Traders and investors in the cryptocurrency industry have endured a roller coaster ride since the beginning of 2022. Over the last three months, Bitcoin’s market value has dropped significantly below the $35,000 level. To compound the misery, Russia launched a military attack on Ukraine in the early hours of today after a fortnight of unrest and tension.
These events have set the crypto market crashing, including all financial markets in the world. The overall crypto market cap has lost 7.5% in the last 24 hours, dropping to $1.7 trillion (it plunged below 1.6t earlier in the day).
According to coingecko, BTC market price is at $36,121, a 6.0% decrease in the last 24 hours and 17.9% decline in 7days. Fear/greed index is trending at ‘Extreme Fear’ and FUD is at an ‘all-time’ high.
In a poll posted on Bitcoin’s Twitter account on February 22, about 55% of the 32,633 voters believe that the digital asset will plunge further to below $32,500 by the end of February while the remaining 45% members of the community believe the asset will trade higher than the $32,500.
Experts have already claimed that the ongoing geopolitical tension will continue to bring worries for crypto investors for a long time.
According to Du Jun (Co-Founder of Huobi), Bitcoin may only see a new bull run in 2024 or 2025 once the blockchain sees a new halving. “Following this cycle, it won’t be until the end of 2024 to the beginning of 2025 that we can welcome next bull market on Bitcoin”. Jun told CNBC.
Yet, crypto cannot be regarded as a dying industry. In fact, it is just getting started. However, with crypto prices trending down as the conflict become more heated, investors must be very careful as the market shows off more volatility. Days, where nearly any coin was capable of turning a profit, are probably gone (at least, for now) and we are at the brink of a ‘bear season’ with major coins at least 30% down from their ATH.
To shake off the damage of a crash in 2022, one must invest in fundamentally solid coins and tokens. So what are the coins to buy that one can actually be confident in? Below are three suggestions.
Terra
One of the best ways to hedge against a crash is through stablecoins. The reason is they unlock more possibilities in ways fiat currencies can not. And among stablecoins, TerraUSD’s UST is one of the best.
UST is a powerful asset due to the fact that, unlike other stablecoins, it doesn’t rely on a reserve of fiat currencies to ensure its price stability. Rather, the value of UST is locked at $1U.S. dollar through the fluid exchange between it and the Terra (LUNA-USD) coin.
The process UST uses to keep its $1 peg is simple supply and demand economics. The network ties the supply of UST to the supply of LUNA. If the price of UST exceeds $1, investors can burn LUNA to increase UST supply, thus lowering its price. If it is below $1, UST can be burned to mint LUNA. The effect is twofold: UST is kept at its $1 peg, whilst LUNA holdings go up in value.
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While this itself allows investors to generate passive income with UST, the stablecoin also comes with the inherent perks of being a crucial DeFi tool.
The Terra network has a slew of different DeFi staking pools and lending applications which one can leverage with UST for profit. One of the most popular of these applications is Anchor Protocol. Anchor has become popular for reliably offering an annual percentage yield (APY) of about 20% at any given time.
Ethereum
The ETH coin is the only cryptocurrency that offers up any competition to Bitcoin in terms of price or market capitalisation, and it has been a no-brainer investment for anybody interested in big crypto gains.
It is one of the most widely used layer-1 networks in the world. And, while plenty of other layer-1s are starting to catch up in terms of users, Ethereum has an edge over all others with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).
Essentially, EVM is a runtime environment for smart contracts; this just means it is the machine through which smart contracts are executed. Developers can use EVM to create DApps, conduct initial coin offerings (ICOs) and mint non-fungible tokens (NFTs). One of the huge bonuses of developing blockchain products using EVM is that they are Ethereum compatible.
EVM is one of the simplest ways through which one can create a project; this makes it favoured by both seasoned developers and new coders alike. In fact, many of the biggest networks competing with Ethereum are built using EVM, including Binance (BNB-USD) Smart Chain and Solana. This demonstrates the longevity of the Ethereum network.
Bottom line is that much of the blockchain world depends on Ethereum’s technology, and betting on its native currency even in a bear market would be worthwhile.
Solana
Solana is one of the networks posing a threat to Ethereum’s dominance. It is beginning to rapidly accumulate new users and new capital. It presents a serious case as one of the big layer-1 leaders of the near future.
Solana burst into the top-10 largest in the world in late 2021. It has outperformed Bitcoin and Ethereum by over 40% since October 2021 and has remained among the largest products on the market
Solana distinguishes itself from the other layer-1 projects dominating the market right now through scalability. The network boasts the ability to process 65,000 transactions per second, which far outperforms even Avalanche. And with the NFT market showing no signs of slowing down, Solana is a network which is benefitting.
The network is becoming the go-to for NFT investors who no longer want to put up with the high fees and slow processing of Ethereum. While Ethereum held over 90% of NFT market share last year, Solana is stealing much of this dominance.
As of January 2022, Ethereum’s market share is down 15%, and much of that is going to Solana. Nearly six million NFTs have been minted on the network so far. With the influence Solana is wielding, investing in it in the current bear market is reasonable
