Crypto investors have been trudging through a bear market for most of 2022. The two largest digital assets, Bitcoin (BTC -0.95%) and ether (ETH -1.90%), are down 65% and 68% year-to-date, respectively. While many crypto investors will be happy to look back at 2022, it wasn’t all bad news in 2022.
Recall that just last September, Ethereum developers seamlessly pulled through The Merge (Ethereum’s transition from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake), a feat that many observers have likened to swapping out an airliner’s engine in-flight . Even in 2022, while bitcoin declined in price, the bitcoin network performed strongly with no downtime and no hacks or exploits while processing billions of dollars worth of transactions every day. And there are also plenty of reasons to believe that 2023 will be better for crypto investors than the past year. Here are three cryptos that can accumulate during the bear market heading into the new year.
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1. Bitcoin
As mentioned above, the Bitcoin network ran smoothly in 2022 and proved its worth as a secure network with no hacks or breaches. In addition, the demise of other cryptocurrencies such as earth moon and the implosion of centralized exchanges like FTX underscored the value of holding a truly decentralized, trusted asset like Bitcoin.
And there is reason to look forward to 2023. While some Bitcoin critics posit that it has fallen behind Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies that enable smart contracts, developers are working on Bitcoin’s answer. If successful, a new protocol called Taro will allow Bitcoin users to mint assets like stablecoins and even non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the Bitcoin blockchain. This would bring a whole new set of use cases to Bitcoin and stimulate further activity on the network. Can you imagine the fanfare the first round of Bitcoin NFTs will generate?
As the oldest, largest, and most valuable cryptocurrency with a secure and stable network, and some interesting under-the-radar developments, Bitcoin is a top cryptocurrency to buy during the bear market.
2. Ethereum
But Bitcoin isn’t the only blockchain gearing up for more upgrades. While Ethereum’s merge upgrade is in the rearview mirror, Ethereum developers are working on the next round of improvements called Shanghai, which could appear as early as March 2023. Although The Merge has turned Ethereum into a proof-of-stake asset, allowing users to earn rewards for staking their Ether to validate transactions and secure the Ethereum network, Shanghai will allow those holders to stake from Ethereum to redeem and withdraw staking rewards, giving Ethereum users more flexibility. After that, the next upgrade, Ethereum Improvement Protocol 4844 (EIP-4844), is expected to happen this summer, and it will pave the way for sharding, which should significantly increase Ethereum’s capacity by allowing users to trade in bulk of “rolling up”. Transactions in “shards” that will increase the throughput of the Ethereum network and reduce so-called gas or user fees.
Ethereum is the largest blockchain for smart contracts and underpins most decentralized finance (DeFi). It is also by far the largest ecosystem for NFTs ever, with at least $31 billion in transaction volume. Ethereum has more than 200 million users worldwide and the Ethereum network processed its highest number of transactions ever on December 9th with more than 1.9 million transactions. As the largest proof-of-stake cryptocurrency with a strong track record of continuous improvements and a roadmap for more upcoming upgrades, Ethereum is another top cryptocurrency to add to your portfolio during crypto winter.
3. Tron
Tron (TRX -0.88%) may not enjoy the glamor and glitz of some of its competing cryptocurrencies, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It has held its value more than most of them in 2022. Its 28% year-to-date decline is actually a little better than that Nasdaq‘s performance this year and far better than the Bitcoin and Ethereum drops mentioned above, not to mention the 90% drops seen by other more hyped cryptos such as Bitcoin avalanche and Solana have endured. With this contrast in performance, it’s not surprising that Tron has outperformed Avalanche and Solana in terms of market cap this year.
Additionally, to say that many people worldwide use Tron feels like an understatement. Thanks to its fast transaction times and low transaction fees, Tron continues to be a popular choice for sending and receiving payments in stablecoins like tether and USDC for people all over the world, especially in developing markets. For example, Tron currently has more than 130 million active users and its mainnet has recorded 4.5 billion transactions with a total value of over $6 trillion. In terms of stablecoins, at the time of writing, more than $11 billion worth of Tether has been moved on the Tron network in the last 24 hours.
Tron has been around for a long time; It survived the previous crypto winter and offers a compelling use case to a large, global base of users, making Tron a top crypto to rally to during the bear market.
While 2022 was not a great year for cryptocurrencies, top cryptos like these three kept chugging along, their developers kept building on them, and they continued to serve large user bases around the world for a variety of uses. Better times should come for Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tron and their holders next year.
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