5 Currencies to Watch Out For in 2022
Coinspeaker
5 Currencies to Watch Out For in 2022
2021 has been an eventful year in the crypto community. From the skyrocketing of Bitcoin’s price to the popularity of meme coins, many experts are now trying to predict the trends for next year. If you are wondering which coins to keep an eye out for in 2022, we have prepared a list of the most talked-about cryptocurrencies at the moment.
Shiba Inu
In case you are unfamiliar with it, the Shiba Inu coin is a decentralized cryptocurrency created in China in the summer of 2020 by an anonymous person who goes by “Ryoshi”. It is considered a meme coin and it features the same dog used as a representation for another popular and funny token, Dogecoin.
The Shiba Inu crypto has had a good trajectory in 2021. By December, the meme coin was up roughly 63.740.000%, an impressive increase that has made a few early traders of the coin rich. Its market cap at the end of the year is over $29 billion, and its success is expected to only go up from here. In addition, Shiba Inu recently caught the attention of traders after the major cryptocurrency exchange Kraken voiced their support for the coin.
Solana
One of the largest cryptocurrencies of the year with a market cap exceeding $62 billion, Solana has had a remarkable recovery in 2021. Even though it entered the year at less than $2, it grew exponentially, hitting an all-time high of $260 per coin in November.
Therefore, it is safe to say that Solana has been a rising star this year. The growth of over 11.700% since the beginning of January made it reach the top five performing coins of the entire year. More impressively, since July, the coin has been hitting all-time highs constantly, despite times when other parts of the crypto market were underperforming.
One of the attractions regarding Solana is the fact it is based on an extremely fast smart contract cryptocurrency, making it the ideal alternative to Ethereum for investors looking for other options.
Cardano
Cardano is the creation of one of Ethereum’s co-founders, Charles Hoskinson, who left Ethereum following a disagreeing with the idea of keeping the blockchain non-profit. Cardano is now a popular and respected coin in its own right.
Cardano is ending the year with a market cap of around $55 billion and, similarly to the previously mentioned coins, it has had a rather dramatic journey in 2021. The token started this year trading at less than $0.20 per coin, then managed to surpass $3 in September, becoming the world’s third-largest cryptocurrency.
Cardano’s eco-friendly policy has definitely contributed to its popularity. The crypto proudly claims that it uses the equivalent of two power plants in energy per year. While that may sound like a lot at first, it is actually rather little when compared to the cryptocurrency leader, Bitcoin. It is believed that during the same period of a year, Bitcoin uses more energy than the country of Netherlands needs to power its operations.
Ethereum
Even if you don’t know much about Ethereum, you probably know it as the coin that has been outperforming Bitcoin by the biggest amount this year since the token of the Ethereum network was launched in 2015 as an alternative to the original coin.
The Ethereum network is different compared to Bitcoin, in regards to its overall aim. While the latter was meant as an alternative to fiat currencies and hopes to be a medium of exchange value, Ethereum was intended as a platform that facilitates immutable contracts and applications using its currency.
While both coins are down from record highs set earlier this year, Ether has gained about 530% since December of 2020, compared to Bitcoin, which only doubled in value, thus creating a gap between the performances of the two coins by more than 40%. With that being said, Bitcoin’s market cap is still almost double that of Ethereum, ending the year at about $1.1 trillion.
Bitcoin
Last but certainly not least, we have to talk about Bitcoin. All these years later, the veteran is still an interesting coin to watch out for in 2022. Having gone from being worth $5.000 in March 2020 to sell for over $60.000 per coin in November 2021, Bitcoin has maintained its dominance in the industry as well as its popularity in the mainstream world.
Bitcoin has continued to be a relevant trendsetter in the industry through its decentralized peer-to-peer network and its blockchain technology, which allows coin transactions to be facilitated between different users on the network without a third party being involved. This fully decentralized system brings a few features that have attracted many investors, such as transparency, the anonymity of the users, and fast transactions.
Speculators believe that the coin can reach $100.000 or even more by the same time next year – however, the volatility of Bitcoin should always be taken into consideration when taking the risk of investing.