Best Crypto in 2022: The next big cryptocurrencies

best crypto in 2022

Cryptocurrencies have been quite a sensation for the past few years; their adoption has been faster than the internet. By the end of 2025, there are expected to be around one billion global Bitcoin wallets.  This Figure is expected to continue increasing due to the worldwide reach of the internet.  Not only is bitcoin growing, but so are other cryptos like Ethereum, whose adoption has been faster than Bitcoin’s since 2019.  The growth of Distributed Finance (DeFi) is even more impressive, with the number of users increasing threefold since the start of 2021. This “risky” market has attracted more users, and as 2021 reaches its final quarter, investors are looking to 2022 for the best crypto investments 

For our newbies, we have a crypto course that you can access here, and for our old and new crypto lovers, we have put together a list of cryptos that are high flyers in 2021 and expected to return greater revenues in 2022 and beyond.  We have also identified a few newer cryptos with great potential.

Since we know you like to access the informations rapidly, here is the final ranking.

#1 Cardano (ADA)
#2 Ethereum (ETH)About Ethereum
#3 Solana (SOL)
#4 Bitcoin (BTC)
#5 Polkadot (DOT)

If you would like to learn more details about the ranking, please read the article. We also added in it 2 interesting investment surveys with thousands of answers about 1) What people think are the best cryptos to invest in 2022 and 2) What is their portfolio size.

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Surveys: Best cryptos and portfolio size

We decided to perform 2 surveys that are useful for readers to decide which crypto to invest in and how much to invest. The 2 sections below allow you to gather these informations.

Survey 1: In which crypto to invest?

Before we get to our ranking, we have one point to cover.

There is no established formula to determine the best cryptos for investment. Several questions can be asked to determine potential success, including:

  • What is its adoption rate?
  • Is this crypto filling a critical need?
  • Does the crypto have several competitors?
  • Are there ongoing plans for near future updates?
  • How is this crypto perceived by investors?

In order to answer the last question, we are conducting a poll with our readers (there are 17’700+ answers !!) 

How do you perceive the future for the most popular cryptos?

The survey below lists 30 of the top cryptos by market cap.

This poll is no longer accepting votes

What are the best cryptos to invest in (select 1 to 5 cryptos)?
4809 votes · 17752 answers

We hope this survey was interested and that it gave you a good “feeling” of what the mass of people/investors are thinking.

Survey 2: How much to invest?

This second and last survey (before the ranking of best cryptos for 2022) aims to make us understand what are the standards between people on how much to invest in crypto. You can use this result to give you indications on how much money you could allocate to you portfolio.

Same as before, once you have voted you’ll be able to access the results

How much crypto do you own?
2524 votes

Learn more about Cryptocurrency investing

If you have small/medium crypto experience, have a small portfolio (< $5’000), we advise you to learn more about crypto investing via this Coursera course to:

  • Build an effective strategy for incorporating Crypto into your investment plans
  • Assess the risks of cryptocurrency in an investment portfolio

Best Cryptocurrencies to invest in 2022

The following are the cryptos that are performing well this year and expected to do so in 2022 and beyond.

1-Ethereum (ETH)

ethereum illustration

Ethereum is a blockchain-based network with a medium of exchange, the cryptocurrency Ether (ETH).  Ethereum is a top contender because of its smart contract functionality. Smart contracts are like paper contracts that will execute when all conditions are met but without an intermediary like a bank or other middleman.  Developers use the Ethereum network for the creation of several offerings like Decentralized Exchanges (DEXs), Security Tokens (which can replace paper stock certificates and other financial products), non-fungible tokens (NFTs) used for replacing art and other valuable items, as well as creating new cryptocurrencies entirely with Ethereum’s ERC-20 token standard.

Ethereum is currently switching its consensus mechanism to a Proof of Stake (PoS) from its PoW mechanism with the ETH2.0 upgrade. Stakers can now provide their ETH as a staked investment for additional passive income.

Graph courtesy of coinmarketcap.com

What makes Ethereurm (ETH) a good investment?

