As always, the crypto market’s upheavals and downfalls follow the pioneer cryptocurrency Bitcoin and its price roller-coaster. Bitcoin and the largest altcoin Ethereum are ahead of the rest of the cryptocurrency market.
This year, Bitcoin price has increased by a massive 46.2% and Ethereum exchange rate has risen by roughly the same value – 44.7%. At press time, Bitcoin is trading in the $65,800 zone and Ethereum is sitting at the $3,408 price tag.
Bitcoin and Ethereum leading the market
At the start of March, Bitcoin made a new spring forward, reaching an all-time high close to $74,000 and is now trading almost 11% below that moonstone. Bitcoin has been spurred by huge daily purchases of BTC conducted by ETF issuers lead by BlackRock. This fund already holds more than $15 billion in BTC.
Besides, the whole crypto community looks forward to the approaching halvening of Bitcoin expected at the end of April, which will reduce Bitcoin miners’ reward by half once again.
A lot of BTC has been held in a tight grip of cold wallets by early Bitcoin investors, some of it was initially mined by Satoshi Nakamoto and now rests in his cold wallet unmoved for years, and many Bitcoins have been lost over more than a decade of BTC’s existence.
A great deal of Bitcoin now rests in the storage vaults of the said Bitcoin ETFs. Another bullish driver that is expected to hit the ground this year is the reduction of the interest rates by the US Federal Reserve contrary to the tightening measures implemented by them over the past years.
As for Ethereum, its developers rolled out the Dencun upgrade this month. It was a highly anticipated one since it allows ETH fees to undergo a tremendous reduction and adds a bigger throughput to the whole vast Ethereum network. Dencun contained the introduction of Proto-Danksharding, which helped the second largest blockchain to achieve the above stated goals crucial for Ethereum to continue holding the leadership as a platform for decentralized applications, smart contracts, DeFi and as a the “mother” of other, younger chains.
The main driver for the expected new all-time high of Ethereum this year have been spot ETFs based on this cryptocurrency that BlackRock, Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest and Grayscale have filed for with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The initial date of the SEC decision was around the end of May. But recently, the US regulator has shifted this date to an uncertain later one.
Experts and analysts believe that this mirrors the procedure of the Bitcoin funds approval for which the regulator also constantly postponed the final decision. Another negative factor here is that last week BlackRock announced that it sees a pretty low demand for Ethereum from its customers right now.
When fighting against the SEC for their Bitcoin ETF, Grayscale even had to sue the regulator. Last autumn, the company won the case against the SEC, getting it to take a serious approach to considering the product filing.
Since investors are looking for cheaper ways to enter the crypto market, their attention constantly turns to smaller coins than Bitcoin and Ethereum. Besides, many analysts reckon that altcoins have a wider space for potential profits ahead of them than BTC and ETH. Besides, over the past week, these two leading cryptocurrencies have faced a substantial decline with Ethereum following Bitcoin down the price charts as the “elder brother.”
Below is the list of the top five cryptocurrencies that are worth watching this year and which have solid grounds for a potential large price growth.
Binance Coin (BNB)
BNB is not only the native token of the same-name blockchain developed by Binance. Similarly to Ethereum, BNB Chain is a cradle to many new ambitious cryptocurrencies. Besides, during the last few years, Binance inked multiple partnerships to increase BNB adoption, so now one can use it to buy goods and services with, including airline tickets, accommodation rent, etc. BNB holds the fifth position on the top ten list of crypto with a market cap surpassing $83.5 billion.
Besides, BNB is used on Binance Launchpad during initial exchange offerings when new crypto projects make a start there.
Cardano (ADA)
ADA is the biggest proof-of-stake coin by market cap and is on the top ten list as well. This project seeks to ensure a combination of scalability, security and a wide utility, also offering a platform for other projects to build their dapps and launch new tokens atop it. Cardano has many projects running in the developing markets with Africa being the place that concentrates the largest amount of them. ADA is committed to consuming as little electricity as possible and is a major rival to Ethereum.
Dogecoin (DOGE)
Dogecoin was originally a jest cryptocurrency copied off Bitcoin in 2013 by two software engineers with a load of free time who wanted to have fun and develop a Bitcoin parody based on BTC’s own code. It was inspired by Kabosu Shiba Inu dog, whose photos had gone viral on the Internet by then as numerous memes. By now, however, it has taken a notable position in the crypto market with a large support of Elon Musk started when the meme coin caught his attention at around 2018.
These days, Dogecoin is a member of the top ten crypto list with a market capitalization of over $15 billion. DOGE price has sprung by almost 68,000% since the day of its launch 11 years ago.
Ripple (XRP)
XRP is the sixth top cryptocurrency operated by Ripple blockchain company. It has its own distinct consensus protocol and the company leverages it for revolutionizing transnational payments. Since 2020, it has been engaged in legal hurdles against the SEC as the regulator filed charges against it, claiming that XRP is an unregistered security sold by Ripple both on primary and secondary crypto markets. Last year, Ripple had a major win but this case continues still.
Ripple has hundreds of major financial institutions as partners, which solidifies XRP’s potential in a high price jump this year.
Tron (TRX)
Tron used Ethereum as the basis for start and then launched its own mainnet. Tron Foundation aims high at turning the Internet into a decentralized space with TRX being a coin focused on a high scalability and throughput. Besides, Tron owns BitTorrent with its BTT token which strives to revolutionize content sharing. TRX by all means deserves to be watched for new supreme highs this year.
While many traders keep Bitcoin and Ethereum as the biggest parts of their portfolios, they are also on the constant lookout for new potential coins that may bring them additional profits. Some of the above coins, or perhaps all of them, have high odds of exploding this year and thus reshaping the crypto market, giving it a new direction for years to come.
