Five Cryptocurrencies with High Upside for 2022

Bitcoin (BTC)

The number one cryptocurrency giant is facing some turbulent volatility at the start of this year given that the federal reserve has announced the end to a policy of record low interest rates and bond purchases. While Bitcoin is hardly the only financial instrument affected by this, it is a signal that there are doubts and a lack of confidence in what the changes at the federal reserve mean for the cryptocurrency market. Even in spite of this, Bitcoin is one of the usual suspects for high upside in 2022. On average, Bitcoin has a yearly growth rate of around 200%. The price of Bitcoin depends on a number of variables and is a topic of much debate, but given Bitcoin’s performance history, some speculators predict it could reach as high as $400k, with more conservative estimates between $75,000 and $100k.

As Bitcoin’s supply continues to approach its maximum limit its price is likely to increase in value. Nations will weaker national currencies are starting to look seriously at making BTC legal tender like El Salvador did. In addition, large institutions adopting Bitcoin into their platforms is a good market signal for price increases so keep an eye out.

Ethereum (ETH)

The jam to Bitcoin’s peanut butter; the #2 cryptocurrency is projected to make gains this year. A proof-of-stake (PoS) update is expected to change Ethereum’s value for better or for worse depending on how smooth the release is. Signs look good, since the PoS system is planned to address Ethereum’s notorious scalability issue, as well as improving the speed of the network. Many NFTs are based on Ethereum alongside many other applications. So long as NFTs continue to trend, the ETH network handling much of the infrastructure is tied to the success of the NFT industry.

Applications tied to the ETH network stand to ensure ETH continues to grow in value. Play-to-earn games such as Axie infinity are growing in number. While ETH does not hold a monopoly on being a blockchain that allows application development, it is currently hosting a very large number of them and being first to market is always helpful. Other networks such as Cardano also allow NFTs, but the ETH network remains king for now.

Cardano (ADA)

The first Ethereum competitor to appear on the list, Cardano has a chance to have a big 2022. It has started the year well despite the overall downturn of the market, posting almost 50% gains after dropping as low as $1.08 in early January. ADA’s all-time high is $3.09 and it seems quite possible that it could get there and beyond during a 2022 run. There are already NFTs on the platform helping to drive network use. Then there are two main milestones happening for Cardano in early 2022 that may push it back to its previous highs: decentralized finance (DeFi) and scalability.

Though smart contract functionality launched in September 2021 with the Alonzo upgrade, Cardano did not implement its scaling upgrade until now, Basho. With the release of Basho, the smart contract projects that are being built on Cardano can now begin to be released to mainnet use. This means DeFi is on the way for the #5 asset by market cap. Projects such as SundaeSwap, a decentralized exchange (DEX) launched earlier this month, although it suffered from significant network congestion. It may be a bumpy start to DeFi on Cardano, but once scalability is increased through means such as Hydra, Cardano has the potential to process millions of transactions per second.

Avalanche (AVAX)

Similar to Cardano in that it is a competitor with Ethereum, the smart contract platform could have high upside in 2022. Avalanche is all about efficiency, performing 4500 transactions per second (TPS), and a transaction completion time of under 2 seconds. For comparison, Bitcoin and Ethereum respectively, have 7 and 13 TPS. In addition to this, AVAX is not encumbered by Ethereum’s notorious gas fees. AVAX is well known for its compatibility with other networks, namely Ethereum. In addition to compatibility, Avalanche has an Ethereum Virtual Machine running on it’s blockchain. There is speculation that ETH developers could make the switch to Avalanche due to the cost savings and dramatically higher speeds.

At the start of 2021, Avalanche was worth $3.3 and at this time of writing, AVAX is worth around $65, down from a peak of $134 in December. Avalanche started the first week of 2022 in something of a bull market, a refreshing sight in a largely bear market in the cryptocurrency universe. As the price continues to fall towards $60, the former bull market may become bearish. Apart from a rocky start with the rest of the cryptocurrency industry, AVAX is predicted to grow a healthy amount this year due to its attraction to developers and good performance in 2021. This attraction will likely only grow if Ethereum’s Proof-of-Stake update does not go well.

Monero (XMR)

The privacy coin with a turbulent history on exchanges could see growth this year. Especially given the growing capacity of surveillance by governments.

Monero’s lack of presence on some of the larger exchanges makes it more resilient against speculation driving the price down, but this comes at the cost of speculation driving the cost up. This also does not mean Monero is difficult or impossible to buy, it is available for purchase on Binance and some other smaller exchanges.

While the smaller exchanges might not have the reputation of, say, Coinbase, Monero itself is a long time trusted favorite for fans of privacy coins. Monero is not backed by corporations which might not sound like a selling point, but in the face of regulations and surveillance, to which corporations must remain compliant, the privacy of the token is likely to be a valuable resource for many fans of crypto around the world.

Disclaimer: CryptoVantage does not offer investment advice and this article is for educational purposes only.