  • Ethererurm is the largest blockchain network for decentralized applications and has the second-largest market cap behind Bitcoin.
  • With decentralized apps and the ERC-20 token standard, Ethereum has many use cases and is the predominant choice for new coin development. 
  • Ether is the only coin being discussed to surpass bitcoin in the near term, and all dApps, Smart contracts, security tokens, NFTs, or other products require ETH to run on the blockchain.
  • Bitcoin currently requires other Level 2 solutions(like the lightning network) to run smart contracts. Even with its taproot upgrade, Bitcoin will only provide simple, smart contract functionality, keeping Ethereum the better choice for this process.
  • It has been a popular choice since 2015 and has shown its robust capability, but it still evolves to be better, with the ongoing ETH2.0 upgrade that changes to the much more efficient and faster PoS consensus mechanism and system of Shards. 
  • Staking is an additional income generator(approximately 8% a year) for those holding ETH.
  • Since EIP 1559 ETH has started to be burned, this will cause deflation increasing the price of ETH even faster.  With the current gas price of 61 GWEI, the ETH supply is estimated to reach 118.7M ETH in early February 2022 and begin to decline.
ethereum supply
Graph courtesy of Ultrasound.money

Ethereum (ETH) Near and Long Term Price Predictions

Digitalcoinprice has a 2021 high prediction by the end of the year of $5,324.55, which would be a return of 56% up from the current price of $3,411.32.  Their forecast through 2028 is a high of $16,142.80 USD in Nov 2028, which equates to a 371.64 % increase from today’s price and an annual return of 24.8%.  If we extend this rate out to 2020, the price would be $25,172.46.

ethereum price prediction forecast 2021 2028
Figure courtesy of digitalcoinprice.com

Finder also surveyed a group of 36 industry experts on the price and future of Ethereum, with a prediction made on July 2021

ethereum price prediction finder
Figure courtesy of finder.com

The upgrades of ETH 2.0 are seen by most of the group as very positive, and the group sees an average 2021 end-of-year price of $4,596, a December 2025 price of $17,810, and a December 2030 average of $71,763, a 41% annual rate of return, high because of some outliers up to $1M, the median prediction is $20,000.  A majority also believes that ETH will overtake BTC’s market cap by the end of 2025 and more widely transacted by 2023.

Figure courtesy of finder.com

Though the two sources disagree about the rate of the rise, one says $71,000 (median $20,000) while the other is predicted at $25,172.46, both agree that there will be an increase, but not to the predictions of BTC.

2-Cardano (ADA)

cardano ADA illustration
Figure: Cardano illustration

Cardano(ADA) is a third-generation crypto launched in 2017, building on Bitcoin and Ethereum but more sustainable (environmentally friendly), scalable (faster), and more secure. Though it is not in the news like Bitcoin and Ethereum, it is considered a must-watch crypto by the Motley Fool.

What makes Cardano (ADA) a good investment?

  • Cardano has solved the energy usage issue when comparing energy use:
    • Cardano: 6 gigawatt hours
    • Bitcoin: 130 terawatt hours (21x Cardano)
    • Ethereum: 50 terawatt hours (8x Cardano) -> before ETH2.0
  • Cardano is already using the Proof of Stake consensus method, and holders can stake their ADA
  • Another ETH founder Charles Hoskinson is part of Cardano
  • Cardano has processed 257 transactions per second (TPS), compared to bitcoins 7 TPS
  • Cardano is already being used for Finance, Healthcare, and Agricultural projects
  • Cardano has a total fixed supply of 45 billion ADA, some cryptos are unlimited

Cardano (ADA) Near and Long term Price Predictions

In mid-September 2021 Cardano is at $2.71.

Graph courtesy of coinmarketcap.com

According to Coin Price Forecast’s latest long-term forecast, Cardano’s coin price will hit $3 by year-end and $12.66 in 2025, a 355% increase, and by 2030 $19.01, a total of 583% up at an annualized 24.2%.

Digitalcoinprice.com thinks that ADA will rise to $4.38 then fall to $3.63 by year-end, reach a high of $4.97 in 2022, $8.02 USD in 2025, and $12.03 USD by 2028, an annualized return of 23.7%. We can estimate a 2030 price from this of $18.42.

cardano price prediction 2021 2028
Graph courtesy of Digitalcoinprice.com

GOV Capital is again more optimistic and sees a 1-year ADA forecast of $3.43 (31.58% ) and the same huge dip expected in Jan 2022, and a 5-year ADA Forecast of $11.56, a 33.6% annualized return.

