Binance USD (BUSD), PaxG (1PaxG - 1 Gold oz.)
11. Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
- Market Cap: $13B
- Established: 2014
- Transfer Cost: Nominal
- 1Y return: 433%
- Bitcoin Cash website
- BCH on CoinGecko
Instead of Bitcoin, which has fewer transactions and increases transaction fees, Bitcoin Cash has blocks that can store 8 MB of data, allowing for faster and more frequent transactions with lower fees.
That's why in August 2017, some Bitcoin developers created their version of Bitcoin and called it Bitcoin Cash. Bitcoin Cash may be more recent and less popular than its predecessor. Still, its scalability means it has incredible potential for growth and puts it in the running for the best cryptocurrency.
12. NEO
- Market Cap: $3.3B
- Established: 2016
- Transfer Cost: Nominal
- 1Y return: 102%
- NEO website
- NEO on CoinGecko
Formerly known as Antshares, NEO is one of China’s earliest and largest cryptocurrency ventures. The coin fell hard in 2018 as the Chinese government cracked down on cryptocurrency exchanges. But in 2021, the coin staged a remarkable resurgence as Chinese regulators turned their ire to Ant Group, a payments processor.
13. Uniswap (UNI)
- Market Cap: $6B
- Established: 2020
- Transfer Cost: Nominal
- 1Y return: 500%
- Uniswap website
- UNI on CoinGecko
Uniswap is a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange (DEX) that facilitates automated transactions between tokens on the Ethereum blockchain through smart contracts. It is estimated to be the largest decentralized and fourth-largest cryptocurrency exchange by daily trading volume.
On traditional centralized exchanges, there needs to be a buyer for you to sell a currency. But on a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange, some providers are getting incentives to provide liquidity. Also, there isn’t owned and operated by a single entity.
Read this guide to find out more about Uniswap. Don't like reading too much? No problem, we also have a video 🙂
14. Binance coin (BNB)
- Market Cap: $50B
- Established: 2017
- Transfer Cost: Nominal
- 1Y return: 212%
- BinanceCoin website
- BNB on CoinGecko
Even though more cryptocurrency trading is moving towards decentralized exchanges, their well-managed centralized older sisters still dominate. Binance is the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world based on volume. Binance Coin was initially hosted on Ethereum until the Binance decentralized exchange, or DEX went online in 2017.
The Binance DEX platform is much like Ethereum, albeit with a different mission. The Binance DEX is a decentralized platform where users can buy and sell Binance coins and use BNB to convert other cryptocurrencies from one to another. Most importantly, the Binance DEX offers a discount to users who pay transaction fees on the exchange with BNB – an innovative strategy that keeps users on the platform and helps sustain Binance Coin's growth.
Binance Coin have a clear purpose (offering smaller fees on transactions through the Binance network) and is powered by the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, so it has all the ingredients to grow aggressively in 2021.
Buy your first Binance Coins (BNB) on Binance Exchange.[/caption]
15. Celsius (CEL)
- Market Cap: $1.3B
- Established: 2018
- Transfer Cost: Nominal
- 1Y return: 3004%
- Celsius website
- CEL on CoinGecko
.Celsius is a cryptocurrency with the potential to become a bank. Considering the Celsius extreme 2020 rise makes it a currency worth considering. The network looked to write $6.2 billion in loans, making it more like a bank than money. And by registering as an exempt issuer with the SEC, Celsius has soared even as other cryptocurrencies like XRP have struggled.
Still, Celsius has plenty of risk behind it. As companies from Bear Stearns to Lehman Brothers found, bad loans can quickly sink your battleship. And Celsius itself could blow up if loans aren’t well-vetted. But until then, investors stand to make a lot of hot-money returns.
16. Elrond (EGLD)
- Market Cap: $2.4B
- Established: 2020
- Transfer Cost: Nominal
- 1Y return: 212%
- Elrond website
- EGLD on CoinGecko
Elrond is a blockchain designed for immense scalability and significant transaction throughput thanks to its adaptive state-sharding system, enabling transactions to be handled rapidly by multiple validators.
Whereas Bitcoin can handle just a maximum of seven transactions per second, Elrond claims to be able to push through 15,000 transactions per second at only $0.001 each, with instant finality.
17. Litecoin (LTC)
- Market Cap: $15B
- Established: 2013
- Transfer Cost: Nominal
- 1Y return: 100%
- Litecoin website
- LTC on CoinGecko
Former Google employee Charlie Lee created Litecoin to improve transaction times (roughly 2 1/2 minutes) and lower transaction fees. It has a substantially faster block generation rate than Bitcoin. And unlike most cryptocurrencies, the list of merchants that accept Litecoin is snowballing. Even if it has a large merchant pool, Litecoin is losing momentum to the Ethereum and DeFi movement.
Litecoin is based on Proof of Work (PoW) mining instead of proof of stake, which has more extensive acceptance in the cryptocurrency world. On a positive note, Litecoin's large fan base will keep it relevant in 2021.
