With the cryptocurrency markets still in an uncertain position, many crypto investors are wondering if it’s time to sell in order to avoid further losses or if the market is going to recover soon.
Even though the crypto markets have so far always recovered from their bearish periods, every bear market has its “casualties” that never make a strong recovery. Therefore, it’s important to choose quality crypto projects that have a good chance of surviving the bear market and thriving in the future.
For those that are looking to add some crypto to their portfolio while prices are down significantly from their all-time highs, the current market conditions present some compelling opportunities. So, what’s the best cryptocurrency to invest in 2023?
- Algorand – A scalable platform for smart contracts
- Toncoin – A scalable blockchain that’s being utilized by Telegram
- Stacks – A smart contracts platform built on top of Bitcoin
- Bitcoin – The largest and most valuable cryptocurrency
- Ethereum – The leading decentralized smart contracts platform
- BNB – A popular cryptocurrency utilized in the Binance ecosystem
- Uniswap – The leading decentralized crypto exchange
- Cosmos – A network of interconnected blockchains
- GMX – A decentralized crypto derivatives exchange
- Litecoin – An alternative to Bitcoin with impressive staying power
- Shiba Inu – A meme coin that skyrocketed in popularity
- Mina Protocol – An extremely lightweight blockchain
Best Cryptos to Buy Right Now
Let’s start off by highlighting three cryptocurrency projects that have seen important developments recently, or have big events coming up in the near future. We update these highlighted coins on a weekly basis to reflect the latest developments in the world of crypto and blockchain.
Algorand
Algorand is a scalable blockchain platform that utilizes a Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism and supports smart contracts. Cardano’s smart contracts are written in TEAL (Transaction Execution Approval Language), but Algorand developers can also use the more popular Python programming language.
The Algorand platform can be used for practically any type of blockchain application, and the platform also supports the issuance of custom tokens thanks to its ASA (Algorand Standard Assets) mechanism. The platform’s transaction fees are very low, as the minimum fee required to send a transaction is only 0.001 ALGO.
The Algorand project was founded in 2017 by Silvio Micali, a computer scientist that specializes in cryptography and information security. Micali was a recipient of the prestigious Turing Award in 2012. The Algorand mainnet launched in 2019.
Why is Algorand the best crypto to buy right now?
Recently, Algorand was selected to serve as the blockchain underlying a new digital guarantees platform. The Algorand project held a demonstration at an event hosted by the Catholic University of Milan’s CETIF center, where the Bank of Italy and the Italian insurance authority IVASS participated as well.
According to a press release from Algorand, the platform is expected go live in early 2023. Once it’s operational, the platform will be the first example of a state in the European Union utilizing blockchain tech for bank and insurance guarantees. Federico Rajola, a professor at CETIF, commented on why Algorand was selected:
“We selected Algorand because of its unparalleled level of innovation and security among permissionless DLTs, as well as because of its leadership in sustainability.”
Toncoin
Toncoin is the native asset of TON (The Open Network), a blockchain platform that was originally designed under the name Telegram Open Network by Telegram founders Pavel Durov and Nikolai Durov. However, regulators in the United States prevented Telegram from raising funds through a token sale, leading the original founders to abandon the project.
In 2020, developers picked up the development of the TON project as a community-led effort. The project was renamed to The Open Network to reflect that the project was no longer under the wing of Telegram. However, Telegram has decided to leverage the TON blockchain for some features. For example, users can purchase usernames on the TON blockchain that can be tied to their personal Telegram profiles or public groups.
The TON blockchain features sharding for enhanced scalability, and transactions on the platform reach finality in under 6 seconds.
Toncoins were initially distributed through mining, in which smart contracts distributed coins to miners. This distribution period lasted for 2 years. While this distribution mechanism utilized Proof-of-Work, the TON blockchain itself is secured through a Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism.
Why Toncoin?
The Fragment platform,which launched as a marketplace for Telegram usernames on the TON blockchain, has now added a new feature. It’s now possible to use Toncoin to purchase anonymous numbers which allow users to log in to Telegram without tying a SIM card to their account.
The feature can provide even stronger privacy to Telegram users, many of whom use the platform because of its message encryption. Here’s how the Telegram team described the update:
“Today starts a new era of privacy. You can have a Telegram account without a SIM card and log in using blockchain-powered anonymous numbers available on the Fragment platform.”
