The next Bitcoin halving is expected to occur in the spring of 2024, with current estimates suggesting early March as the most likely time frame. The Bitcoin halving, which occurs every four years, has been a key event in the crypto market to date, marking the beginning of a bull run.

In this article, we primarily assume that the next Bitcoin halving in 2024 will also be followed by a bullish price movement, just as we have seen after previous halvings. Obviously, this may not happen as there is no guarantee that the price of Bitcoin will increase after the halving.

When the cryptocurrency market is in a bull market, small-cap altcoins often have the greatest profit potential. However, they also pose the greatest risks — canvassing, smart contract exploits, and malicious or incompetent leadership are some of the common risks faced by investors in small crypto projects.

Therefore, instead of focusing on projects that are at significant risk of catastrophic failure even during a bull market, we will highlight five established crypto projects that are likely to do well if the overall cryptocurrency market enters a bull market thanks to the Bitcoin halving.

1. Ethereum – the undisputed leader in smart contracts

Ethereum is the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization and is likely to remain that way for a long time to come. Ethereum has a market capitalization of $228 billion, while its next closest competitor, Tether, has a market capitalization of only about $83 billion.

If there is a crypto bull run after the next Bitcoin halving, Ethereum will almost certainly do well. It is simply the go-to platform for projects looking to take advantage of the more advanced use cases offered by blockchain technology, including decentralized finance, non-fungible tokens, decentralized autonomous organizations, prediction markets, and more.

Over the past few years, the Ethereum protocol has undergone several changes that have made ETH a more attractive long-term holding asset, making it a good cryptocurrency to buy now.

Most importantly, EIP-1559 introduces an ETH burning mechanism that destroys the underlying ETH transaction fees for all Ethereum transactions. Ethereum has also fully transitioned to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, which significantly reduces the issuance of ETH compared to the old proof-of-work system. There are now only about 1,600 new ETH issued per day, compared to about 13,000 ETH per day under the previous consensus mechanism.

For the next cryptocurrency bull run, Ethereum will be in a better position in terms of scalability due to the rapid development we are seeing in layer 2 scaling solutions. While many investors were priced out of the Ethereum network during the last bull run, they will have several great layer 2 options to choose from the next time a bull run dominates the crypto market.

2. BNB - A scalable alternative to Ethereum powered by Binance

BNB is a cryptocurrency that was launched in 2017 by the Binance cryptocurrency exchange. However, BNB has taken on a life of its own in the years since its launch and is now the native asset of its own blockchain platform, BNB Chain.

The BNB Chain platform is EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) compatible, which essentially means that smart contract developers can create decentralized applications for BNB Chain using all the popular tools present in the Ethereum ecosystem.

We should note that BNB Chain has made some compromises in decentralization to achieve better performance. The set of validators that add new blocks to BNB Chain is permissioned, meaning not just anyone can launch a node and join the network as a validator.

However, many users seem to be satisfied with BNB Chain’s trade-off between decentralization and performance, as it is one of the most widely used blockchains on the market today.

Interestingly, BNB is one of the cryptocurrencies most associated with Bitcoin. In fact, only Cardano has a higher correlation to Bitcoin than BNB in ​​terms of price action.

While the Binance exchange has created some distance between the BNB token and itself (potentially avoiding potential regulatory issues), it continues to support BNB and the BNB Chain ecosystem. If the next Bitcoin halving sparks a new crypto bull run, a blockchain with strong backing from the world’s most popular cryptocurrency exchanges certainly has a good chance of doing well.

3. Arbitrum – Ethereum’s leading layer 2

Arbitrum is one of the leading layer 2 scaling solutions for Ethereum. It utilizes optimistic rollups technology to provide faster and cheaper transactions while still leveraging the security of the Ethereum mainnet.

According to Ethereum layer 2 tracker L2Beat, Arbitrum is currently the most popular layer 2 on Ethereum. Its TVL (Total Value Locked) is $5.88 billion, while its next closest competitor, Optimism, has a TVL of $1.7 billion. It is also currently the most active Ethereum layer 2, processing over 8.5 transactions per second at the time of writing.

So if we see a bull run in the cryptocurrency market attracting new investors looking to gain access to on-chain opportunities, Arbitrum appears to be the preferred scaling solution for Ethereum.

The project’s ARB token has reached a market capitalization of $1.56 billion, making it the 34th largest crypto asset at the time of writing. However, ARB can easily move up the market cap ranking during a bull market.

4. Solana – One of the fastest and most efficient blockchains

Solana is one of the fastest and most efficient smart contract platforms available today. To be clear, Solana has experienced some notable setbacks in the last year—technical issues caused the blockchain to stall multiple times, and one of its biggest backers, the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, collapsed amid one of the cryptocurrency industry's biggest scandals . history.

Despite these problems, Solana is still thriving. Its impressive scalability allows it to support use cases that are simply not feasible on most other blockchain platforms. Solana is home to many popular cryptocurrency and blockchain projects, including Stepn, Helium, Magic Eden, and Orca, among others.

Solana’s DApp ecosystem is already more diverse than competitors like Cardano. Another factor that makes SOL worth considering right now is that the token is trading down more than 90% from its all-time highs. So if you think Solana has strong long-term potential, buying some SOL at these prices might be a good decision, especially before the next Bitcoin halving.

5. Dogecoin – A meme coin with mainstream appeal

We rank Dogecoin as one of the best cryptocurrencies to buy before the Bitcoin halving because it has shown impressive longevity since its launch in 2013.

During the last bull run in the cryptocurrency market in 2021, Dogecoin was one of the biggest winners. We're seeing an influx of new investors into the crypto market, and Dogecoin is the obvious choice for many due to its memetic appeal, availability on mainstream trading platforms like Robinhood, and low unit price (although that's more a psychological advantage rather than a real one).

A viral trend emerged on social media platforms like TikTok and Twitter, with users encouraging each other to buy Dogecoin and raise its price to $1.

If we are to see another surge in new investors entering the cryptocurrency space after the next Bitcoin halving, DOGE is likely to be one of the best performing cryptocurrencies. During the last bull run, Dogecoin surged to highs but failed to quite reach the $1 mark. Will it be different next time?

bottom line

Many crypto investors are hoping for another crypto bull run after the next Bitcoin halving in 2024. If this is indeed the case, the vast majority of cryptocurrencies are likely to perform well - crypto markets tend to be dominated by Bitcoin, and it's rare to see other coins fall when BTC rises.

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