18. Dogecoin (DOGE)
- Market Cap: $7B
- Established: 2013
- Transfer Cost: $0.03
- 1Y return: 1865%
- Score: 4.2/5
- DOGE on CoinGecko
Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency invented by software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer, who decided to create an instant, fun, and free payment system from traditional banking fees.
Created as a joke, Dogecoin was co-founded by IBM software engineer Billy Markus from Portland, Oregon, and Adobe software engineer Jackson Palmer, who made a peer-to-peer digital currency that could reach a broader demographic than Bitcoin.
In January 2021, Dogecoin went up over 800% in 24 hours due to Reddit users' attention, partially encouraged by Elon Musk and the GameStop short squeeze. In February 2021, Dogecoin hit its all-time high price following Twitter encouragement from Elon Musk, Snoop Dogg, and Gene Simmons.
19. TRON (TRX)
- Market Cap: $4.2B
- Established: 2017
- Transfer Cost: Nominal
- 1Y return: 128%
- TRON website
- TRON on CoinGecko
The Tron project is a blockchain-based decentralized platform that aims to build a free, global digital content entertainment system with distributed storage technology and allows easy and cost-effective digital content sharing.
The Tron network uses a cryptocurrency called Tronix (TRX). Content consumers can use Tronix to pay for the content they want to access. These coins would then go to the content producers’ accounts, where they can be exchanged for other cryptocurrencies or used to pay for blockchain services.
On January 23, Tron’s Justin Sun met the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, Mr. Warren Buffet, for dinner after placing a record-breaking $4.5 million bid at the Glide Foundation last year. In a statement after the dinner, Sun said it “was an honor, and I’m grateful for Mr. Buffett’s dinner, wisdom and vision.”
He added that he would “take Mr. Buffett’s advice and guidance to make TRON a better ecosystem, business with all the partners in the blockchain space and beyond,” though he did not provide specifics.
20. Compound (COMP)
- Market Cap: $2.1B
- Established: 2020
- Transfer Cost: Nominal
- 1Y return: -
- COMP website
- COMP on CoinGecko
Compound cryptocurrency is a decentralized, blockchain-based protocol that allows you to make money by lending and borrowing crypto — and have a say in its governance with its native COMP token. The project is part of Ethereum and, more broadly, DeFi. The Compound ecosystem was created by a former economist, Robert Leshner (Linkedin).
Compound raised $25 million in its Series A funding round, which prominent venture capital firm Andreesen Horowitz led. The protocol also received $1 million in USDC from Coinbase’s “USDC Bootstrap Fund.”
21. Swipe (SXP)
- Market Cap: $300M
- Established: 2021
- Transfer Cost: Nominal
- 1Y return: 161.9%
- SXP website
- SXP on CoinGecko
Swipe wants to be the leading company that brings cryptocurrency to commerce and standard banking.
With Swipe, you can access over 50 cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, and fiat currencies. You will also easily buy and sell crypto with a linked debit card, credit card, or bank account.
Through their app, you can manage your swipe visa debit card quickly. You can access your Swipe Wallet balance at over 60 million locations worldwide that accept Visa.
The Swipe Visa Card has four benefits: up to 8% cashback, no foreign transaction fees, Apple/Google/Samsung Pay, top-brand rebates, virtual cards, and real-time security features. Even better, all the cashback funds will be paid in Bitcoin so that you can earn even more.
22. Solana (SOL)
- Market Cap: $3.5B
- Established: 2017
- Transfer Cost: Nominal
- 30D return: 236%
- SOL website
- SOL on CoinGecko
Solana is a web-scale blockchain that provides fast, secure, scalable, decentralized apps and marketplaces. The system currently supports 50K transactions per second (TPS). Compared with other blockchains, here are some numbers from the competition: BTC - 7 TPS, ETH - 15 TPS, ADA - 1000 TIPS, DOT - 1000 TPS, EGLD - 15K TPS.
The Solana (SOL) platform was founded in 2017 by Anatoly Yakovenko. Yakovenko worked at Qualcomm before founding Solana. The team is backed by global experiences from top organizations, including Apple, Qualcomm, Intel, Google, Microsoft, Twitter, and Dropbox. Solana's impact also brought to the attention of many investors: Multicoin Capital, Foundation Capital, SLOW Capital, CMCC Global, Abstract Ventures, and more.
You can find more about Solana in this video:
23. Akash Network (AKT)
- Market Cap: $228M
- Established: 2020
- Transfer Cost: Nominal
- 30D return: 261%
- AKT website
- AKT on CoinGecko
Akash is the world’s first decentralized cloud computing marketplace, leveraging 85% of underutilized cloud capacity in 8.4 million data centers. Akash enables anyone to buy and sell unused computing. Akash DeCloud is a faster, better, and lower-cost cloud built for DeFi, decentralized projects, and high-growth companies, providing unprecedented scale, flexibility, and price performance.