Telegram’s integrations with TON have provided a boost to the TON markets. At the time of writing, Toncoin is displaying a +43% 1-month change, easily outperforming most coins in the cryptocurrency top 100.
Stacks
Stacks is a blockchain project that provides a smart contract platform secured by the Bitcoin network. Stacks is a layer 1 blockchain that uses a mechanism called Proof-of-Transfer to leverage Bitcoin as its “anchor chain”. Users can “stack” Stacks’ native token STX to help secure the network and earn rewards in the form of BTC.
The Clarity smart contracts language implemented by Stacks supports popular smart contract use cases like decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Stacks is also the home of the CityCoins project, which is seeing adoption in cities like Miami and New York.
Why Stacks?
The Stacks project has published two whitepapers outlining technologies that will introduce fundamental improvements to the Stacks platform.
sBTC is a trustless two-way peg for Bitcoin, which will give BTC holders access to smart contracts secured by the Bitcoin base layer. If sBTC can be implemented as expected, BTC holders will be able to access decentralized finance and other smart contract-powered services without selling their BTC or entrusting it to another entity.
Meanwhile, Nakamoto is a proposed release for Stacks that would the Stacks to trustlessly utilize sBTC, as well as benefit from faster block times and other improvements. Once the technologies are ready, it will be up to the Stacks community to decide whether to go ahead with the upgrades or not.
The best cryptocurrencies to invest in 2023
Bitcoin
Bitcoin is a decentralized peer-to-peer cryptocurrency that was initially described in 2008 and launched in early 2009. Bitcoin was invented by a person using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, whose real identity is still unknown.
Bitcoin introduced the concept of a blockchain, and provides a fully decentralized digital currency that’s extremely secure. It implements Proof-of-Work to make it very difficult to alter the history of transactions or double spend coins. The network is secured by miners, who are rewarded with BTC coins for adding blocks to the Bitcoin blockchain.
BTC can be sent anywhere in the world on a 24/7 basis, and transactions cannot be blocked by any intermediaries. By holding their own private keys, users can self-custody their Bitcoin without requiring institutions such as banks.
Even though countless cryptocurrencies and blockchain platforms have been released after Bitcoin, BTC is still easily the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
Why Bitcoin is Bitcoin the best cryptocurrency to invest in 2023?
Bitcoin is the centerpiece of the cryptocurrency market, and this is unlikely to change soon. BTC has impressed with its resilience over more than a decade of operation. The Bitcoin network is now successfully securing hundreds of billions of dollars worth of value.
Many other crypto assets on the market today are heavily dependent on relatively small development teams, or in some cases, even single businesses. This requires additional trust from investors, and introduces the risk of teams behaving dishonestly to turn a profit at the expense of coin holders. Such crypto assets are also exposed to regulatory risks.
Meanwhile, it’s difficult to imagine a scenario where the cryptocurrency market as a whole is bullish and Bitcoin isn’t performing well. The Bitcoin ecosystem is highly decentralized, which makes BTC resilient against many problems that plague smaller crypto projects.
In addition, the next Bitcoin halving will happen in 2024. Typically, halvings have represented crucial points in Bitcoin’s market cycle. It’s still unclear how long the current BTC bear market will last, but if there is a bullish reversal in the market, the halving would be a likely place for it to happen. If you think cryptocurrency has long-term staying power, it’s hard to argue that BTC is not a good cryptocurrency to buy.
Ethereum
Ethereum is a blockchain that supports smart contracts, enabling more complex use cases such as decentralized lending protocols and non-fungible tokens. The Ethereum project was founded by Vitalik Buterin, who published the Ethereum whitepaper in late 2013. The Ethereum blockchain launched in July 2015.
One of the first use-cases enabled by Ethereum that gained a lot of traction was the ability to issue custom tokens that could be transacted over the Ethereum blockchain. This feature was utilized by many projects to conduct fundraising through Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) and other types of token sales.
Today, Ethereum has an extremely vibrant ecosystem of decentralized applications, including decentralized financial services, NFT marketplaces, publishing platforms, decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges, and more.
ETH is the native asset of the Ethereum blockchain, providing an incentive for users to secure the network. The Ethereum network originally implemented a Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism, but switched over to Proof-of-Stake in September of 2022.
Why Ethereum?
Ethereum is arguably the most exciting project in the cryptocurrency space, and many of the innovations coming out of the space have their roots on Ethereum. For example, the first decentralized finance protocols to reach significant adoption were launched on Ethereum, and the same is true for non-fungible tokens.