Gov.capital 1-year Cardano Coin price prediction
Figure: Gov.capital 1-year Cardano Coin price prediction

With our three predictions averaged, we have an expected ADA annual return of 27.17% to 2030.

3-Bitcoin (BTC)

bitcoin illustration

Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency created in 2009 by a person or group with the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto.  Like most other cryptocurrencies, BTC runs on blockchain ledger technology, a complex network of thousands of computers. Bitcoin is kept secure through a consensus mechanism (the process used by computers on a blockchain to verify the correctness of data on the ledger) called Proof-of-Work (PoW). BTC transactions are relatively fast and economical, with a maximum throughput of about seven transactions per second (TPS) and a new block created in about 10 minutes. Unlike government-issued (fiat) currencies, BTC transactions do not require users to provide private financial or identifiable personal information

Bitcoin remains the most prominent and second fastest growing cryptocurrency with a Sep. 2021 market cap of $856 billion at a price of over $45,000. BTC saw the highest-ever price of around $64,000 on April 14th, 2021.   

bitcoin to usd chart
Chart courtesy of CoinMarketCap.com

What Makes Bitcoin a Good investment?

  • With the largest market cap and first-mover advantage, Bitcoin is by far the most well-known crypto. When people think of crypto, the first thought is of Bitcoin. 
  • Bitcoin’s acceptance and use are steadily increasing. El Salvador became the world’s first country to accept Bitcoin as a national currency giving Bitcoin evermore legitimacy.
    • Blockchain Centre compiled data and found that in the first half of 2021, as many as 488,000 Bitcoin addresses are being created daily, totaling 88,365,209 and steadily increasing.  And according to a second-quarter earnings report from Cash App (a platform to buy and trade cryptocurrency), their gross profits for Q2 2021 more than tripled to $55 million from $17 the prior year, with no expectation of slowing soon. 
    • Bitcoin is the crypto choice for Store of Value (SoV), considered an inflation-proof asset similar to gold. 
    • SoV, combined with Bitcoin’s liquidity and the lack of any ties to the global financial system, makes Bitcoin well suited for macro investment. Unlike stocks that require brokers, Bitcoin can be easily bought and traded on several exchanges with nearly immediate transaction completion.
    • Bitcoin (and other cryptos) provide additional diversification to a portfolio and has historically outperformed the stock market since inception (though these returns will likely continue to decelerate). 

We believe that the adoption of Bitcoin is a good indicator of the rate of the price increase, as adoption starts to level off, the price will stop increasing or may fall, but until then will grow. 

Bitcoin (BTC) Near and Long Term Price Predictions

Many 2022 Bitcoin price predictions are circulating for a Bitcoin.  On the high end, billionaire venture capitalist and Bitcoin investor Tim Draper predicted in June 2021 that Bitcoin will reach $250,000 by early 2023. And the CIO of FiCAS AG Swiss, Ali Mizani Oskui predicts $200-300K between Dec. 2021 and March 2022.  Ali Mizani’s past predictions have been accurate, but he may be off this time. However, Bloomberg did publish an April 2021 report with an eye-popping 2021 End of Year Prediction of $400,000.

The Website digitalcoinprice.com has a more conservative prediction yet a potential 66% return by year-end of $75,000.

Graph courtesy of digitalcoinprice.com

And digitalcoinprice.com sees a 2022 year’s high prediction of $90,127.56 USD in Feb. 2022. 

Statistician and Polymath Sir Francis Galton realized in 1906 that there is a “wisdom of crowds,” and a group’s average prediction is usually quite accurate.  On Sep. 10th, 2021 the Personal finance website Finder.com published its most recent results of a survey of 42 crypto and finance industry experts (conducted June 21st, 2021) on how Bitcoin will perform over the next decade. They had a 2021 year-end prediction of $66,284 but believed that by 2025 it would reach $318,417, and those holding to 2030 will see over $4.2 million.

Graph courtesy of finder.com

It should be noted that outliers skew the above-average prediction, and if we look at the median price prediction, the 2030 forecast comes down to $470,000, still respectable. If we see $318,000 by 2025, that is an annualized return of about 60%, and it would need to maintain a 65% increase yearly to be 4.2million in 2030 (29% if we assume the median $470,000).

