Cryptocurrency might have started out as a Wild West of investing dominated by mavericks, but it’s now firmly in the financial mainstream. Institutional investors and big banks treat it as a serious asset despite recent volatility, the collapse of a major exchange and regulatory crackdowns in China and elsewhere.

If you need evidence of how volatile, consider this: As of March 4, bitcoin’s value has ranged from a low of $15,599.05 to a high of $45,544.36 over the past year. Despite that volatility, many cryptocurrency investors remain on the lookout for the next big payoff. Keep reading to learn which cryptocurrencies might explode soon.

Which Cryptocurrency Is Set To Explode?

If you’re looking to start buying cryptocurrency, you might be wondering which one will bring the biggest potential return. Although bitcoin might be the obvious choice, it’s not necessarily the best one in 2023. Your chances of having a big payoff might be better with a smaller coin that hasn’t already been pumped up by institutional investors the way bitcoin has.

Here are six cryptocurrencies that might still have a high ceiling.

1. Ethereum (ETH)

Ethereum, commonly known as ether, is the world’s second largest cryptocurrency behind bitcoin, even outperforming bitcoin at times. In 2021, Ethereum instituted a major upgrade that reduced the supply of ether, currently at 120.46 million coins as of April 5. The upgrade also allowed the Ethereum network to handle more transactions per second, improve the platform’s scalability and lower transaction fees.

Compared to bitcoin, ethereum lacks scarcity bitcoin’s supply is capped at 21 million coins and widespread acceptance by companies and governments. However, unlike bitcoin, ethereum isn’t just a store of value. It also powers an infrastructure on which apps can be built. Other cryptocurrencies are issued on Ethereum, and it serves as the foundation of decentralized finance.

Many metaverse projects, including Star Atlas, Axie Infinity and The Sandbox, use the Ethereum blockchain, as do most NFTs. Another upgrade, this one launched in September 2022, transitioned Ethereum to a Web3-ready proof-of-stake mechanism that reduced energy consumption by about 99.95% and further increased security and scalability.

Ethereum experienced a major slump last year, losing 70% of its value between November and June, which is about on par with other major cryptocurrencies. The price is on the rise again, so this might be the right time for investors who’ve been waiting to test the cryptocurrency waters. The coin might also appeal to current investors who bought high and would benefit from dollar-cost averaging.

2. BNB (BNB)

Binance is the largest cryptocurrency exchange in terms of trading volumes. Like bitcoin, BNB coin, formerly called binance coin, keeps a hard limit on the number of tokens in circulation in its case, 157,887,462 out of a maximum of 159,979,964 tokens are currently in circulation. This helped the token price increase exponentially in 2021.

In addition, Binance puts about one fifth of its profits each quarter into permanently getting rid of, or “burning,” BNB tokens, which raises the value of the remaining tokens. It burned 2.06 million BNB tokens over $575 million worth in January and expects to eventually burn 50% of the maximum supply.

Binance has two blockchains, which reduce the kind of bottlenecks Ethereum is vulnerable to. It’s also fast and scalable, and Binance is in the process of making the platform more regulator friendly, according to Seeking Alpha a feature that could be crucial to its longevity and widespread adoption, especially in light of the collapse of rival exchange FTX. 

In addition, Binance recently launched Bifinity, a fiat to cryptocurrency payment platform that will help merchants prepare to accept digital assets as payments, CoinMarketCap reported. The payment processing platform supports more than 50 cryptocurrencies and major payment networks like Visa and Mastercard.

Also working in BNB’s favor is the fact that it outperformed bitcoin and ethereum in 2021 and 2022. With Binance expanding into Europe, with Paris as its hub, BNB could be ready to take off.

On the downside, the Securities and Exchange Commission is looking at whether Binance acted improperly in its launch of BNB. A major fine or other sanction could hurt BNB prices.