With Proof-of-Stake now in full effect, 2023 will be a very interesting year for the Ethereum platform—for example, the option of withdrawing staked ETH will become available sometime in 2023. Currently, this upgrade is expected to happen in March 2023.
It’s no secret that the Ethereum blockchain currently doesn’t offer the best user experience, primarily due to the cost of transactions. At certain points during the 2021 bull market, users were paying upwards of $20 for a single transaction. To be fair, transaction fees have gone down significantly thanks to the reduction in demand caused by the crypto bear market, but this is only a temporary phase.
Thankfully, the scalability problem is a top priority for Ethereum developers. Layer 2 solutions are constantly seeing improvements, and upgrades such as sharding are also expected to bring huge scalability gains on the base layer.
ETH has proven itself as a very strong investment in the past, rewarding long-term investors with significant gains. If the project can continue on its upward trajectory, buying the ETH dips could turn out to be a great decision.
The chart above shows Ethereum investment growth over 5 years with initial investment of $5,000 and monthly contribution of $100. For more details visit out Ethereum profit calculator.
BNB
BNB is a token that was launched by the Binance cryptocurrency exchange in 2017. BNB serves two primary functions. Holders of the token get access to special benefits when using Binance – this includes lower trading fees, access the exchange’s Launchpad and Launchpool programs, cashback on Binance Visa card purchases, and more.
The token is also used as the native asset of the BNB Chain blockchain. BNB Chain is a variant of Ethereum that offers significantly lower transaction fees to users, and it allows developers to easily deploy EVM-compatible decentralized applications. Previously known as Binance Coin, BNB has now gone through an extensive rebranding.
Why BNB?
BNB Chain has established itself as a very popular blockchain platform thanks to its fast and cheap transactions. Even though there have been concerns about the platform’s effective level of decentralization, many users appear to be prioritizing convenience.
In addition, Binance continues to dominate the cryptocurrency exchange industry, and has increased its market share even further following the collapse of FTX. Since it’s likely that Binance will continue to provide incentives for BNB holders, it’s reasonable to expect solid demand for BNB moving forward.
Of course, there are also the quarterly BNB burns, which will continue reducing the supply of BNB until it hits 100 million coins. By increasing the scarcity of BNB, the quarterly burns work in favor of long-term BNB holders.
#Binance Completes 21st Quarterly #BNB Burn!
? 2.06m #BNB has been burned ? pic.twitter.com/VHvt1E4FzB
— Binance (@binance) October 13, 2022
Uniswap
Uniswap is a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange that introduced and popularized the AMM (automated market maker) model. This unique design removes the need for order books, providing an elegant way for swapping between different tokens directly on the blockchain without relying on intermediaries.
The Uniswap protocol is decentralized, and anyone can create liquidity pools for any token. This means that the newest crypto assets are often traded on Uniswap before they make their way on centralized cryptocurrency exchanges.
The model introduced by Uniswap has been adopted by many decentralized exchanges on different blockchain platforms. However, Uniswap remains the most active decentralized exchange in terms of trading volume.
Uniswap is governed by holders of the UNI token, who can submit and vote for proposals. UNI was distributed to past users of the Uniswap protocol via an airdrop in 2020, and the token is now available for purchase on a variety of both decentralized and centralized trading platforms.
Why Uniswap?
Uniswap is a pillar of Ethereum’s decentralized finance ecosystem, and the protocol is now also supported on a variety on other platforms including Optimism, Arbitrum, Celo and Polygon. As users become more comfortable with DEXes and technological upgrades result in faster and cheaper transactions, we’ll likely see platforms like Uniswap achieve even stronger adoption.
At the time of writing, the UNI token is enjoying a spot in the cryptocurrency top 20, with a market capitalization of $4.50 billion. UNI is currently the largest DeFi protocol token by market cap.
If you think that decentralized finance has long-term potential, UNI is definitely an option worth considering. However, we’d like to see some more utilities for UNI holders being implemented beyond governance rights.
Cosmos
Cosmos is a network that’s designed to allow different blockchain platforms to interoperate with each other. The Cosmos network is coordinated by the Cosmos Hub, a Proof-of-Stake blockchain. The Cosmos Hub is also designed to facilitate connections with blockchains outside of the Cosmos ecosystem, for example Bitcoin and Ethereum. The different blockchains that make up Cosmos communicate through a protocol called IBC (Inter-Blockchain Communication).