To learn how to invest in cryptocurrency or Bitcoin, we advise you to read our crypto investing course available HERE.

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4-Solana (SOL)

Solana may be the choice for 2021 to 2022 it is up 300% in the past 30 days and 13,000% YTD. It is already reaching the 7th rank for market cap at $51.8 billions. It competes with Cardano and Ethereum for the best smart contract platform. NFTs are the main reason behind Solana’s rise with its native NFT marketplace.

What makes SOL a good investment?

  • Solana made a big move into NFTs with its Degenerate Apes, a digital collection of costumed apes that features various traits, glasses to sandwiches, and different degrees of rarity (you might not “get it” but it is big for now)
  • It has already attracted over 400 projects, and several are DeFi projects, removing the bank as a middleman.
  • It is considered an ETH alternative, which programmers are looking for; it may not kill ETH but is possible for competition.
  • Solana has created a wormhole bridge between networks, which is a highly desirable trait because networks can rarely work together.  Solana says its next step will be to connect Terra (LUNA) and the Binance Smart Chain.
  • Solana claims it can process over 50,000 transactions per second (TPS) at the cost of less than $0.01 per transaction.

Solana (SOL) Near and Long-Term Price Predictions

In mid-September 2021, Solana is at $175.79

solana to USD chart
Graph courtesy of coinmarketcap.com

According to Coin Price Forecast’s latest long-term forecast, Solana’s coin price will hit $500 by year-end and $1000 in 2022. Reaching $4,086 in 2025, a 2224% increase, and by 2030 $6,829, a total 3,785% up at an annualized 50.01%.

Digitalcoinprice.com has a more conservative view thinking that SOL will rise to $262.23 then fall to $245.39 by year-end, reach a high of $346.61 USD in 2022, $517.21 USD in 2025, and $761.39 USD by 2028, an annualized return of 23.29%.  We can estimate a 2030 price from this of $1157.

Graph courtesy of Digitalcoinprice.com

GOV Capital is again more optimistic and sees a 1-year SOL forecast of $322.15 (79.7%) and a similar huge dip expected in Jan 2022, and a 5-year SOL Forecast of $2195.80, a 65.6% annualized return.

Figure: 1-year Solana Coin price prediction (source: Gov.capital)

It should be noted that JP morgan has warned its clients about the recent Solana price climb.

With our three predictions averaged, we have an expected SOL annual return of 46.3% to 2030.

5-Polkadot (DOT)

polkadot illustration

Polkadot is a Parachain blockchain network that has connected various blockchains that do different functions but make them work together. Polkadot, like Ethereum, allows developers to build apps and smart contracts. The relay chains of Polkadot allow communication of dApps with other blockchain networks. Due to the interoperability of Polkadot, it has become effortless to transfer assets between different blockchains, and the potential transaction speeds Polkadot has are the best in the industry (over 150,000).

What Makes Polkadot a Good Investment?

  • Polkadot can talk to other networks, including Ethereum.
  • Polkadot has a growing programmer base, in a webinar, Keith Bliss (President Capital2Markets) discussed its adoption, “Polkadot is an Ethereum competitor, and many programmers are using it considering it safer. It allows them to build their own blockchains.”
  • Polkadot addresses scalability, a major blockchain issue. Polkadot’s parachains reduce congestion. This enhanced feature also makes it a good investment choice.
  • Vitalik Buterin, one of Polkadot’s founders, also co-founded Ethereum, giving it a strong foundation and immediate gravitas.

Polkadot (DOT) Near and Long Term Price Predictions

In mid-September 2021, Polkadot is priced at $31.89.  Several experts are optimistic for Polkadot’s future.  According to Coin Price Forecast’s latest long-term forecast, Polkadot price will hit $50 by the middle of 2022 and then $75 by the end of 2023, seeing a 210% increase to 107.40 in 2025 but then dropping back to 100.26 in 2030, a modest 12.6% annualized return.  GOV Capital is more optimistic and sees a 1-year DOT forecast of $122.42 but a huge dip expected in Jan 2022, and a 5-year DOT Forecast of $1002.46, a 96.4% annualized return.

polkadot price prediction gov capital
Gov.capital 1-year Polkadot price prediction

Digitalcoinprice.com thinks that DOT will rise to $46.49 by year-end, $61.11 in 2022, $103.82 USD in 2025, and $153.01 USD by 2028, an annualized return of 23.8%.

polkadot price prediction 2021 2028
Graph courtesy of digitalcoinprice.com

Combined, the Polkadot predictions are quite spread out, but if we take the average of the three, we get an annualized return of 44.26%, which would be a $148 price in 2025 and a $927 price in 2030.

