Crypto is having a moment in 2024. Here's a look at some top buys.
Here are six of the best cryptocurrencies to buy now:
Bitcoin (BTC)
Ether (ETH)
Solana (SOL)
Avalanche (AVAX)
Pepe (PEPE)
Cardano (ADA)
Bitcoin (BTC)
Cryptocurrency is an incredibly nascent asset class, with origins only dating back to 2009. Extreme volatility is par for the course, so investors looking to insulate themselves from the potential total collapse of their holdings will want to go with more established names. None is more established than Bitcoin, the first cryptocurrency and largest by market capitalization with a valuation of about $1.2 trillion, or roughly 57% of the overall market.
Ether (ETH)
Second by market capitalization is Ether, which is the native token on the widely used Ethereum blockchain. Often colloquially referred to as Ethereum, ETH's market cap is about $280 billion and accounts for more than 13% of the total cryptocurrency market. Unlike Bitcoin, Ether's underlying network is far more than just a tool for peer-to-peer payments; the Ethereum blockchain is custom-made for smart contracts and decentralized finance tools, as well as for so-called Web3 applications and the trading of non-fungible tokens, or NFTs.
Solana (SOL)
Like Ethereum, Solana is a blockchain that was built with utility in mind. In Solana's case, it's become known for facilitating the easy creation of decentralized applications, or dApps, but the network is actually even faster than Ethereum, has far lower fees and is intended to be more easily scalable than rivals. The native token of this blockchain is the eponymous Solana, also known as SOL.
SOL didn't start trading until 2020, but it has had a meteoric rise to stardom in the years since. At the beginning of 2021, SOL accounted for just 0.01% of the crypto market's total value. Come Oct. 4 of this year, SOL makes up 3.07% of the multitrillion-dollar space, representing a more than 300-fold increase in its market share.
Excluding stablecoins, Solana is the fourth-largest cryptocurrency in the world, with a market capitalization around $65 billion. SOL's enjoyed a good run thus far in 2024, returning 34.8% through Oct. 3. Aside from its low fees, ease of use and thriving ecosystem, Solana has recently attracted a lot of attention to its platform through the popularity of Solana meme coins, which are easy and cheap to create and trade. Dogwifhat (WIF) and Bonk (BONK), another dog-themed meme coin, are two of Solana's most popular meme coins in 2024.
Avalanche (AVAX)
When investing in cryptocurrency, investors should understand that it's Bitcoin and Ether in their own tier, and then there's everything else. SOL, AVAX and the following altcoins on this list all have more risk, and investors should factor that into their decisions. Consider them purely speculative wagers.
Caveats aside, the Avalanche network's AVAX token earns its place on this list by virtue of the ambitious goals of the Avalanche blockchain.
Avalanche's subnets feature allows users to deploy their own mini-blockchains on top of its network. Developer Ava Labs envisions a future in which most mainstream commercial entities and even many individuals will want their own blockchains, with Avalanche subnets offering a convenient solution to that problem. If that reality materializes, then AVAX, which plunged 90% in 2022's bear market, could emerge as a longer-term winner.
Pepe (PEPE)
If you're new to the world of cryptocurrency, there's something you need to know: Sometimes the coins that take off are just plain stupid. Pepe, a meme coin with no inherent value other than its name – a reference to an old internet meme of a frog – is just such an example.
So, why include PEPE on the list of the best cryptocurrencies to buy? Well, as long as you're resigned to speculating (you are, if you're playing the crypto market), meme coins can provide enormous upside, and tend to have strong communities of loyal holders and intermittent periods of huge surges as they catch fire on social media. Pepe has the benefit of being a well-known, long-living internet meme, and has already cleared some difficult market cap thresholds: With a market cap of $3.8 billion, it's one of the top 30 most valuable cryptocurrencies in the world today.
Cardano (ADA)
Founded in 2017 by Ethereum co-founder Charles Hoskinson, Cardano is a proof-of-stake blockchain and one of the largest blockchains to successfully run that more energy-efficient protocol. Cardano aims to foster a developer-friendly ecosystem for dApps. Unlike Ethereum, Cardano has a hard cap on the number of coins that can ever exist, topping out at 45 billion. Thankfully for investors, around 35 billion, or roughly 78%, of that supply has already been issued, meaning the amount of overall dilution remaining is both known and relatively limited.
Cardano has managed to advance about 40% since the beginning of 2023, when it was trading for 25 cents. It's now trading for roughly 35 cents and boasts a market cap of more than $12 billion. Cardano is down 42% so far in 2024, so it's likely more of a long-term turnaround candidate than a short-term trader's dream.