The cryptocurrency industry continues to impress and grow, attracting more and more money, as well as more people than ever before. Many who join the industry and learn of its potential are interested in investing for the long term, with some willing to wait for years for their investment to pay off, while others are even ready to wait for decades to come.
Some parents even make investments on behalf of their children, expecting the investments to go to the moon by the time their kids come of age. Whatever your own motivation may be, the fact is that, if you wish to invest — you need to know which projects to pick, and that is what we are going to talk about today.
Note that the following are not the only projects worth investing in, but they are some of the projects that we feel very confident about going forward. In other words, you can choose these or other ones, or a combination of the two, but the important thing is to do your research and know why you are investing in a project that you chose. With that said, here are our recommendations for the top 6 cryptocurrencies to buy for the long haul today.
1. Bitcoin
The first on the list is the first cryptocurrency that was ever invented, and the world’s largest coin by market cap. With its market cap being nearly as large as the rest of the crypto industry combined, we are, of course, talking about Bitcoin.
Bitcoin has been the biggest and most popular cryptocurrency throughout the crypto industry. Of course, in the early days of 2009, it was the only coin out there, but developers quickly started launching new projects that were trying to copy it and introduce minor changes to make their own projects better, or at least different. Some successful ones managed to survive to this day, such as Litecoin, while many others failed and disappeared along the way.
Bitcoin, however, remained the flagship product of the crypto industry. Being the biggest and most dominant coin out there, Bitcoin has commanded the market trends for well over a decade. It saw growth that many did not even dare imagine over the course of its history. In 2017, it started a bull run that took it to $20k, which was miles above anything that people in the crypto world ever thought possible at the time. The growth that it saw in 2021 managed to dwarf even the achievement made in 2017.
With the community now expecting BTC to replace gold, the project’s potential is practically unmeasurable, meaning that it might take some time for the crypto industry to resume growth following the bearish trend that currently rules it, but if you wish to invest long-term into any crypto, Bitcoin is definitely the coin to turn to first.
To learn more about this token visit our Investing in Bitcoin guide.
2. Ethereum
In the second spot, we have Ethereum. Just like Bitcoin, this is a coin that does not need any introduction. Launched in 2015, Ethereum transformed the crypto industry by pointing out the possibilities of blockchain technology, showing the world that blockchain can record massive amounts of data, code, and pretty much any other type of information. This led to the development of the blockchain, and the true growth of the crypto/blockchain industry.
Ethereum was responsible for the development of smart contracts, dApps, DeFi, NFTs, metaverse, and even a massive amount of new cryptocurrencies, thanks to the fact that it developed token models for developers to use, instead of having to create new cryptos from scratch.
Its contributions to the crypto industry are second only to Bitcoin, which was the coin that started the crypto industry in the first place. With that said, it is only right that Ethereum holds the second spot on this list, as it does on the list of largest coins by market cap.
Now, Ethereum does have its problems, such as low TPS, high gas fees, the inability to scale, and alike. But, it is also working on fixing these problems, with its ultimate solution being Ethereum 2.0. Once it switches to ETH 2.0 completely and replaces PoW with PoS algorithm, a lot of its issues should be solved, while even the biggest ones should be significantly reduced.
To learn more about this token visit our Investing in Ethereum guide.
3. Cardano
In the third spot, we have Cardano, a cryptocurrency developed by one of Ethereum’s own co-founders, Charles Hoskinson. Hoskinson and his team wanted to make a crypto project that would be similar to Ethereum, but better than Ethereum could ever hope to become. As one of the developers of the project, Hoskinson had the opportunity to learn of all the mistakes that the original Ethereum team made, and he wanted to do better with Cardano.
He came up with a roadmap that has 5 stages, or Eras, as the developers call them. So far, the project has completed the first two stages, with the second one finally coming to a close in October 2021. However, Cardano has been live for years before this, and while it promised a lot, its roadmap was very stretched, and so for a long time, the community simply kept an eye on it, not knowing whether or not to expect results. In October 2021, Cardano completed its Shelley Era, finally bringing smart contracts to its platform.
Suddenly, the project and its coin exploded, with developers rushing to try out its systems, especially as they were leaving Ethereum due to its high fees. If Cardano became one of the top performers simply by launching smart contracts and completing its 2nd Era, we are excited to see what kind of effect will the completion of the remaining 3 Eras have on the project. With that said, Cardano might be the perfect crypto to invest in for the long haul.
To learn more about this token visit our Investing in Cardano guide.
4. Decentraland
While 2021 will forever be remembered as the year of NFTs and a massive bull run, it is worth noting that the last few months of the year started the growth of the new trend — the metaverse. These days, the metaverse is one of the hottest topics in crypto, with projects throughout the industry launching their own virtual worlds.
However, Decentraland (MANA) is one of the oldest ones to launch a metaverse, and as a first-mover, it is the Bitcoin of the metaverse sector. While others are still trying to figure out how to create, organize, and maintain their metaverses, Decentraland is already organizing virtual events to the point where even the Australian Open tennis tournament held virtual events in Decentraland’s world throughout January 2022.
There were many similar events over the last few years, and now that the attention is directed towards Decentraland and similar projects, we expect its world to grow, and its token MANA to blow up, and to continue surging higher over the years, as more people get involved with this project.
To learn more about this token visit our Investing in Decentraland guide.
5. Polkadot
Next up, in the fifth spot, we have Polkadot. Now, Polkadot is a project that aims to solve one of the crypto industry’s biggest problems, which is the inability to scale. To achieve this, the project came to the idea of launching multiple chains that would run alongside its main chain. The benefit of this is that the main chain would then offload the work to these other chains, and have them help out.
The parallel chains, appropriately named parachains, were also developed with the ability to connect to other blockchains belonging to different projects, which means that Polkadot’s main chain could be connected to these other networks by way of the parachains. This means that Polkadot managed to create one of the first blockchain networks that combine different ecosystems into one big network.
That also means that Polkadot might be the project that created the first version of Web 3.0, where it would lie in the center of the new web, and allow data and money to travel from one project to another, through it. As such, Polkadot has 2 very important things going for it, which is why we believe that it will be a great investment for the long term.
To learn more about this token visit our Investing in Polkadot guide.
6. Chainlink
Speaking of the importance of delivering data, we have Chainlink — a project that developed the first functional solution to delivering data from the real world to the blockchain. You see, the problem with blockchain and real-world data is that the data had no entry point that would bring it to the blockchain world. So, any smart contract that was required to self-execute once the real-world conditions have been met would forever have to wait for the trigger that would never come, simply as there was no way for the data to arrive at it.
Chainlink emerged with a solution, developing its oracle network that allowed for the data to enter the crypto/blockchain universe. More than that, its oracle network is also checking the data and confirming that it is real and true, by drawing it from multiple sources and comparing it in order to establish what is factually correct.
While many projects have emerged since Chainlink in an attempt to copy it, Chainlink is still the best, as well as the original, which is why everyone still turns to it in order to have the real-world info delivered to their smart contracts, as well. This is why we believe that LINK has a very promising future in this sector of delivering data to and from different chains for years to come.
To learn more about this token visit our Investing in Chainlink guide.
Conclusion
The cryptocurrency industry is rich with projects that are bound to be successful, and investing in them right now can be your ticket for a very profitable future. Of course, there is no guarantee for any of these projects, but judging from their history, roadmaps, general sentiment regarding the projects, and alike, we feel confident that they do have a successful future ahead of them. These six are also not the only ones that have the potential to blow up in the future, so if you wish to search for others on your own, there are plenty of gems to be found in the crypto sector.
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