The cryptocurrency industry experienced a great price surge in the second half of 2020 and throughout 2021. In 2022, however, the bearish market knocked the prices down, and it still continues to force them down even now, in July. However, this doesn’t make a lot of difference for long-term investors. Their goal is to find the underrated cryptos and invest in them with the goal of keeping the coins in their possession for years.
No matter how long the bear market persists, it will eventually stop and be replaced by the bulls, and once that happens — the prices will once again skyrocket to former records, and likely beyond them. But, when it comes to underrated coins, they hold the greatest potential, as they have yet to achieve their full potential. Regardless of what is happening with the market, these coins are typically cryptos that are launched too early for the market to appreciate them. One good example is Decentraland, which launched years before the metaverse became a popular trend.
The job of a long-term investor is to find altcoins that will go big in the future, or, more accurately, those that have the potential to go big in the future. With that said, we created a list of 12 such cryptocurrencies, so check them out, and if you find them equally worthy of your support, consider investing in them.
1. Alpaca Finance
The first on our list is Alpaca Finance, which is the largest lending protocol that allows leveraged yield farming on Binance Smart Chain. The project allows lenders to earn safe, stable yields while offering undercollateralized loans to borrowers for leveraged yield farming positions. As a result of applying the leverage, it offers vastly multiplied farming principles and profits that come out of it.
The project also acts as an enabler for the entire DeFi ecosystem, which allows it to also amplify the liquidity layer of integrated exchanges, thus improving their capital efficiency by connecting lenders and borrowers.
To learn more visit our Investing in Alpaca Finance guide.
2. Cardano
Next up, we have Cardano, and while it may seem strange that this project is underrated given its size and popularity, the fact is that its price is significantly lower than its potential. Especially since Cardano launched smart contracts in late 2021, which allows it to count itself among top-quality Ethereum alternatives.
Cardano now allows the creation of smart contracts, dApps, DeFi protocols, DEXes, metaverses, and all other blockchain products. Furthermore, it has 3 more development Eras to go through, having completed only 2 of its initial 5. So, when it comes to underrated projects that are excellent long-term investments, Cardano is easily among the top ones.
To learn more visit our Investing in Cardano guide.
3. Gala Games
Gala Games, or just Gala, for short, is a gaming project based on blockchain technology. However, it is more than that, as it has a very important mission of giving the players control over their games. With the gaming industry now selling games and other types of related content online, through providers like Steam, players no longer own their copies.
They are granted to them in-app, but if the app ever decides to remove them, the players can’t do anything to stop them. Not to mention that they spend hundreds of dollars on in-game assets, which still don’t really belong to them. Gala Games intends to use NFTs to change that, and make you a true owner of anything and everything you buy.
To learn more visit our Investing in Gala Games guide.
4. Aragon
Moving on to the fourth spot, we have Aragon — a decentralized platform based on Ethereum network that is being led by one of the Forbes’ 30 under 30 — Luis Cuende. Cuende created a platform that offers a modularized way to create and manage blockchain products.
That includes everything from dApps and crypto protocols to DAOs, and more. The project also has its native crypto, ANT, which is used primarily as a governance token. The project’s main goal is to allow users to create DAOs on open-source infrastructure using governance plugins. It believes that DAOs are the future, and so its DAO generation platform is simple, modular, and highly adaptable.
To learn more visit our Investing in Aragon guide.
5. Solana
Next, we have Solana. This is probably the most scalable blockchain available today, which emerged in response to the scalability issues on Ethereum’s network. With Ethereum unable to scale, transactions had to wait for a long period to get processed. Those in a hurry had to offer higher fees for their transactions to be picked first, and the rest rose their own fees so that they wouldn’t have to wait either. As a result, the average fee went sky high, making the blockchain impractical if you can’t afford to pay.
Solana emerged with the ability to easily process 100,000 TPS, while Ethereum, in comparison, can only do 15. In fact, Solana is starting to struggle at 400,000 TPS, according to its developers, which makes it the most scalable chain out there, and a go-to chain for dApps, smart contracts, and other blockchain products.
To learn more visit our Investing in Solana guide.
6. Horizen
Halfway down the list, we have Horizen — a zero-knowledge-enabled network of blockchains that is powered by one of the crypto industry’s largest node infrastructures. Blockchain interoperability is enabled by the Zendoo protocol, which relies on SNARK verification, and offers complete flexibility in sidechain type, speed, consensus, and privacy.
