Want your next-door wall street analyst to look confused? How about asking them the next crypto price prediction of 2021. As the top cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano, Ripple, and many others skyrocketed in value in 2021 like never before, it is eminent that we are about to see many other cryptocurrencies touch an All-time high. While the street seemed a little hesitant about the ‘digital gold’, the new surge has a completely different portrait to paint. The experienced crypto investors know their way in and out of the market using every bit of the opportunity to their advantage.
Although many cryptocurrencies touched an all-time high this year 2021, however here are the top 5 cryptocurrencies to touch ATH. These are the top 5 cryptocurrencies people have shown the most interest in given their market capitalization which is still on a growing streak.
Also, read about the top cryptocurrencies people are interested in 2021.
Rank | Token | ATH (Latest of October 2021) | Market Capitalization |
#1 | Bitcoin | $66,930.39 | $1,183,641,947,180 |
#2 | Ethereum | $4,366.09 | $498,314,638,810 |
#3 | Binance Coin | $690.93 | $81,032,827,237 |
#4 | Cardano | $3.10 | $71,052,853,765 |
#6 | Solana | $218.73 | $63,134,885,855 |
Source: CoinMarketCap
The first-ever cryptocurrency that took the entire world by surprise was Bitcoin. It was originally described in a white paper of 2008 under the alias name of Satoshi Nakamoto. It was officially launched in 2009.
It is a P2P (peer-to-peer) digital currency or asset wherein all the transactions can happen directly between the parties involved without the intervention of any external or third party. It requires no intermediaries to permit the transaction. Although a similar type of decentralized structure did precede before the birth of Bitcoin, however, it holds the prestigious position of being the first cryptocurrency to ever come into use.
It was the first of what we know today as cryptocurrencies. It managed to stir the entire global community into thinking beyond the traditional approach of banking and financial methods. The concept behind Bitcoin gave birth to an industry that is less than 2 decades of birth is already worth more than $ 2 trillion. Crypto enthusiasts can easily trade, buy and sell digital assets without third-party permission. All thanks to the pioneering idea behind BTC and its creators ( who are yet to be known) a revolutionary idea led to many more competing and extraordinary projects. It remains the largest cryptocurrency in terms of market capitalization. It reached its all-time high a few days back in October of $66k surpassing its ATH created in May 2021.
Also, read about the top 5 altcoins of 2021.
Ethereum is the second-largest cryptocurrency protocol by Market capitalization. It is a decentralized open-source blockchain system featuring its cryptocurrency, Ether (ETH). It also serves as a cryptocurrency platform for various other cryptocurrencies helping them to execute smart contracts.
It first received its description in a white paper in 2013 by Vitalik Buterin. The project came into fruition in the year 2014. With various updates with every passing year, the latest London Hardfork update of Ethereum has helped ethereum gain more popularity.
The concept of smart contracts was pioneered by Ethereum. It has since then helped a lot of cryptocurrency projects. Various crypto projects are backed by the ERC20 protocols. Learn more about what is ERC20 and its various use cases.
The principal innovation that ethereum brought with itself was designing a platform that allowed the execution of smart contracts with the help of blockchain. Ethereum’s blockchain is also able to host other cryptocurrencies called tokens via its ERC-20 compatibility standards. It is rather one of the most common uses of the Ethereum platform.
Here are the top 5 smart contract tokens of 2021 that you should know about.
Binance is the biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the entire world. The primary aim of this cryptocurrency exchange is to bring cryptocurrency to the mainstream and let everyone get access to this financial revolution. The idea is reflected in its name meaning Binary finance or Binance, showing the new paradigm in finance.
Aside from being the largest crypto exchange, it has an ecosystem of functionalities for its users. Every network under Binance such as the Binance Academy, Binance Chain, Trust wallet, Binance smart chain, and all its research projects aim to empower the blockchain technology it has been using. Binance Coin, the native token of Binance forms an integral part of its efficient and successful functioning.
It is a unique ecosystem of blockchain-based decentralized systems that has grown into the leading crypto exchange offering one of the best features to all its users. The biggest competitive advantage for Binance is its enthusiastic will to develop better and more futuristic features to help blockchain and the concept of cryptocurrencies grow. Although it began as a crypto exchange in 2017, it has established itself as one of the leaders in several domains of blockchain.
The increased investor interest in its native token BNB has also helped the company grow. The advanced features of the company help the investors trust their native token and thus has led to increased market capitalization. It is evident from the fact that BNB touched an all-time high of $690.93 this year in May 2021.
With the primary aim to help innovators, visionaries, and changemakers bring about a positive change, Cardano is a proof-of-stake blockchain platform. It’s an open-source project that focuses on redistributing the power from structures that are unaccountable to individuals. The idea is to create a better, fair, and transparent society. The native token of this platform is ADA, deriving its name from the 19th-century mathematician Ada Lovelace.
The Shelley upgrade of Cardano that took place in 2020 made it 50 to 100 times more decentralized. It was anticipated by experts that this upgrade of Cardano will pave the way for hundreds of assets to run on their networks.
This token ensures that the owners have the right to participate in the operations of the network. The holders of this cryptocurrency are given governance rights and voting rights across the platform. It is one of the biggest blockchains to have successfully integrated a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism that requires less energy as compared to the proof-of-work algorithm.
The entire development in the technology undergoes a peer-reviewed process to ensure that bold ideas face adequate challenges internally before getting validated. This academic rigor helps the blockchain system to become stable and durable and thus helping the company to analyze the loopholes in advance.
Banking on blockchain technology’s permissionless nature, Solana is a high-functioning open-source project. It provides decentralized finance (DeFi) solutions to its users. Although the ideation of this blockchain technology began in 2017 it was officially launched in March 2020. The protocol is designed such that it helps in the facilitation of decentralized apps (DApps). The primary aim of this blockchain technology is to improve the scalability of the system via a proof-of-history (PoH) mechanism which in turn is combined with the Proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus.
This mechanism is so innovative that it has gained attention from just not HNI investors but has also been taken interest by many small-time traders. The main focus of this blockchain system is to make decentralized finance (DeFi) accessible to everyone around.
The PoH mechanism of Solana allows more scalability and also boosts the usability of the entire system. It is quite popular in the crypto community be3cause of its extremely short transaction time. The hybrid protocol deployed by this blockchain protocol allows significantly decreased validation times not only for the smart contract execution but also for transactions. Because of this super-fast processing time, Solana has attracted a lot of interest from institutional traders. Due to its longstanding professional expertise, Solana acquired the 7th rank on CoinMarketCap on September 2021. However, it broke its record again and took an impressive bull run reaching an All-time high of $218.73 in October 2021.
The top 5 DeFi cryptocurrencies to invest in 2021 have also been discussed in detail.
It won’t be a surprise to see all these cryptocurrencies cross another benchmark before the year ends. Although the crypto market is indeed quite volatile, the bull run that we have seen in the past two years, we can say that it is one of the most leveraging markets in the world. One new upgrade and the prices will soar the sky. It is extremely difficult to predict the crypto market and its movement gave it functions on both technical and fundamental factors. However, next time a crypto investor or an enthusiast decides to execute their investment plan, they must keep these top cryptocurrencies to touch ATH in 2021 in mind!
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Disclaimer: It is advisable to dive into an investment after conducting thorough research. The article is not aimed at any financial advice. *All prices are as of October 25th, 2021.