15 Most Popular Cryptocurrencies – Top Cryptocurrencies to Invest

1. Bitcoin (BTC)

• Market Cap: $592 billion
• All Time High:$68,990

Bitcoin is still the leading coin, not just by market cap, but also in popularity. It’s actually what the majority of people refer to when they talk about crypto. The Satoshi Nakamoto product has a big influence on the virtual investment market. You’ll notice that nearly all digital coins will go up when bitcoin’s price is rising and vice versa. The first few years of Bitcoin’s appeared bleak, but ever since it broke out in 2017, it has maintained a generally bullish trend. It doesn’t lack price pullbacks occasionally though. Just the other day, in 2015, it would cost you about $400 to buy a Bitcoin. Today, the same amount will only get 0.01Bitcoin, for $31K. This represents over 8000% growth. Only 21 million bitcoins will ever be mined.

2. Ethereum (ETH)

• Market Cap: $282 billion
• All-Time High: $4,800

Ethereum is the second most popular cryptocurrency after Bitcoin. It’s a decentralized, open-source software with peer-to-peer functionality. Users can execute smart contracts, and even host decentralized apps on its network. Ethereum’s growth has suffered some setbacks in the past due to high gas fees, but this is something that the team behind is solving already. The release of Ethereum 2.0 is expected to address the issue of scalability and consequently increase the speed of transactions to 100, 000 per second. Ethereum’s current price is $2,374. Analysts are giving it a projection of up to $7000 by the end of 2022.

3. Tether (USDT)

• Market Cap: $83.2 billion
• All-time High: $1.22

Tether is a blockchain-based digital asset backed by the US dollar. Such cryptos that are attached to the US dollar or Euro are collectively referred to as stablecoins. They get this name from the fact that they are less volatile than normal cryptos like Bitcoin. Tether is anchored on the dollar at $1 per coin. Cryptocurrency is not easily affected by market volatility.

4. Binance Coin (BNB)

• Market Cap: $54.1 billion
• All-Time High: 690

Binance Coin is the Binance exchange’s crypto. It was launched in 2017 and trades by the ticker symbol BNB. As the native coin for Binance Chain, the token uses vary from making payments within the ecosystem, to staking. It can also be used to buy digital gifts, pay for travel on select websites and make donations to charity. BNB’s price has risen by over 300,000% in the past five years, and it’s still poised to make even higher gains in 2022. In 2021 only, BNB investors went home with about 1,340% return on their investment. Traders looking to maximize profits in the short term always target such kinds of highly volatile coins.

5. USD Coin (USDC)

• Market Cap: $48.9 billion
• All-Time High: $2.35

USD Coin, just like Tether, is a stable coin whose value is backed by the green buck (USD). That gives it low volatility, unlike Dogecoin, Solana, Ethereum, XRP, and other conventional cryptocurrencies. USDC is currently the fourth leading digital asset in market cap. Its stability makes it a perfect option for low-risk investors who love to put their money in low-beta investments. While your returns will not be exaggerated, the risk exposure will be minimal too.

6. XRP (XRP)

• Market Cap: $25.1billion
• All-Time High: $3.48

The No.6 slot goes to XRP, a hyped-up project that garnered a lot of speed in the beginning before getting embroiled in SEC’s lawsuit. This is one of the most undervalued coins if you look at the entire project behind it. 2022 looks promising for XRP after a judge ruled that SEC should release certain documents and emails, which are believed to carry evidence of the improper conduct of the SEC in regard to XRP. These are signs of looming victory for XRP. Partners and investors are ready to start working with them as soon as they are cleared by the court. Analysts are projecting a more than 200X jump in XRP price almost instantly if they win the ongoing case.

7. Solana (SOL)

• Market Cap: $23.4 billion
• All-Time High: $260

Solana strives to offer a flexible, fast, and scalable crypto ecosystem for implementing smart contracts. Some people have named it the “Ethereum Killer.” With 65,000 TPS, it’s 4000 times faster than Bitcoin and 10,000 times faster than Ethereum. The project is highly scalable and can process up to 50,000 transactions every second. Solana is a proof of history and proof of stake project making it more efficient than Ethereum, its closest competitor and the current leader in smart contracts.SOL is the issuance capped at 480 million coins.

8. Cardano (ADA)

• Market Cap: $21.8 billion
• All-Time High: $3.20

Cardano is a proof-of-stake public blockchain platform. It has extensive academic backing as it was the first crypto to be developed on peer-reviewed research and evidence. Just like Ethereum, Cardano powers smart contracts and dApps with its native coin ADA. It runs on Ouroboros algo meaning it has small energy consumption. The token has shown a modest growth of at least 3,500% since it was launched in 2017 by Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin’s former co-founder Charles Hoskinson. It has found usability in combating voter fraud, counterfeit pharmaceutical products, and agricultural produce certification.

