Cryptos are getting increased attention as an asset class. Although it’s still difficult to value most digital tokens fairly, more businesses are now working with crypto assets or incorporating them into their operations or even balance sheets. Meanwhile, the use of decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, which operate without any intermediaries via smart contracts on blockchains, is growing rapidly.
Decentralized finance allows for “censorship-resistant participation in a number of digital markets, expanding the reach of lending [4], stable assets [5, 6], and exchanges [7, 8, 9] past the conventional financial world.” Therefore, as their use increases, we can expect a good number of digital currencies to recover from the recent decline in price and reach new highs in the months ahead.
So today’s article introduces seven cryptos that deserve your attention in July. Despite the recent sell-off in most cryptos, many of theses assets are still up double or even triple digits so far in the year.
For example:
- Bitcoin (CCC:BTC-USD) is up about 12%
- Ethereum (CCC:ETH-USD) is up over 175%
- Dogecoin (CCC:DOGE-USD) is up almost 3500%
- Ripple (CCC:XRP-USD) is up around 160%
According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, “Cryptographic assets, including cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, … and the underlying technology, provide opportunities to digitise a variety of ‘real world’ objects. The benefits of digitisation (such as ease of access, transfer, etc) have resulted in cryptographic assets growing from an obscure curiosity to a technology that is proliferating into a variety of business uses.”
As there are currently thousands of altcoins to buy, market participants need to do due diligence before investing their hard earned cash into them. Here are seven cryptos I’m keeping an eye on now:
- Aave (CCC:AAVE-USD)
- Ankr (CCC:ANKR-USD)
- Binance Coin (CCC:BNB-USD)
- Bitcoin Cash (CCC:BCH-USD)
- Holo (CCC:HOT-USD)
- Neo (CCC:NEO-USD)
- Uniswap (CCC:UNI-USD)
Cryptos For July: Aave (AAVE-USD)
Source: Yevhen Vitte/Shutterstock.com
52-Week Range: $25.97 – $666.86
Originally launched in November 2017 as ETHLend, by Stani Kulechov, this DeFi protocol was later rebranded as Aave. Those who want to lend or borrow cryptos now consider using the Aave network.
Assets on the platform are currently “limited to only ERC-20 tokens. ERC-20 is a standard for Fungible Tokens on Ethereum, i.e. they have a property that makes each Token be exactly the same (in type and value) of another Token.”
Lenders can earn interest by depositing their digital assets into specially designed liquidity pools. On the other side of the equation are borrowers who can then use their cryptos as collateral to take out loans. Aave’s flagship products are “flash loans,” regarded as the first uncollateralized DeFi loan product.
AAVE-USD started 2021 around $87.61. Now it is around $280. That is an eye-popping return of about 220%. That being said, AAVE is currently down about 12% in the past month. With a market cap of $3.6 billion, it is among the top 30 altcoins.
Ankr (ANKR-USD)
Source: karnoff
52-Week Range: $0.004532 – $0.2252
Developed in November 2017 by Chandler Song and Ryan Fang, Ankr depends on shared resources to provide blockchain node hosting solutions. As a result, developers and enterprise clients can easily deploy blockchain nodes at cheaper prices compared to public cloud providers.
A recent paper authored by the founders of the Ankr network highlights, “Most blockchain applications use either Proof of Work (PoW) or Proof of Stake (PoS) as the consensus for validating a piece of information (in most cases the information is the ownership of a coin or a token)… [But Ankr’s] Proof of Useful Work (PoUW) allows for a self-sustainable blockchain framework with the potential to unlock idle computing power around the world.”
ANKR-USD began 2021 around $0.0087. Now it trades at $0.073. That is a massive return of about 1,000%. However, in the past month, Ankr is down about 17%. With a market cap of about $500 million, it is among the to 110 cryptos.
Cryptos For July: Binance Coin (BNB-USD)
Source: Shutterstock
52-Week Range: $16.73 – $690.93
Launched in July 2017 by Changpeng Zhao, Binance has become one of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges globally. The growth has also come with regulatory hurdles. For instance, in June, the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority blocked the exchange from operating in the country.
As recent research points out, “BNB is a platform token issued by Binance Exchange and runs on the Ethereum blockchain with the ERC20 standard. BNB has a strict limit of a maximum of 200 million tokens and sold 100 million tokens (50%) to the outside world. The smart contract of BNB is one of the most used ERC20 contracts on the Ethereum platform.”
Put another way, Binance Coin is an integral part of the functioning of the Binance network. BNB-USD began the year around $38.22. Now it trades at $311. That is a staggering return of about 720%. But, in the past month, it is down about 16%. With a market cap of $48 billion, it is among the top 5 altcoins.
