Best Cryptocurrency Investments: Where To Put Your Money Now

Cryptocurrency is a digital currency that exists solely in digital form. It can be used to pay for purchases online without going through an intermediary, such as a bank, or it can be held as an investment. There are thousands of different cryptocurrencies, which can make it overwhelming when you’re first getting started in the world of crypto.

Bitcoin is the original cryptocurrency and still leads the pack in terms of market capitalization, user base, and popularity. However, there are many other cryptocurrencies that have emerged as good investment options, including Ethereum, Tether, Binance Coin, Solana, and Dogecoin.

When choosing which cryptocurrency to invest in, it is important to consider your individual goals, investing timeline, and risk profile. Additionally, it is crucial to do your due diligence and make sure that any crypto project you are interested in is legitimate and secure. Here are some factors to consider when evaluating a cryptocurrency for investment:

- Market capitalization: The total value of all the coins currently in circulation.

- Purchase availability: How easy it is to buy a particular cryptocurrency.

- Wallet and storage options: The ease of use and security of wallets and storage options for a given cryptocurrency.

- Marketing and promotion: The quality of marketing and promotion behind a cryptocurrency project.

- Technical analysis: Chart patterns and price trends that can indicate potential buying opportunities.

Bitcoin (BTC)

Bitcoin is the public blockchain used to create and manage the cryptocurrency of the same name. Bitcoin mining is the process of hashing specific values and other block information to solve a hashing problem and add a block to the blockchain. The winning miner is rewarded with bitcoins.

Bitcoin can be used by speculators, investors, and consumers for purchases or value exchange. As of September 23, 2024, the price of Bitcoin was $63,820.96, with a 24-hour trading volume of $20.89 billion. Over the last 24 hours, the price increased by 1.14%. Bitcoin currently has a circulating supply of 19.76 million and a market cap of $1.26 trillion.

Bitcoin's price is renowned for its high volatility, but despite this, it has become the top-performing asset of any class over the past decade, climbing a staggering 9,000,000% between 2010 and 2020. Bitcoin's price has skyrocketed as it has become a household name. In May 2016, one bitcoin could be purchased for about $500. As of September 24, 2024, a single bitcoin's price was around $63,480, representing a growth of 12,596%.

Bitcoin's value comes from its store of value, payment system, and finite supply. Bitcoin is kept secure and safe from fraudsters as additions to the distributed ledgers must be verified by solving a cryptographic puzzle, a process called proof of work.

There are several steps to purchasing Bitcoin: choosing a venue or exchange to place your order, selecting a payment method, and ensuring safe storage for your purchased cryptocurrency. Bitcoin can be purchased through cryptocurrency exchanges, payment services like PayPal, and mainstream brokerage firms like Robinhood or Coinbase.

It's important to note that investing in and using bitcoins carries several risks, including volatility, fraud, and theft. Regulatory risk is also a factor, as the continuous battle between cryptocurrency-related projects and regulators makes longevity and liquidity uncertain. Additionally, bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are not insured by the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) or the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

Ethereum (ETH)

Ethereum was conceived in a 2013 whitepaper by Vitalik Buterin, who is still involved in the project today. It was then crowdfunded in 2014, raising $18 million in Bitcoin, and officially launched in July 2015.

The Ethereum blockchain allows for the creation of ERC-20 tokens, which can be used as native tokens for the applications that live on the Ethereum blockchain. These tokens can be used for governance, utility, or as stores of value.

Ethereum is also a smart contract platform, which means it can execute code stored on the blockchain, enabling self-executing agreements. This has a wide range of applications, from digital identity systems to complex financial instruments.

Ethereum's blockchain is designed to be a "one computer for the entire planet", theoretically able to make any program more robust, censorship-resistant, and less prone to fraud by running it on a globally distributed network of public nodes.

Ethereum has undergone several upgrades since its launch, with the most notable being the transition to a proof-of-stake validation model in September 2022, which aims to increase efficiency and reduce its environmental impact.

Ethereum's price has experienced tremendous growth since its launch. As of July 2023, its price was around $1,652, with a market cap of almost $199 billion.

