It’s quite evident the cryptocurrency market has been enduring a rough patch since November 2021. The total market value for cryptocurrencies has now declined to US$1.9 trillion, compared to US$3 trillion last year. While this market has been extremely volatile in the past, it has a track record of bouncing back over time. In fact, Bitcoin investors have not yet lost money if they held the asset for a period of more than four years.
The recent trading sessions have seen a majority of these digital assets regain lost momentum. A significant portion of these gains can be attributed to expectations that cryptocurrencies could play a crucial role in the global financial system, considering the economic sanctions imposed on Russia and the systemic financial risks associated with the same.
I believe the widespread adoption of cryptocurrencies is inevitable, making Solana (CRYPTO:SOL)and Ethereum (CRYPTO:ETH) top bets right now.
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The bull case for Solana
One of the most popular cryptocurrencies in 2021, Solana is also known as an “Ethereum Killer” due to its fast transaction speeds of 50,000 per second. After rising 10,000% in 2021, the SOL token is still down over 50% from all-time highs, allowing investors to buy the dip.
Right now, Solana is the eighth-largest cryptocurrency, valued at a market cap of US$32 billion. In addition to scalability, developers on Solana also benefit from low costs that stand at just $0.0008 per transaction.
Solana is well poised to gain traction as the favoured platform for the development of decentralized applications, or dApps. A decentralized application is a self-executing program and the Solana blockchain already hosts more than 500 such applications on its network.
Last month, Solana Labs unveiled Solana Pay, which is a payments system that allows merchants to accept cryptocurrency payments. Solana’s rapidly expanding ecosystem and competitive advantages make it one of the top cryptocurrencies to buy right now.
The bull case for Ethereum
The world’s second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, Ethereum has returned over 13,000% to investors in the last five years. It was one of the first blockchain networks to support the development of dApps and offered the functionality back in 2015. Due to its first-mover advantage, Ethereum hosts 4,000 projects on its network, which is far more than any other blockchain.
The upcoming upgrades to the Ethereum platform will help increase the relevancy of Ethereum and allow it to remain competitive in a highly disruptive environment. Ethereum right now operates on a proof-of-work mechanism where miners solve extremely complicated puzzles to validate transactions. In order to lower costs and increase scalability, Ethereum will soon be shifting to a proof-of–stake mechanism where validators stake their crypto tokens to validate transactions.
The Foolish takeaway
Solana and Ethereum are two of the most robust platforms that are used for the development of smart contracts and dApps. But you should also note that investing in cryptocurrencies is not a zero-sum game and there is enough room for multiple players to thrive, on the back of increasing real-world utility.
The launch of the Ethereum blockchain did not impact the relevancy of Bitcoin. Similarly, the introduction of Solana and other blockchains that support smart contracts is unlikely to “kill” Ethereum. The digital tokens of both these networks should thrive over the long term due to their strong visibility and stellar development teams.