The Cosmos Hub and other blockchains in the Cosmos network are built using the Cosmos SDK framework. Blockchains launched on Cosmos benefit from a robust Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism, fast transaction times (about 7 seconds) and low transaction costs (about $0.01 per transaction).
The native asset of Cosmos is called ATOM. Users can stake their ATOM tokens to contribute to the network’s security as well as earn staking rewards and a portion of the transaction fees collected by the network.
Why Cosmos?
Cosmos is a unique contender in the smart contracts sector, and its focus on interoperability could make it capable of easily adopting to changing trends in the crypto markets. In addition, the Cosmos SDK is already used by many different blockchains. This includes BNB Chain, Cronos, Osmosis, THORChain, Kava and others.
The Cosmos platform will be upgraded with key functionalities. One such example is Interchain Security, which will allow the Cosmos Hub to produce blocks for “consumer chains”. Essentially, this would allow chains connected to the Cosmos Hub to benefit from the security of the Cosmos Hub, making Cosmos an attractive destination for projects that require a specialized blockchain that’s also highly secure.
GMX
GMX is a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange specialized in derivatives, more specifically perpetual futures contracts. The GMX exchange is currently available on the Arbitrum and Avalanche blockchain platforms.
The GMX ecosystem features two tokens: GMX and GLP. GMX is a utility and governance token which accrues 30% of the fees collected on the GMX exchange. Meanwhile, GLP is the platform’s liquidity provider token, which accrues 70% of the fees collected on the exchange.
GLP represents an index that currently consists of 8 different crypto assets which are supported on the GMX exchange for swaps and leverage trading. Users can mint GLP by supplying any of the supported assets to the pool, or redeem GLP for assets held by the pool.
The platform supports trading with up to 50x leverage, which is competitive compared to most centralized crypto derivatives platforms.
Why GMX?
Centralized cryptocurrency exchanges are under increased scrutiny after the collapse of FTX. In addition, the failure of many centralized crypto lending businesses has also negatively impacted the reputation of centralized crypto businesses more broadly.
While centralized exchanges still reign supreme in terms of trading volume, an increasing number of crypto investors is looking for decentralized alternatives. The sector of decentralized crypto derivatives is still relatively new, which means that there could be a lot of upside for platforms such as GMX.
GMX TVL hit a new all-time high of $482.78m today pic.twitter.com/RqJ61AfF40
— DefiLlama.com (@DefiLlama) October 27, 2022
Litecoin
Litecoin is a cryptocurrency that was initially launched in October 2011, making it one of the oldest “altcoins” on the market. Litecoin is heavily based on Bitcoin, as it started off as essentially a modified version of Bitcoin’s codebase.
Litecoin has a maximum coin supply of 84 million, which is 4 times larger than that of Bitcoin. Its targeted block time is 2.5 minutes, which is 4 times faster than Bitcoin’s targeted block time. Just like Bitcoin, Litecoin also uses Proof-of-Work to reach consensus about the state of its Ledger. While Bitcoin uses the SHA-256 hash function, Litecoin uses the scrypt hash function.
Sometimes, Litecoin has been used as a proving ground for technologies that were later implemented into Bitcoin. For example, SegWit was first implemented into Litecoin before it went live on the Bitcoin network. However, Litecoin also has some unique technological aspects to it, most notably its support for MimbleWimble privacy technology.
MWEB (Mimblewimble Extension Blocks), which was first introduced as a Litecoin Improvement Proposal, is a fungibility-improving technology that enhances confidentiality between the sender and receiver in a transaction.#MWEB embrace the future⚡ pic.twitter.com/Xe6AAYJUp8
— Litecoin (@litecoin) November 28, 2022
Litecoin fans often describe Litecoin as the “silver to Bitcoin’s gold”. LTC transactions are cheaper and faster than BTC transactions, making Litecoin a more suitable option for everyday payments.
Why Litecoin?
Litecoin has demonstrated impressive longevity, as it still maintains a multi-billion dollar market cap despite the fact that it launched in 2011 and countless other projects have been released since then.
The Litecoin community has demonstrated a willingness to adopt new technologies to enhance Litecoin, even when it comes to technologies that aren’t currently on the Bitcoin roadmap. For example, Litecoin introduced support for the MimbleWimble privacy protocol, providing a significant boost to the utility of LTC.
