5 Cryptos That Are Worth Buying Now

These five major cryptocurrencies are worth buying now. They have all taken big hits year-to-date. They are Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano, Solana, and Dogecoin. They could do well when the market starts to turn around or rebounds from present fears of a deep recession.

• Bitcoin (^BTCUSD): The largest cryptocurrency with a market cap of $556 billion, and down 38.6% year-to-date (YTD).
• Ethereum (^ETHUSD): The second-largest crypto with a market value of $235 billion, and down 48.5% YTD.
• Cardano (^ADAUSD): The eighth-largest crypto with a market cap of $17.1 billion, very close to that of Solana ad down 63.1%.
• Solana (^SOLUSD): The ninth-largest crypto with a market cap of $16.6 billion, neck and neck with Cardano, and down 72.4%.
• Dogecoin (^DOGEUSD): The 10th largest crypto with a market cap of $10.9 billion known as a popular “meme" crypto, down 52.3% YTD.

Cryptos have become ingrained into many investors’ mindsets. They are seen as useful by companies as decentralized blockchains. Decentralized finance (DeFi) and other decentralized apps (dApps) cut out middlemen, extra fees, and bureaucratic and timing/allocation issues. 

As a result, once markets rebound or recover, these cryptos could shoot up faster than the stock market.

Bitcoin (BTC)

Bitcoin is the largest cryptocurrency with a market cap of $556 billion. The truth is that BTC is likely to stage a comeback once the market decides to rebound.

One reason is there is a limited total potential supply of coins — just 21 million, to be exact. As Bitcoin miners keep producing more, the supply slowly creeps toward that maximum. Since that means there will be fewer potentially available BTC coins, the resulting supply shortage for new investors will push up the price.

Bitcoin is known as a peer-to-peer currency. This means all its transactions occur between equally independent Bitcoin owners and participants. There is no need for any kind of bank or finance company or brokerage firm to act as a middleman. That is the great hope of all cryptocurrency owners.

So far, there are no plans for Bitcoin to quit mining with its proof-of-work (PoW) protocol, which requires a large amount of electricity. That is where other cryptos come into play, as they use non-mining-based protocols.

Ethereum (ETH)

Ethereum is the second-largest cryptocurrency with a $242 billion market capitalization. It is known as a hybrid platform for now — some versions of Ethereum use a proof-of-stake (PoS) protocol to validate transactions. In fact, Ethereum is planning a transition to a PoS protocol across the platform sometime this year.

The key application of Ethereum is that as a platform, it allows apps and smart contracts, unlike Bitcoin and other PoW cryptos. Smart contracts automatically fulfill any agreement between parties to the contract, without any middleman in between.

As of May 24, ETH traded below $2,000, which put it down almost 49% YTD. Moreover, it is well off of its highs of almost $5,000 reached in early November 2021. Once markets stop worrying about a huge recession that might come, Ethereum could rebound quite significantly.

Cardano (ADA)

Cardano is the eighth-largest crypto and has a market cap of $17.1 billion. That’s very close to the market cap of Solana, which is ranked right below it. Trading at 51 cents as of May 24, it is down 63% YTD from $1.377, where it ended in 2021.

Cardano is structured as a multichannel platform, allowing other cryptos to build their applications on top of it. Its chief goal is to act as an alternative to Ethereum by allowing quicker transaction processing times and cheaper fees.

Initially, its founders thought Ethereum could not accommodate large numbers of users. That has turned out to be the case, as it often has high transaction fees and slow validation speeds.

Since September 2021, Cardano has started accepting smart contracts and apps, especially in the DeFi arena. For example, since the beginning of the year, Cardano’s total value locked (TVL) has risen from $3 million to over $130 million, according to DefiLlama.

Solana (SOL)

Solana is the ninth-largest crypto and has a market cap of $16.6billion. Trading at $49.38 as of May 24, it is down 72% from $178.52, where it closed in 2021.

Like Cardano, Solana is seen as a faster alternative to Ethereum. Its chief goal is to support massively scaled dApps. As of this month, it can process 2,700 transactions per second (TPS). The platform can reach up to 710,000 TPS at its peak.

However, the platform is now so popular that it sometimes receives millions of transactions and crashes. Solana says it is making changes so it will be able to handle large numbers of TPS. This is a good kind of problem to have, as long as the issues can be fixed in the long run. It could lead to a substantial increase in the value of SOL.

Dogecoin (DOGE)

Dogecoin is a dog-based meme cryptocurrency, known as a “meme” crypto. It has a $10.9 billion market cap. Its coin features a Shibu Inu dog on its logo.

As of May 24, it was trading for 8.25 cents per coin. This is down 52% from its price of 17.3 cents on Dec. 31, 2021, and well off of its peak price of more than 42.3 cents as of June 1, 2021.

Dogecoin is used as a form of payment by an increasing number of merchants. This has helped increase its popularity as well as its uniqueness as a meme crypto. It also doesn’t hurt that Elon Musk has championed Dogecoin and seems to be standing behind its development.