With around 17% of Australians holding crypto – many Aussie crypto investors are looking for options.
So today, we’ll give you a quick rundown of the Top 4 cryptocurrencies to consider buying in 2021. Each crypto profiled here has its advantages, risks and potential. Here they are.
Ethereum
Ethereum is our top cryptocurrency to consider investing in in 2021. Ethereum doesn’t quite get the same attention as Bitcoin, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth your time. The cryptocurrency boasts a wide range of use cases by blockchain developers looking to create new protocols and asset types. Referred to as dApps, these ‘side projects’ work with Ethereum infrastructure and increase its value as they get traction.
Of particular interest is Ethereum’s critical role in decentralised finance or DeFi. DeFi is a rapidly growing alternative to the existing financial system (Traditional Finance/TradFi), where old ideas of yield, interest, loan and collateral gaining traction as a new decentralised spin. Although Ethereum shed more than Bitcoin in the 2021 crypto crash as it still is assumed as a speculative asset rather than a ‘store of value’, it promises to bounce back harder than Bitcoin should the market move firmly upwards again.
Many professionally managed crypto portfolios allocate a significant amount to Ethereum as it is a more adaptable protocol than Bitcoin. With Bitcoins halving behind us in 2020 and Ethereum network in the process of administering network upgrades in terms of both scalability and deflationary ongoing to Ethereum 2.0. Who knows? At some point, Ethereum may even eclipse Bitcoin in terms of market cap, given its promise of a starring role in a blockchain-run economy.
Chainlink
Think of Chainlink like a data coin. And the use of data in our world is expanding at a nearly exponential rate. In a nutshell, Chainlink connects off-chain data with on-chain data. It aims to ensure the reliability of information inputs into smart contracts. Chainlink shot up early in 2021, but it promises to move quickly should the market turn. Adding to Chainlink’s case is its partnerships with Google and Oracle, adding to its credibility.
Cardano
Cardano is a potential competitor to Ethereum and shares an Ethereum co-founder as its founder – Charles Hoskinson. Like Ethereum, Cardano is a protocol intensely focused on practical applications or use cases. With an added focus on rigorous academic foundations and peer-reviewed studies, Cardano could perform strongly in 2021. Cardano already operates a proof-of-stake (POS) system, which may increase the protocol’s scalability and Ethereum is yet to implement.
Polkadot
Often forgotten about, Polkadot remains a viable project with an expanding range of use cases. The project brands itself as ‘the flagship project by Web3 Foundation, a Swiss Foundation founded to facilitate a fully functional and user-friendly decentralised web.’ Undoubtedly, the internet as it currently operates is ripe for disruption with an archaic emphasis on centralised pools of data that are both vulnerable to exploitation, opaque and clunky. With a market cap of $US15 billion at writing, Polkadot is a top contender to innovate and grow its market share.