Another important factor that makes Litecoin worth considering at the moment is that the third Litecoin halving will happen in 2023 (the current estimate is August 2023). We saw a LTC rally prior to the Litecoin halving in 2019, so the LTC markets will definitely be worth watching closely in 2023.
Shiba Inu
Shiba Inu is a meme cryptocurrency that was launched in 2020 by a person using the pseudonym “Ryoshi”. The project is heavily inspired by the Dogecoin cryptocurrency, and also features the Shiba Inu dog breed in its branding. In contrast to Dogecoin, which has its own blockchain, Shiba Inu is issued on the Ethereum blockchain as an ERC-20 token.
During the SHIB token launch, half of the supply was sent to Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin (who is not involved with the project in any way). The project framed this as a token burn. Buterin did eventually burn the vast majority of his SHIB holdings and sold the rest of his tokens to fund charitable donations.
A large portion of the SHIB supply has been burned.
SHIB saw a significant spike in popularity in 2021 and became the second largest meme coin by market cap, second only to Dogecoin. In addition, SHIB is one of the most popular penny cryptos at the moment.
Why Shiba Inu?
The Shiba Inu is looking to distinguish itself from other meme coins and Dogecoin by building an ecosystem of decentralized products, including the ShibaSwap decentralized cryptocurrency exchange, the Shiboshis NFT collection, and the Shibarium layer 2 platform.
Even though the price of SHIB took a big hit in the crypto bear market, its 2022 performance was actually comparable to that of Bitcoin and Ethereum. This suggests that SHIB could be more resilient than one would expect.
Mina Protocol
Mina Protocol is a project that’s building an extremely lightweight blockchain. With the help of zero-knowledge technology, the size of the Mina blockchain is kept at just 22 kilobytes at all times.
The Mina Protocol’s version of decentralized applications is called zkApps. The smart contracts these applications are built with support zero-knowledge proofs, which can allow users to prove ownership of their data without disclosing the data itself to the party they’re interacting with. zkApps can also source data from any website privately, providing easy access to real-world data instead of relying on complicated oracle systems.
Why Mina Protocol?
Zero-knowledge technology is likely to become a very important trend in the crypto and blockchain space moving forward, and Mina Protocol could be positioned very well to take advantage of this.
In addition, the lightweight design of the Mina Blockchain makes it easier to participate in the network, which is especially relevant for mobile devices. If we’re going to see widespread adoption of blockchain technology, it’s most likely that a large number of people will be using blockchain through mobile devices. This could make Mina a candidate for becoming one of the next cryptocurrencies to explode.
| Native asset | Launched in | Description | Market cap* | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Algorand | ALGO | 2019 | Scalable platform for smart contracts | $1.47 billion |
| Toncoin | TON | 2020 | Blockchain platform that’s being integrated by Telegram | $3 billion |
| Stacks | STX | 2021 | Smart contracts platform on top of Bitcoin | $356 million |
| Bitcoin | BTC | 2009 | Decentralized peer-to-peer cryptocurrency | $326.8 billion |
| Ethereum | ETH | 2015 | Decentralized smart contracts platform | $148.5 billion |
| BNB | BNB | 2017 | BNB Chain’s native asset and token used in Binance ecosystem | $40.3 billion |
| Uniswap | UNI | 2020 | The governance token of the Uniswap Protocol | $4.25 billion |
| Cosmos | ATOM | 2019 | A network of interconnected blockchains | $2.60 billion |
| GMX | GMX | 2021 | Decentralized crypto derivatives trading platform | $393.7 million |
| Litecoin | LTC | 2011 | Decentralized peer-to-peer cryptocurrency | $4.97 billion |
| Shiba Inu | SHIB | 2020 | Meme coin on the Ethereum blockchain | $4.78 billion |
| Mina Protocol | MINA | 2021 | Extremely lightweight blockchain with ZK technology | $395 million |
The bottom line – The best cryptos to buy now
Hopefully, this article has shown that there’s plenty of interesting opportunities in the crypto markets, even though crypto prices have crashed from their all-time highs in 2021. If you are interested in cryptocurrency projects that have long term potential, you can check out our article of the best cryptocurrencies for long-term investors.
Please keep in mind that the cryptocurrency market is highly volatile and that investing in cryptocurrency can result in substantial losses. Always do your research and consider your financial situation before making any investment, and never invest more than you are willing to lose.