Ethereum is a dominant player in the smart contract platform space, with the largest base of users and developers. This widespread developer adoption fosters a robust environment that could nurture growth and innovation.

Tether (USDT)

USDT is the symbol for Tether and, as of March 2024, was the third-largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin and Ethereum, with a market capitalisation of nearly $99 billion. It is the largest stablecoin and, in 2023 and early 2024, Tether's USDT accounted for most of the exchanges out of other cryptocurrencies by volume.

Tether is a fast-growing type of cryptocurrency called a stablecoin, which avoids the extreme volatility of untethered cryptocurrencies by tying their values to the price of a traditional currency. Tether's value is guaranteed by Tether to remain pegged to the US dollar. This means that, when Tether issues new USDT tokens, it allocates the same amount of USD to its reserves, ensuring that USDT is fully backed by cash and cash equivalents.

Tether has made it easier for customers to transact with traditional currencies across the blockchain, without the inherent volatility and complexity typically associated with a digital currency. It has democratised cross-border transactions across the blockchain.

Tether's transparency is demonstrated by its daily breakdown of reserve holdings on its website. As of March 3, 2024, it reported assets of $99.45 billion for USDT. The company reported holding 84.58% of its reserves in cash, cash equivalents, short-term deposits, and commercial paper; 76.87% of this was in US Treasury bills.

Tether can be purchased through a crypto exchange or app using Kraken or Coinbase, among other cryptocurrency exchanges.

Binance Coin (BNB)

BNB was initially launched as an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum blockchain but later introduced its own blockchain. The Binance Coin blockchain is also the platform on which Binance's decentralized exchange operates. The Binance Exchange was founded by Changpeng Zhao, who is the current CEO of the company. He Yi, a co-founder and CMO at Binance, joined forces with Changpeng Zhao in 2017 to create the exchange.

Binance Coin has expanded beyond merely facilitating trades on the Binance platform. It can now be used for trading, payment processing, or even booking travel arrangements. It can also be traded or exchanged for other forms of cryptocurrency, such as Ethereum or Bitcoin.

BNB's price in 2017 was just $0.10. By late September 2024, its price had risen to around $606, a gain of 605,756%. As of July 2023, Binance Coin had a $37.3 billion market capitalization, with one BNB valued at around $242.55.

Binance conducts quarterly burning of the BNB supply with the goal of reducing the total supply by half. As of July 2022, Binance had completed 20 BNB coin burn events, burning a total of 38,683,447.66 BNB tokens, reducing its initial 200M supply by 19.34%.

The most straightforward way to acquire BNB coins is to purchase them through Binance, as the exchange supports the largest variety of trading pairs with BNB and has the best trading rates for the coin.

Solana (SOL)

Solana combines the Proof-of-History (PoH) consensus mechanism with the more common Proof-of-Stake (PoS) mechanism. This ensures that the network achieves consensus more quickly, while reducing the workload and solving the blockchain trilemma, where developers have to balance decentralization, security, and scalability.

The PoH consensus mechanism was developed by Anatoly Yakovenko, the main founder of Solana. PoH allows for greater scalability of the protocol, which in turn boosts usability. It records successful operations and the time that has passed between them, thus ensuring the trustless nature of the blockchain.

Solana is known for its incredibly short processing times, with its hybrid protocol allowing for significantly decreased validation times for both transaction and smart contract execution. This has attracted a lot of institutional interest.

Solana's proof-of-stake network and other innovations also minimize its impact on the environment. Each Solana transaction uses about the same energy as a few Google searches.

The SOL token is the native token of the Solana blockchain. It can be used to pay for transaction fees (gas fees) when sending transactions or interacting with smart contracts. It can also be used to secure the network through staking.

Solana had a market capitalization of $8.4 billion and was valued at around $21 on July 22, 2023, making it the eighth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap at the time. As of September 2024, its market cap was $69 billion, with a year-over-year return of 653%.

Solana can be purchased on most exchanges, including Binance, BTCC, Bybit, BYDFi, and OKX.

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