10x lower in cost, our serverless computing platform is compatible with all cloud providers and all applications that run on the cloud. Considering the development of AI and the vast computational resources needed, Akash has come up with a great solution to reducing costs. This is excellent news for its token, AKT. Unfortunately, you can't purchase AKT yet on Binance, but the following exchangers: BitMax, BitMart, or Bithumb. You can find more about Akash Network in this video:
24. Basic Attention Token (BAT)
- Market Cap: $780M
- Established: 2017
- Transfer Cost: Nominal
- 30D return: 261%
- AKT website
- AKT on CoinGecko
The Basic Attention Token (BAT) is a blockchain-based system for tracking media consumers' time and attention on websites using the Brave web browser. Built on Ethereum, its goal is to efficiently distribute advertising money between advertisers, publishers, and readers of online marketing content and ads.
The BAT token is used as currency on the Brave platform and can obtain several advertising services. It is designed to be exchanged between users, advertisers, and publishers. It is based on an unusual concept, although it is critically essential to advertising companies operating in the digital age: user attention. Another Exodus video explains Basic Attention Token (BAT) and how it works.
25.Reef Finance (REEF)
- Market Cap: $114M
- Established: 2021
- Transfer Cost: Nominal
- 30D return: 131%
- REEF website
- REEF on CoinGecko
This top will not be complete without REEF. Reef cryptocurrency is a hub for DeFi and other cryptocurrency financial services on Polkadot. As a founding member of the Polkadot DeFi Alliance, it will support and grow the ecosystem's overall success as a cross-chain solution with a cohort of members and partners, such as Interlay, Equilibrium, and Moonbeam.
Besides that, I see the Reef team committed to developing the project by adding new features and marketing it to the world. I see it as a project that will get much exposure in 2021, so my bet is on Reef if you like to gamble on cryptocurrencies.
Cryptocurrencies that will be hot 2024
In our opinion, the following cryptocurrencies will be hot in 2024: Cardano (ADA), Kusama (KSM), Polygon (MATIC), Injective Protocol (INJ), UniSwap (UNI). We will update our article with more research on Kusama, Polygon, and Injective Protocol.
Top Cryptocurrencies FAQ
Here are several cryptocurrency questions and answers I got over time. If you have one not listed here, please post it in the comments section, and I will do my best to answer it ASAP.
How do you make money with cryptocurrency?
There are several ways you can make money with cryptocurrencies.
- The first is investing in cryptocurrencies by creating a wallet on a specific coin.
- The second way is to do day trading on a platform like Binance and analyze the charts to purchase a coin and sell it higher.
- The 3rd way is to deposit your coins in a service like BlockFi, which offers you interest for your coins as they offer loans. Check the following questions to get more details.
How do you invest in cryptocurrency?
When investing in cryptocurrency, you should pick a cryptocurrency you believe will increase in value over time. After researching, the next step is to get a wallet on that specific coin like Bitcoin, Ether, or Polkadot to keep your coins. I recommend owning a hardware wallet like Ledger or SafePal for complete security. Then, using an exchanger like CoinMamma, CoinBase, or Binance, transfer cash from your credit card or bank account into your wallet. Do not sell fearfully and wait until you are happy with the profit.
Remember that these cryptocurrencies can lose up to 90% of their value, but most will return if you are patient and don't sell in fear. When you purchase cryptocurrencies on eToro or Robinhood, you do not own the cryptocurrency but order on that crypto. You only own the cryptocurrency when you have complete access to the wallet.
What is the best cryptocurrency to invest in?
That's not an easy question because I don't have a crystal ball to predict the future. However, I have rules when deciding to invest in cryptocurrency. These are:
- [1] I pick a cryptocurrency that solves a real problem, and people use it for other reasons rather than speculating on its price.
- [2] I take a look at the technology used and the whitepaper.
- [3] Do research on the project team and their project's roadmap. If they do what they promised, then it's a winner.
- [4] I look at market adoption and the response from the investors. I've seen excellent man technologies that the market rejected.
- [5] I monitor the cryptocurrency for several months before investing the funds, and then I do it to see how it performs.
I hope these pieces of advice have offered you an excellent start to finding the best cryptocurrency to invest in.
How to day trade cryptocurrency?
You should pick a volatile cryptocurrency to make day trade on the cryptocurrency market. It would help to aim for coins that grow and decrease because you will make money whenever you purchase on low and sell on its high.
Sign up with a platform like Binance and analyze the charts. Don't get in love with a coin. Remember that the purpose is to sell when you make a profit. Day trading smaller cryptocurrencies can be very lucrative, but higher risks exist. Crypto prices can crash just as fast as they have risen, so if you don't have time to look at charts and take immediate action, you better avoid day trading.
Which cryptocurrency will explode in 2024?
That's impossible to predict, but considering the current evolution of the cryptocurrency market, I think the DeFi projects will see a considerable increase in 2024.
Conclusion on Top Cryptocurrency
So there you have it. Here are 25 top cryptocurrencies that you should know. I've left out of this top with so many crypto coins, but I check them regularly. I will post them in the next update of this article. What about you? What is your top cryptocurrency? Let me know in the comments below.
Further resources on cryptocurrencies:
- How to Make Money Trading CryptoCurrencies [Guide]
- Cryptocurrencies Directory: Trading, Guides, Blogs, Forums, etc.
Disclaimer: Cryptocurrency trading carries a high level of risk and may not be suitable for all investors. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the opinions of TopGold.Forum