3. Tether (USDT)

Tether is a type of “stablecoin” designed to provide a less volatile alternative to bitcoin because it is linked to another asset. In tether’s case, that asset is the U.S. dollar. In valuation terms, tether usually has a 1-to-1 ratio with the dollar, meaning it is less volatile than cryptos such as bitcoin and ether “usually” being the operative word.

In May 2022, tether briefly dropped to $0.9455, its lowest price since 2018, before returning to its typical price of above 99 cents. Although analysts disagree over whether the drop constituted a true “de-pegging” from the dollar, the event led to a sell off as investors worried that tether would plummet like another stablecoin, terra raced to move into bitcoin and other coins now selling at what some consider to be steep discounts.

With an $80.02 billion market cap, tether is the largest stablecoin and the third-largest coin overall. It’s also the most traded coin cryptocurrency investors use it to hold funds or make transactions using funds they want to protect against the price swings to which bitcoin, ether and other non-stable cryptocurrencies are vulnerable. You can also lend it to cryptocurrency platforms in return for double digit annualized interest rates without worrying too much about volatility erasing your earnings.

4. Decentraland (MANA)

Decentraland is a virtual reality game on the Ethereum blockchain that uses the MANA token as an in-game currency. Users can purchase goods and services, buy land and visit other players, as well as create and monetize their own content. MANA’s price of $0.5989 as of April 5 represents about a 109% increase from its 52-week low of $0.2859 — and a 76% decrease from its 52-week high of $2.56. MANA is the second-largest gaming cryptocurrency in terms of market cap.

Although Decentraland does have competition from the likes of The Sandbox and ApeCoin, and in-game assets are quite expensive — land parcels recently listed start at 3.5 ethereum, worth about $6,650 at current prices it has some benefits that could push the MANA token forward. For example, users retain ownership of the digital assets they create in Decentraland and can convert them to cryptocurrencies other than MANA.

If the Decentraland metaverse needed a legitimacy boost, it got one in May 2022, when Millennium Hotels and Resorts launched M Social on the platform. According to a press release, this is the first metaverse hotel operated by a hospitality group. Decentraland has also signed a deal to integrate the upcoming film “The Infinite Machine” and its NFT collection into its metaverse, Variety reported. In addition, Grey Goose has recreated its VIP Suite on Decentraland, and it’s gearing up to open a VIP Lounge.

5. Algorand (ALGO)

Algorand, founded by noted computer scientist Silvio Micali, has positioned itself as a competitor to the Ethereum blockchain. Hundreds of companies, including the International Federation of Association Football, use it, as do the governments of El Salvador and the Marshall Islands.

Algorand recently appointed its first-ever chief financial officer. Matthew Commons, a Chartered Financial Analyst with over 20 years of experience building and leading blockchain companies, said in a March 1 statement, “There are tremendous opportunities for Algorand to extend its leadership across many sectors of blockchain. One of my first priorities will be to help identify strategic growth areas with the leadership team, and then ensure we have the right financial plans in place to go after them.”

One of Algorand’s biggest advantages is its “proof-of-stake” algorithm, which offers a high degree of security and scalability and requires less electricity than Bitcoin and other platforms. This feature will only grow in importance as cryptocurrencies face more criticism and possible regulation for their massive energy consumption.

6. RenderToken (RNDR)

RenderToken is a graphic rendering network that lets miners with excess graphics processing unit bandwidth parcel it out to artists and creative studios that need extra computing power. RNDR is the native token creators and miners use in their transactions on the Render Network.

The cloud graphics company Otoy is behind Render. To further level the graphics-processing playing field, Otoy recently launched its Octane X RNDR app for iOS. The app includes the same Otoy GPU renderer that studios like Disney and Marvel use, Fast Company reported, and it could forge a path for RenderToken to become a major player in metaverse rendering.

RNDR was launched in a public sale in 2017, but it just recently got its listing on the Coinbase exchange. While highly speculative, RNDR could benefit from the increased exposure it’s getting on Coinbase, as well as the extraordinary rise of non fungible tokens for digital art.