Despite starting the year with electric optimism at the heels of a major rally, the crypto market has spent the first month of 2024 on a downtrend. Even the highly-anticipated approval of a list of spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (BTC ETFs) only deepened in the subsequent weeks.
Despite this, the year remains exciting for the crypto industry, with numerous important developments expected to take place – Bitcoin halving being far from the least of them – and many cryptocurrencies are likely to start surging in the coming months.
With the risks and the potential in mind, Finbold decided to look at several coins and tokens likely to find their place in the portfolio of any savvy crypto trader.
Picks for you
Solana (SOL)
Of late, Solana (SOL) has been on a bit of a roll with some estimating the blockchain and its token are currently stronger than ever.
In December, it overtook its main competitor in the space – Ethereum (ETH) – in terms of non-fungible token (NFT) sales and added 600,000 new active addresses.
In January, SOL transaction volume crossed the $1 trillion threshold for the first time in multiple years.
Finally, at the very start of February, it saw single-day inflows amounting to $2 billion.
Odd arbitrage enthusiasts also have something to look forward to as, after selling out its Saga smartphones, the team behind the project promised it will launch its second crypto phone.
SOL has also been doing well on the crypto market and has, after losing some steam in late December and falling from above $121 to below $100, again started picking up steam. In the last month, it is up 8.76% and is 6.47% in the green in the last 24 hours of trading.
At the time of publication, SOL stands at $101.24.
Chainlink (LINK)
In many ways, Chainlink’s (LINK) strength lies in its unique role as a decentralized oracle service – a service that connects smart contracts with data from the real world. While already well established, it has immense growth potential, with more and more traditional companies entering the world of Web3.
This notion is only getting reinforced with companies traditionally hostile to cryptocurrencies – such as Vanguard – actively entering the crypto market.
Finally, looking purely at price movements, LINK has been one of the stronger tokens in 2024.
In fact, while most major cryptocurrencies are in the red since January 1, LINK rose 25.18% year-to-date (YTD). The more recent trend is much the same as it is 34.19% up in the last 30 days, 19.01% in the green in the last week, and rose 2.05% to $18.70 in the last 24 hours.
Bitcoin (BTC)
Expectations for Bitcoin were high at the onset of 2024 as the crypto community was abuzz with its huge Q4, 2023 surge and expectations – since fulfilled – that the SEC is about to approve America’s first spot BTC ETFs.
Despite this, the world’s foremost cryptocurrency has been struggling since January 1, and its YTD performance has only recently turned positive.
In total, BTC is up 95.31% in the last 52 weeks, 1.48% in 2024, and 4.22% in the last week. Finally, it rose 4% in the last 24 hours and stands at $44,666 at press time.
Still, Bitcoin remains a strong pick thanks to its good reputation, strong foundation, and the optimism surrounding the upcoming halving event – a process that has historically seen the cryptocurrency surge anywhere between tenfold and a hundredfold.
Indeed, many experts believe that BTC’s ongoing stagnation represents the expected accumulation phase before the halving, and analysts believe that it is poised to enter into a massive rally.
Finally, Bitcoin’s reputation as ‘digital gold’ was recently granted even greater credence as Ark’s Cathie Wood stated she believes it is slowly but surely replacing gold as the major store of value.
Disclaimer: The content on this site should not be considered investment advice. Investing is speculative. When investing, your capital is at risk.