9. Binance USD (BUSD)

• Market Cap: $19.9 billion
• All-Time High: $1.11

Binance USD is Binance Chain’s stablecoin, pegged on the US dollar. It was launched in 2017, but exploded in the year 2021, amid the Covid 19 pandemic. BUSD was created to have a constant value of $1. The idea was to give investors an option to hold a stable currency that guarantees them proper storage of value for their money. As a result, this coin is growing popular as a parking place for high-frequency traders, day traders, and short-term investors looking for stable crypto to hold their money temporarily. Holding Binance USD reduces the costs of converting crypto to fiat and back. Binance has partnered with Paxos in this project and they hold an equal amount of USD and BUSD at any time, keeping the ratio at 1:1. This guarantees a BUSD value of $1 with zero fluctuations.

10. TerraUSD (UST)

• Market Cap: $18.1 billion
• All-Time High: $1.04

Bittrex Global announced the launch of TerraUSD in 2020, a scalable interchain USD stablecoin. Just like any other stablecoin, TerraUSD is meant to stay at $1. The one-dollar value is constantly achieved through a dual token system consisting of stablecoin TerraUSD AND LUNA. LUNA is burnt to reduce the value of UST whenever the latter goes above $1. Whereas, if the UST price plummets below the dollar mark, UST coins swap for LUNA to increase the value of UST.

11. Dogecoin (DOGE)

• Market Cap: $14.4 billion
• All-Time High: $0.69

Popular meme coin DOGE doesn’t have a real project or cause for value behind it, yet it’s made many investors a fortune. The price is mainly determined by demand and supply, which in DOGE’s case are both a factor of speculation. Name drops from celebrities and social media hype so far have been the biggest drive for the price of Dogecoin. We can say it still depends on luck, yet it’s always been lucky. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently mentioned that they would put a billboard on Mars and brands would buy advertisement space using DOGE. That’s what luck looks like for the DOGE. For investors, this means a quick chance to make money. If SpaceX starts accepting DOGE, other companies could follow giving the coin real usability.

 12. Avalanche (AVAX)

• Market Cap: $12.6 billion
• All-Time High: $144.96

Avalance is commonly dubbed “platform for platforms.” It takes advantage of three unique blockchain networks to create an interactive and secure environment for developers. It’s ideal for DeFi application development. Users can also create different types of smart assets on the platform. On the other hand, it provides AVAX coins to its users as a payment solution. Avalanche has demonstrated that it is scalable and able to complete multiple transactions in seconds just like top payment providers PayPal or Mastercard. It can process 6500 transactions every second at lower fees than Ethereum and Bitcoin.

13. Polkadot (DOT)

• Market Cap: $10.7 billion
• All-Time High: $55

Polkadot comes at number 13 of the top cryptocurrencies by market cap. It’s the next-gen project that hit the list of top 20 digital assets just within a few months of launching. Polkadot strives to interconnect the blockchain ecosystem, enabling the transfer of value among the entire network in a trustless fashion. If you’re looking for environmentally friendly crypto, Polkadot will do. It has a relatively low carbon footprint compared to most digital currencies. Developers are flocking to Polkadot because it’s highly interactive and gives them a sandbox for multiple blockchain projects. You can even create an entirely new blockchain on Polkadot.

14. Wrapped BTC (WBTC)

• Market Cap: $ 8.4 billion
• All-Time High: $162, 188

Wrapped Bitcoin was created to integrate or “wrap” cryptocurrencies from one blockchain to another. Meaning one crypto can run on a foreign network. This interoperability has made it possible for digital assets like BTC to operate on smart contract ecosystems. WBTC is an ERC20 token so it connects Bitcoin to the DeFi application space. A BTC holder can swap it for WBTC and vice versa through a partner. The price of WBTC and BTC moves hand in hand for easy convertibility.

15. Shiba Inu

• Market Cap: $6.2 billion
• All-Time High: $0.00007956

Shiba Inu, “The DogeCoin Killer” was launched in 2020 to take over the meme coin space. Once, on October 27th, 2020, Shiba Inu overtook DogeCoin’s market cap temporarily. DogeCoin reclaimed its position and has remained ahead of the SHIB. However, Shiba Inu has put on a good fight, not just with DogeCoin, but across the entire crypto industry, to constantly remain in the top 20. Today it closes our list of the 15 best cryptocurrencies to invest in by market cap in 2020. The team behind this project is proactive in developing it from a mere meme coin to a valuable coin with real-life use. They recently launched a decentralized exchange, ShibaSwap, and have announced that they will soon venture into the layer 2 space.