Not only that, but the network supports over 10,000 sidechains, with a throughput limit of 10 million TPS. In other words, Horizen is a permissionless network of blockchains, and quite possibly one of the most important projects that will inspire Web3.
To learn more visit our Investing in Horizen guide.
7. Baby DogeCoin
Next, we have Baby Doge Coin, which is one of the many memecoins inspired by the original Dogecoin (DOGE). Like the original, these coins are based on the Doge meme, only giving it a cute twist of making Baby Doge’s mascot a puppy. This single change made the coin extremely popular, although its price is still heavily undervalued.
Since DOGE itself survived for nearly a decade when it was expected to only live a few weeks, the same is expected of the meme coin market. Of course, the memecoin needs to stand out from the rest, and Baby Doge is perfectly positioned for that.
To learn more visit our Investing in Baby Dogecoin guide.
8. Basic Attention Token
Up next, we have Basic Attention Token, which is extremely underrated. It is a native cryptocurrency of the Brave Browser — a Web3 browser that allows users to control their data and decide when and if they wish to view ads, instead of being bombarded by them anywhere they go on the internet.
Essentially, the idea is to block all ads for the user, and then only have them see ads if they choose to. In return, they are getting paid with a small amount of BAT. The browser has an integrated BAT wallet, as well as many other features that make it worthy of being called a crypto browser. However, since it is competing against giants such as Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari, and alike, Brave Browser has been growing slowly. Even so, its growth continues, and the value of BAT will too, in time.
To learn more visit our Investing in Basic Attention Token guide.
9. Casper Network
The ninth on our list is Casper Network, which is the first live PoS blockchain, built off the Casper CBC specification. The platform was created in order to increase the rate of adoption of smart contracts, decentralized apps, and blockchain, in general, throughout the world.
The project features a future-proof architecture, and it was designed to ensure that the platform will be continually developed, according to users’ needs. In addition, it is meant to be maximally accessible to developers of all backgrounds. It aims to be useful to enterprises and individual developers alike, and usher in a new era for Web3.
To learn more visit our Investing in Casper Network guide.
10. Stratis
In the tenth spot, we have Stratis. This is a blockchain-as-a-service platform that allows several major products and services for enterprises, such as the ability to launch a private sidechain, run full nodes, create and deploy smart contracts, create an ICO platform, and more. Essentially, it is capable of offering any blockchain service that the company needs, thus sparing it having to build it on its own.
We expect that Stratis’ services will become extremely popular as blockchain adoption continues among companies of all kinds, especially with the development of Web3 underway.
To learn more visit our Investing in Straits guide.
11. Star Atlas
Nearing the end of the list, we have Star Atlas. This is a massive multiplayer online game that takes place in a metaverse, where it was built using Unreal Engine 5. The plot of the game takes place in a futuristic Sci-Fi setting, in the year 2620. At that point in time, three major factions are competing against one another — humans, sentient androids, and a consortium of different alien races.
They are all seeking valuable resources, and they are all trying to prevent the other two from getting to them first. Other than that, the game involves players researching the universe as they continue to seek out the resources among the stars, so the gameplay is a combination of many things, such as flight simulation, exploration and exploitation game, combat, and more.
To learn more visit our Investing in Star Atlas guide.
12. Band Protocol
Finally, we have Band Protocol. This is a project that offers a decentralized oracle network, capable of harnessing data from the real world and delivering it on-chain. That data can then be used by smart contracts, dApps, and other blockchain products, as well as users. Of course, Band Protocol is not the first project of this kind. In fact, many see it as a competitor to Chainlink, which it is, and isn’t at the same time.
Since Chainlink is based on Ethereum, which is known for its issues regarding scalability and expensive transactions, and Band is based on a much more scalable Cosmos blockchain, Band Protocol has a clear advantage. However, given the vast crypto industry that is only continuing to grow, many have said that the two don’t have to be competitors, as there are more than enough projects for both of them to serve side by side.
To learn more visit our Investing in Band Protocol guide.
Conclusion
The crypto market is vast and rich with coins and tokens of all kinds. The list above contains only some of the coins that we believe have a large potential, and we strongly recommend looking into them. If you happen to agree with us, and you wish to diversify your portfolio by investing in different assets in the long term, definitely consider this list.
