Bitcoin is currently by far the most valuable and popular cryptocurrency. Recently, its price has skyrocketed over $50,000 per 1 BTC. It may go even higher in price ,yet it can fall as well, so it might not be the best time to invest specifically into Bitcoin— there are lots of other options to choose from.
We have prepared a list of the top 10 crypto coins to keep an eye on, as they all have great potential, and odds to be very profitable investments.
1. Ethereum
Ethereum (ETH) is a coin with the biggest market capitalization after Bitcoin. ETH runs on a decentralized platform and is operated by DApps (decentralized applications) and smart contracts, which makes the system fast and secure.
ETH was launched in 2015 and now has a market cap value of around 20% of Bitcoin. It may not sound impressive, yet it is around $200 billion. Ethereum coin is traded for about $1750 as of February 2021. If the cryptocurrency market continues to grow and develop, ETH has awesome chances to remain viable and demanded.
2. Litecoin
Litecoin (LTC) was one of the first cryptos in the world. It was referred to as 'silver to Bitcoin’s gold'. LTC was created in 2011 by MIT graduate Charlie Lee, who used to work for Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL). Since then, Litecoin has always been in the list of the top 10 biggest cryptos in the world.
Litecoin’s system is completely decentralized and without any controlling authority but it is considered to be faster than Bitcoin because of more operations per second and shorter confirmation time on a transaction.
As of February 2021, LTC is traded $189 per coin and its market cap is $12.5 billion.
3. Cardano
Created by one of the founders of Ethereum, Charles Hoskinson, Cardano (ADA) is a very ambitious and scientifically-deep project with dozens of scientists and researchers involved in creating something clear, open, decentralized, and uncensorable.
Because of its same concept but technical advantages over Ethereum, some people call ADA 'Ethereum killer'.
As of February 2021, ADA is traded $0.91 per coin and its market cap is $28.7 billion. It is currently #4 on the biggest cryptos by market cap list.
4. Polkadot
Another cryptocurrency in our list was created by a co-founder of Ethereum, this time it’s Gavin Wood. He left his original project to create Polkadot (DOT). The first ICO was in 2017.
The creator used Ethereum as a core platform but also allowed people to create their blockchains on the DOT platform with added advanced security for such blockchains provided by Polkadot themselves. In such a way, blockchain owners don’t have to worry about setting up security for the DOT coin.
As of February 2021, DOT is traded for almost $29 per coin and its market cap is $26.3 billion. It currently ranks #5 on the biggest cryptos by market cap list.
5. Bitcoin Cash
This coin is known to be among the most successful modifications from the Bitcoin itself. As it usually occurs, the Bitcoin Cash (BTC) coin was created using a known model as a starting point (Bitcoin in this case) but with a slight improvement and alterations. It was created in 2017, as a competitor to BTC. Its main advantage over Bitcoin is in the size of the blocks that are transferred throughout the blockchain. Genuine Bitcoin has a size of 1 megabyte, while a BCH block is 8 times bigger (8 megabytes accordingly). Which allows processing eight times more transactions than the original platform.
As of February 2021, BCH is traded for around $192 per coin and its market cap is $12.7 billion. It ranks #8 on the list of the biggest altcoins by market cap.
6. Stellar
This platform was created by Jed McCaleb and launched in 2014, with the primary purpose of facilitating the movement of large amounts of money. The amount of money that big trust funds would have to move in numerous days can now be done instantaneously, which Stellar promotes in order to popularize its altcoin. Quite a great solution, don’t you think? Furthermore, the blockchain is open to anyone and Stellar (XLM) can be purchased on almost every exchange service out there. While Stellar is the platform name, the altcoin XLM is called Lumen.
As of February 2021, XLM is traded for $0.55 per coin and its market cap is $12.5 billion. It currently ranks #10 on the biggest cryptos by market cap list.
7. Chainlink
The Chainlink network and the cryptocurrency Chainlink (LINK) were developed by Steve Ellis and Sergey Nazarov. The ICO was launched in late 2017. Chainlink is a new-gen network that allows blockchains to link themselves with outside apps. Ethereum can’t perform trusted connections in such an advanced manner.
LINK has a maximum bid of 1 billion tokens. 35% of them were sold during the ICO in 2017 and about 300 million are in the hands of the company. Unlike many other cryptocurrencies, LINK does not have a mining or stacking process, which increases its circulating supply. It is also utterly decentralized.
As of February 2021, LINK is traded for $31 per coin and its market cap is $12.6 billion. It currently ranks #9 on the biggest cryptos by market cap list.
8. Binance Coin
Binance Coin (BNB) is used on Binance, the biggest cryptocurrency market on the Internet, as a local currency that is used by users to pay for transaction expenses on the website.
BNB’s initial ICO was held in mid-2017 by Changpeng Zhao.
As of February 2021, BNB is traded for $134 per coin and its market cap is $21.1. It currently ranks #7 on the biggest cryptos by market cap list.
9. Tether
Tether (USDT) is particular for its being a stable coin, which means that its value is bound to that of something real, in this case to the US dollar’s price.
1 coin—1 dollar.
This concept was created to facilitate exchanging cryptocurrencies in US dollars much easier and faster than before.
As of February 2021, USDT is traded for $1 per coin and its market cap is $31.1 billion. It ranks #3 on the biggest cryptos by market cap list, just below Bitcoin and Ethereum.
10. Monero
Monero (XMR) was created in April 2014 by a group of cryptography and blockchain experts. XMR is considered to be one of the most secure and private coins that can be transferred untraceable. Because of its utter anonymity, Monero is very popular on black markets.
As of February 2021, XMR is traded for $202 per coin and its market cap is $3.6 billion. It is currently #24 on the biggest cryptos by market cap list.