Cryptocurrency investors have experienced a massive decline in their portfolio values this year. The cryptocurrency market touched a market cap of US$3 trillion in November 2021 and has since declined by 40% to be valued at US$1.62 trillion, at the time of writing. Several digital tokens are under the pump allowing investors to buy the dip.
Let’s take a look at the three top cryptocurrencies you could buy right now.
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Solana
Solana (CRYPTO: SOL) is down 50% in 2022 and 65% below all-time highs. After gaining over 10,000% in 2021, Solana has pulled back significantly. Despite the underperformance, Solana is still the eighth-largest digital asset in the world, valued at a market cap of US$28.7 billion.
Solana is one of the most promising blockchain networks, given its scalability. Right now, Solana can execute around 50,000 transactions per second which is higher than payments processor Visa, which can handle just 24,000 transactions per second.
Its network is also inexpensive as the cost of each transaction is just $0.00025. Users are charged $1 for 4,000 transactions executed on the Solana blockchain. Its speed, low cost, and scalability have allowed Solana to onboard more than 400 projects on its network.
Data from CryptoSlam suggests Solana is the third-largest blockchain network in terms of all-time sales volume.
Avalanche
The twelfth-largest cryptocurrency in the world, Avalanche (CRYPTO: AVAX), is valued at a market cap of US$15.4 billion. AVAX is down 45% in 2022 and 57% below its record highs. The Avalanche blockchain can also be used to create and execute smart contracts.
In fact, its network validates payments in less than two seconds which is significantly faster than Bitcoin and Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH), which execute transactions with an average time of 60 minutes and six minutes, respectively.
Further, the Bitcoin and Ethereum networks can execute around seven and 13 transactions per second, respectively, compared to Avalanche, which can process 4,500 transactions per second.
Avalanche developers have also focused on compatibility so that developers can deploy Ethereum dApps on the former’s network too. The interoperability has been a major driver for the AVAX token. Right now, Avalanche is already the fourth most popular DeFi platform in the world.
Ethereum
When you shortlist the top cryptocurrencies, it’s difficult to ignore Ethereum, which is the second-largest blockchain network in the world, valued at a market cap of US$284 billion. Its ecosystem is rapidly expanding and around 40 of the 100 largest cryptocurrencies are built on the Ethereum blockchain.
Ethereum was founded in 2015 and enjoys a first-mover advantage. It was the first blockchain network to support self-executing smart contracts that are used to create decentralized applications (dApps).
While Ethereum trails Avalanche and Solana in terms of speed, scalability, and cost, its upcoming network upgrade should address a majority of these issues. So, once Ethereum shifts toward a proof-of-stake mechanism it could execute 100,000 transactions per second.
In a nutshell, the massive increase in transaction speed and a decline in costs will allow Ethereum to onboard projects at a stellar pace, which should increase demand for the ETH token.
