Increased demand from institutional, corporate, and more recently retail investors has powered cryptocurrency surge this year.
According to JPMorgan strategists, the digital currency has emerged as a rival to gold and could trade as high as $146,000 if it becomes established as a safe-haven asset.
If you’re thinking of investing in cryptocurrency here are some pointers:
Ripple (XPR)
XPR is the third-biggest cryptocurrency by market value. It’s an open-source and decentralized blockchain technology that can settle transactions in 3-5 seconds.
Ripple, which often moves in tandem with Bitcoin, had rocketed in November to hit its highest level since 2018 as a rally in cryptocurrencies gathered pace.
Bitcoin at $100,000 in 2021? Outrageous to some, a no-brainer for backers
The coin offers a low exchange rate and instant confirmation for your transfers due to the validation process that bypasses the central bank.
The best time to invest in Ripple is now with its price low and affordable in comparison to other coins available on the market today.
Ethereum (ETH)
Ethereum is the second most popular blockchain in the cryptocurrency space after Bitcoin, in recent months its price has surged; it now costs $579 as of 28/11/2020.
The success of Ethereum can be attributed to its decentralized finance system; it supports smart contracts and allows for decentralized mobile applications, dApps, reports European Business Review.
Surging interest sends bitcoin to peak above $23,000
Litecoin (LTC)
Litecoin was an early bitcoin spinoff or altcoin. It is a cryptocurrency that allows instant payments to anyone in the world and that can be efficiently mined with consumer-grade hardware.
The cryptocurrency has a great number of followers, the price of Litecoin is 68 dollars, as of 28/11/2020.
Litecoin offers a higher block reward compared to other competitors and is incredibly fast and its transaction speed is faster, the average time to mine a block is just 2 minutes.
As of May 2020, Bitcoin’s market cap is just under $128 billion, while Litecoin’s is under $3 billion, reports Investopedia.
Basic Attention Token (BAT)
BAT was developed by the co-founder of Mozilla Firefox and it became incredibly popular in 2018. The cryptocurrency is the favorite coin of content writers, web developers, PR and marketing people, and some IT sector professionals.
BAT eliminates the middlemen from the advertising process and instead rewards the users for watching ads, and publishers receive the majority of the ad revenue directly. This helps advertisers gain a better ROI and more accurate data to analyze using BAT.
The platform currently has 22.2 million monthly active users, 7.4 million daily active users, 1 million verified creators accepting BAT.
Bitcoin (BTC)
Bitcoin jumped more than 5% since Friday to fresh record highs of $41,530, reversing losses from earlier in the session.
The world’s most popular cryptocurrency climbed as high as $40,402.46 and was last up 6.1% at $39,100. It crossed $30,000 for the first time on January 2 and $20,000 on December 16.
Interest in the world’s biggest cryptocurrency soared last year, with investors viewing bitcoin as a hedge against inflation and an alternative to the depreciating dollar.
“We are seeing a continued demand spike driven largely by sustained and unprecedented institutional interest, showing no sign of abating as we move into 2021,” said Frank Spiteri of digital asset manager CoinShares.
According to Billionaire investor, Chamath Palihapitiya bitcoin’s price could soar to $200,000 in as soon as five years as the “fabric of society is frayed” and investors realize they need an uncorrelated hedge in their portfolios, reports Business Insider.