- Tally Greenberg is head of business development for Allnodes, a blockchain node hosting service.
- She told Insider she’s especially excited about three proof-of-stake altcoins based on their technological use case.
- But Greenberg said she wouldn’t buy dogecoin or shiba inu due to their lack of underlying value.
One of the most important, but perhaps underappreciated, parts of the blockchain ecosystem is the node hosting platform.
Any crypto miner or developer relies on nodes to validate and store blockchain transactions, but this requires significant time and effort. Hosting companies maintain and manage these nodes, freeing up firms and individuals to spend more time building decentralized applications.
Tally Greenberg is head of business development for Allnodes, which hosts over 20,000 nodes with a total value of just under $2.8 billion. They currently support over 25 different crypto networks.
“We host nodes for you – it’s an opportunity for different people with different amounts of money to come in, stake their assets, and be rewarded by the network as a result,” Greenberg told Insider in a recent interview. “We’re not an exchange, we’re not a coin, we’re a platform for people who want to make extra money.”
“We want to promote mass adoption in this exciting industry,” she added. “This year has been very, very exciting.”
Cryptocurrencies have surged in 2021, with the market leaders bitcoin and ethereum both hitting all-time high prices. Some smaller coins, also known as altcoins, have surged by over 1,000%.
As someone involved in the technological side of the crypto space, Greenberg assesses tokens based on their utility. She told Insider that she likes three altcoins in particular – but is skeptical of ‘memecoins’ like dogecoin, shiba inu, and the Squid Game cryptocurrency.
“Value is in the eye of the beholder,” Greenberg said. “But for me, it’s very important to understand what the coin does, what its technology is, and whether that technology is unique.”
“Even the meme coins with a larger market capitalization don’t make sense in the long-term,” she added.
Insider asked Greenberg which coins she likes right now and why she’s so sure that shiba inu fever will soon die down. The three coins she listed all run on a proof-of-stake algorithm.
Allnodes
Altcoin investing
Polkadot has the highest market capitalization of the three altcoins that Greenberg selected, at $50 billion according to CoinMarketCap. It launched in 2020, and focusses on cross-blockchain transactions with other networks such as ethereum.
“Polkadot is an altcoin to watch because it evolves rapidly to include new and advanced features that encourage developers to build and innovate,” Greenberg told Insider. “They also have the necessary funds to continue to grow, which is a sign of healthy leadership and governance.”
Polkadot’s native token, dot, has soared by over 400% this year, rising from $9 to just over $52.
Jakub Porzycki/Getty Images
Greenberg’s second recommendation, cosmos, serves a similar function to polkadot in offering blockchain interoperability. It currently has a listed market capitalization of $8 billion, ranking 30th on CoinMarketCap.
“Like polkadot, cosmos permits data exchange, and recently crypto asset transfers between compatible blockchains,” Greenberg said. “But it is technologically different from polkadot and a year older, and so more of a pioneer in cross-chain communications.”
Cosmos’ atom token has posted similarly stunning returns in 2021, rising from $6.50 on January 1 to just under $36.
Greenberg’s third recommendation, terra (LUNA), ranks 12th on CoinMarketCap with a market capitalization of just under $25 billion. Terra is a blockchain-based digital payments system; its native token, LUNA, derives its supply from various terra stablecoins, which are pegged to fiat currencies like dollars or euros.
“Terra (LUNA) is fiat-pegged, but not just to the US dollar – it’s pegged to many different currencies in the traditional world,” Greenberg told Insider. “It’s a very exciting coin, because there’s a lot of value being locked on that blockchain and it connects to the cosmos ecosystem.”
Luna’s price has rocketed almost 100-fold this year, soaring from 65 cents to just over $50.
Shiba inu decline
But Greenberg was less optimistic about the future of one cryptocurrency – shiba inu. The token, which positions itself as a “dogecoin killer” and is backed by fans who call themselves the SHIBarmy, has soared in price in recent weeks, becoming the 11th-largest token by market capitalization.
Greenberg said she wouldn’t invest in “shib” for two reasons – its lack of technological applications and its high
“There’s no actual technological breakthrough when it comes to shib,” she told Insider. “So it makes no sense why it’s hyping so hard.”
“Shib was cheap – and some people like to invest in
penny stocks
, but for more logical people, it makes no sense,” she added. “If you’re a trader, maybe they’re good coins because there’s a lot of volume and you can trade with it, but if you’re an investor, then you’re looking for an asset that makes more sense.”
Greenberg also said that the price difference between shiba inu and her three altcoin picks demonstrates why there is little point comparing the two. Despite its surge over the past two months, shiba inu’s current price is just $0.00005150.
“There are many different coins and different price ratios out there that investors can buy into,” she said. “But the ones I’ve listed are in the $50 range – you can’t compare them to shiba inu, which isn’t even worth a cent.”