6-Binance Coin (BNB)

binance illustration

The Binance Coin (BNB) is the cryptocurrency used for trading and paying fees on the Binance crypto exchange. BNB can also be traded for other cryptocurrencies such as BTC or ETH.

What makes BNB a good investment?

  • Binance Coin comes with a variety of applications and benefits. At its launch in 2017, it was used merely for trading. Now as the 4th highest ranked coin by market cap ($70billion), it is essentially an investment in Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world.
  • BNB is now the way to pay for goods and services and transactions fees on the Binance Smart Chain.
  • Additional projects are coming for BNB, which should continue to increase the price and demand. After Binance Smart Chain, more projects are coming up, putting BNB in the list of top cryptocurrencies with more than a $51.08 billion market cap and a wide range of secure applications making it better for investment.

Binance Coin (BNB) Near and Long Term Price Predictions

According to Coin Price Forecast’s latest long-term forecast, Binance coin price will hit $500 by year-end and $1000 in the middle of 2025, a 170% increase, by 2030 $1,800, a total 331% up at an annualized 17.6%.

Digitalcoinprice.com thinks that BNB will rise to $649 then fall to $597 by year-end, reach a high of $824 in 2022, $1,287 USD in 2025, and $1,821 USD by 2028, an annualized return of 17.8%.

binance coin price prediction 2021 2028
Graph courtesy of Digitalcoinprice.com

GOV Capital is again more optimistic and sees a 1-year BNB forecast of $556.63 but a huge dip expected in Jan 2022, and a 5-year BNB Forecast of $1590.85, a 30.7% annualized return.

Gov.capital 1-year Binance Coin price prediction
Chart: 1-year Binance Coin price prediction (source: Gov.capital)

With our three predictions averaged, we have an expected BNB annual return of 22.03% to 2030.

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Would you like to see the list for 2021? : Top 20 cryptocurrency to invest in 2021

Other Promising Cryptos

Though we expect good things from the six cryptos above, it is always useful to consider some honorable mentions for the probable best cryptos in 2022.

  • Uniswap (UNI) is the 12th largest crypto by market cap ($14.5Billion), Its current (September 2021) price is $23.82.  Uniswap is the fourth largest exchange in the crypto space, allowing investors to instantly swap their tokens at the current market price without setting a “buy” or “sell” price.
  • Dogecoin (DOGE) the long-term prospects are not excellent for DOGE; however, it may still make some short-term gains as it has in 2021.  There is no limit on the number of creationed DOGE coins which means it has inflation not usually good for a crypto.  Its market cap is still over $32 billion. And at a price of $0.24, is up from $0.0047 YTD.

Some longshots

  • Swipe (SXP) is a new ERC-20 token with a market cap of $509 million. Binance acquired Swipe in 2020. In September 2021, the market price of one Swipe (SXP) is $2.72, having had a wild ride since $1.72 of Jan, 1.
  • Kava.io (KAVA) is a decentralized platform with a market cap of $596 million. KAA enables its users to access a wide range of decentralized financial services. The current (Sep 2021) market price of KAVA is $6.43, up from $1.30 at the beginning of the year.
  • A few other ALT coins with potential to perform well in the coming years are Fetch.ai (FET), SelfKey (KEY), Polygon (MATIC), and ChainLink (LINK).

Conclusion

Many cryptocurrencies have great potential and have allowed their investors to make huge returns in 2021. BTC and ETH have seen their highest-ever prices this year, and other ALTs like Solana have jumped thousands of percent. 2022 will likely see other incredible moves like these. 

Cryptocurrency investing requires analysis, patience, and quite a bit of luck. We recommend not investing more than you can afford to lose in any single crypto and expect significant increases or declines with all crypto.  It may be best to have a basket of various cryptos to smooth these changes but even this still has risks. If you are going to invest, understand the market, act wisely, and believe in yourself and your investment, hope for a big gain but be willing to take a loss.

Invest Wisely, Earn Returns Fearlessly!

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