2021 was an eventful year not just for bitcoin but also for altcoins--digital coins or tokens other than bitcoin. Altcoins such as Ether, Solana, and Cardano, among others, caught the fancy of investors for various reasons such as faster transactions, lower fees, lesser environmental impact, etc. (Image: Shutterstock)
Chainlink: This open-source platform has the potential to bring real-world data into smart contracts. As a result, it portrays a limitless potential in the coming years. Many of the top decentralized finance (DeFi) apps are paying top dollar to use Chainlink's native cryptocurrency, LINK, on their platform. (Image: Shutterstock)
Stellar Lumens: Stellar is a decentralized platform that was created to connect various banking systems across the world. While Ripple and Stellar are competing to become a global payment network, Ripple is faced with SEC investigation. Owing to the slow progress of Ripple, Stellar now has the chance in 2022 to become the one and only existing global payment network. (Image: Shutterstock)
Avalanche: AVAX scores over other cryptos due to its processing speed. The processing speed of bitcoin and ethereum, for example, is 7 and 13 transactions per second, respectively. Avalanche, on the other hand, can process 4,500 transactions per second. AVAX also supports the Ethereum Virtual Machine on its blockchain. Due to this, it is popular among decentralized application (dApp) developers. With dApps gaining popularity, AVAX could have an eventful 2022. (Image: Shutterstock)
Axie Infinity: The play-to-earn platform is all set to revolutionize the world of gaming. In fact, it is second only to ethereum in bringing huge revenues to the dApp industry. In the game, players buy monsters and win tokens for making these monsters fight one another. The tokens can then be converted into real money. Axie brought in an astonishing $1.24 billion in revenue in a trailing 90-day period. This has also been due to the massive land deals cracked on the platform. (Image: Shutterstock)
Chiliz: This is a cryptocurrency made for sports fans. It allows users to buy fan tokens of their favorite teams. Fan tokens give you special voting rights and provide various other benefits. With the increasing number of crypto exchanges looking for sports sponsorships, Chiliz is definitely crypto to know in 2022. (Image: Shutterstock)
Nano: This cryptocurrency is similar to Stellar They both look to revolutionize the current banking systems. However, Nano has a few unique features that make it worth putting it on this list. Nano allows its users to own personal blockchains. Due to this, the transaction approval is quick and is completed in under one second. Also, Nano can complete cross-border transactions for free in under 1 second. Though Nano has a small market of around $500 million yet, it is crypto worth keeping an eye on in 2022. (Image: Company website)
Qtum: Pronounced as Quantum, this crypto is basically a cross between the bitcoin and the ethereum networks. Qtum is a combination of the highly secure UTXO transaction model of bitcoin and the ethereum virtual machine. As a result, Qtum can not only be used for transactions but also for developing dApps and DeFi applications. (Image: Shutterstock)
Ethereum: This second-generation blockchain offers significant improvements over the Bitcoin blockchain by adding smart contracts that allow execution based on certain predefined triggers, revolutionising the way financial transacting works. The Ethereum network is now in the process of switching its consensus mechanism from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS). Ethereum 2.0, expected to complete in 2022, will make the network more scalable and sustainable. Its native token ether (ETH) clocked nearly 445 percent gains in 2021. So, $1,000 invested in ETH at the start of 2021 would have been worth $5,423 by end-December.
Algorand: ALGO is another interesting crypto. This digital token has tweaked the mechanism of the traditional proof-of-stake consensus. The pure proof of stake mechanism followed by Algorand selects ALGO holders at random and in secret to propose blocks and vote on proposals. This avoids a small number of ALGO holders from colluding and disrupting the network. (Image: Shutterstock)
Decentraland: Metaverse is expected to be one of the hottest topics in the digital space in the year 2022. A part of the metaverse, Decentraland, has caught the attention of a lot of investors already. Decentraland is a digital space that allows users to buy land and monetize on various content types. Users can only transact in the Decentraland using its native currency MANA. Given the potential it has shown in 2021, it can be kept on the radar in 2022 as well. (Image: Shutterstock)