Bitcoin Cash (BCH-USD)
Source: Immersion Imagery / Shutterstock
52-Week Range: $180.50 – $1,635.15
Next on our list is Bitcoin Cash, not to be confused with Bitcoin. Research led by Yujin Kwon of Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), South Korea, highlights, “In Aug. 2017, Bitcoin was split into the original Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). Since then, miners have had a choice between BTC and BCH mining because they have compatible proof-of-work algorithms.”
Bitcoin Cash was designed to function as an electronic cash payment system. Regular InvestorPlace.com readers are well versed in Bitcoin’s scalability problem, which Bitcoin Cash aims to address better. It was designed to pack 8MB of data into each block and to process 116 transactions per second on average. That is much faster than Bitcoin.
BCH-USD started 2021 around $354.60. Now it trades at $475.60. That is a return of about 39%. However, in the past month, it is down about 24%. With a market cap of $9.1 billion, it is among the top 15 altcoins.
Cryptos For July: Holo (HOT-USD)
Source: Grey82 / Shutterstock.com
52-week range: $0.00043 – $0.03157
Holochain is an open-source framework for developing decentralized applications (DApps) without relying on blockchain technology. Therefore, Holochain does not require significant storage or data exchange as would be common on blockchain. Many users regard Holochain to be cheaper, more scalable and more energy-efficient than blockchain.
On this peer-to-peer (P2P) distributed platform, computer users can share computer space and host DApps. Each peer stores the data locally within its device, making P2P applications faster. For their contribution to provide computing power, Holo network participants earn “HoloFuel.”
Readers would be interested to know that “Since all valid transactions are double-entry accounting entries, Holo’s internal crypto accounting functions just like a balance sheet where every transaction keeps the sheet in balance – total credits equal total debits, every credit has an offsetting debit. This system does not require issuance of crypto coins or cryptographic validation of transactions (mining).”
HOT-USD, which started 2021 around $0.00062, currently hovers slightly less than $0.00553. Year-to-date, it’s up 670%. But in the past month, it is down about 36%.
Neo (NEO-USD)
Source: Wit Olszewski / Shutterstock.com
52-Week Range: $10.36 – $140.37
Neo was designed to digitize assets using smart contracts and a programming language, similar to Ethereum. Da Hongfei and Erik Zhang founded the network in 2014. Initially launched under the name Antshares, the project was rebranded as Neo in June 2017.
Most crypto followers realize that “Consensus protocols make distributed participants collectively reach an agreement, which enables the immutability and prevents the forks within blockchain systems. Byzantine fault tolerance (BFT) consensus and its variants (together denoted as BFT-style consensus) tolerate a certain number of Byzantine participants who can misbehave.”
According to the network, “Byzantine Fault Tolerance mechanism is a universal solution for distributed systems. Neo proposes dBFT (delegated Byzantine Fault Tolerance) consensus algorithm based on PBFT (Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance) algorithm. Algorithm dBFT determines validator set according to real-time blockchain voting, which effectively enhances the effectiveness of the algorithm, bringing block time and transaction confirmation time savings.”
The Neo platform has a dual token mechanism that separates the rights of using the network from governance rights. Of the two, NEO-USD started 2021 around $14.44. Now it trades at $33.18 for a return of about 130%. However, in the past month, it is down about 34%. With a market cap of $2.3 billion, it is among the top 40 altcoins.
Cryptos For July: Uniswap (UNI-USD)
Source: Shutterstock
52-Week Range: $0.419 – $44.97
Launched in November 2018 by Hayden Adams, Uniswap is a decentralized trading protocol. It aims to keep token trading automated, while improving the efficiency of trading.
By automating the process of market making, the protocol reduces costs for all parties. The mechanism also removes identity requirements for users, and technically anyone can create a liquidity pool for any pair of tokens.
Research by Yuen Lo and Francesca Medda of University of London, UCL, UK, cite, “Liquidity providers (LPs) commit proportionate quantities of two cryptoassets to form the basis of a trading pair. In return LPs receive 0.3% of the value of trades.”
The platform’s native token UNI-USD is used for governance, transactions, and paying fees. It started 2021 around $4.97. Uniswap currently trades at $18.21. That is a return of about 270%. However, in the past month, it is down about 22%. With a market cap of $10.7 billion, it is among the top 10 altcoins.
On the date of publication, Tezcan Gecgil did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.
Tezcan Gecgil, Ph.D., has worked in investment management for over two decades in the U.S. and U.K. In addition to formal higher education in the field, she has also completed all 3 levels of the Chartered Market Technician (CMT) examination. Her passion is for options trading based on technical analysis of fundamentally strong companies. She especially enjoys setting up weekly covered calls for income generation.