Investor interest in cryptocurrency coins and tokens is expanding quickly, with over 23,000 distinct coins and tokens on the market. However, choosing the proper balance to maximise your long-term gains may be difficult even in the best of conditions; trying to do so during a cryptocurrency bear market, sometimes known as “crypto winter,” can be intimidating.
5 Best Long-Term Cryptocurrencies
Here are the top five cryptocurrencies with potential as long-term investments:
- Bitcoin (BTC)
- Ethereum (ETH)
- Cardano (ADA)
- Polkadot (DOT)
- Chainlink (LINK)
1. Bitcoin (BTC)
Bitcoin has the highest market capitalization of any cryptocurrency. You may use it to make purchases both online and offline, or, if you’re like most bitcoin investors, consider it a buy-and-hold asset in your investment portfolio. It has evolved into a safe-haven investment rather than a currency, earning it a spot in your long-term cryptocurrency portfolio.
In 2021, Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed that the business had bought $1.5 billion in bitcoin and that it would accept bitcoin as payment for its automobiles.
Musk rescinded shortly after, citing environmental concerns, and he ultimately sold off most of Tesla’s bitcoin holdings. However, plenty of other companies, including Microsoft, PayPal, The Home Depot and Rakuten, accept bitcoin as payment, albeit indirectly in some cases.
Other businesses are adding bitcoin to their investment holdings. And in September 2022, Colorado became the first state to accept bitcoin for tax payments.
Bitcoin is a volatile asset as you track it day to day, as evidenced by its recent price dip to under $16,000 from a one-year high of $47,313.48. However, at one point in late 2021, it was the best-performing investment asset of the previous 10 years, and according to Goldman Sachs, it’s the best performer so far in 2023.
A recent network upgrade to add functionality will make the platform more useful and could make the coin more valuable. As all cryptocurrencies can be volatile, if you’re looking for a long-term hold, sticking to the first and most valuable crypto can make sense.
2. Ethereum (ETH)
By market cap, ETH is the second-largest cryptocurrency. Ethereum is both the name of a blockchain platform and the name of the platform’s native cryptocurrency. The token may be used as a store of wealth, which is one of bitcoin’s strengths, but Ethereum has also emerged as one of the greatest platforms for decentralised software, or dApps.
Indeed, due of its support for applications such as smart contracts, which automatically perform a function when certain circumstances are satisfied, it has become a favourite platform for developers.
Ethereum recently completed an update known as The Merge, which changed the network’s protocol from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake. According to the company, the change would increase the network’s scalability, security, and sustainability.
Some observers questioned if The Merge would have a positive impact on ETH, and in fact, ETH plummeted in the days following the upgrade, despite a purchasing frenzy earlier in the summer that sent the price up more than 50% in a week, according to Finbold. However, overeagerness most certainly contributed to the spike, making a correction unavoidable.
Now that ETH mining is over, staked coins are earning around 5%, causing Citi® to proclaim that ether has become a yield-bearing instrument, according to CoinDesk. Furthermore, coins may become increasingly rare. On the first day of The Merge, for example, the network burnt more fees than it granted to validators, resulting in a drop in total currency supply.
3. Cardano (ADA)
Cardano is other long-term cryptocurrency to consider investing in. when the coin’s bear market performance has been disastrous — founder Charles Hoskinson remarked, “Cardano could cure cancer… and we’d still fall” — the platform got a solid footing when it had one significant advantage over Ethereum: a proof-of-stake mechanism.
Prior to The Merge, Ethereum employed an older proof-of-work system to validate transactions and maintain the network’s integrity; Cardano’s proof-of-stake protocol performed a similar role but was faster, cheaper, and more energy-efficient.
Although Ethereum’s proof-of-stake upgrade may level the playing field — and flood the market with proof-of-stake assets — Cardano’s appeal among decentralised application developers may keep demand for its ADA token strong.
In the 24 hours following a “hard fork,” or change to its protocol, over 100 smart contracts were deployed on the network, according to CoinMarketCap, and it has experienced exponential growth since then. A Sept. 22, 2022, upgrade improved the network’s programmability and made faster speeds possible without sacrificing security, CoinDesk reported.
4. Polkadot (DOT)
Polkadot, which has a market worth of more than $7.46 billion as of April 3, has become one of the greatest long-term cryptocurrencies to invest in since its introduction in 2020. It is both a coin and a blockchain network on which developers may create novel decentralised solutions.
Polkadot is designed to unite many separate blockchains into a cohesive network, as well as to construct new chains. The connection gives users access to the network’s proof-of-stake security and transaction validation, as well as making it easier to transfer digital assets such as applications and tokens across blockchains.
A recent version improves communication and asset transfers between Polkadot parachains, allowing the network to be used in new ways. The developer is working on a number of other enhancements, all of which “can
5. Chainlink (LINK)
Chainlink has been named the fifth-best long-term cryptocurrency to invest in. The Ethereum-based Chainlink network, which was launched in 2014, offers real-time data from off-blockchain to on-blockchain smart contracts through nodes and oracles. According to Securities.io, their objective is to build the world’s first blockchain oracle network.
Oracles are the driving force behind some of the most essential blockchain technologies and are critical to the growth of blockchain.
According to Benzinga, the Chainlink 2.0 upgrade, outlined in a 2021 white paper, will establish off-chain networks on top of oracles to alleviate computational burden on the Ethereum mainnet. The upgrade will also keep staking in place to boost security by giving nodes with “strong economic incentives to behave reliably and correctly,” according to the white paper. Chainlink has completed the first two of three phases.
