Top 10 cryptocurrencies to buy now in December 2022
BudBlockz (BLUNT)
Leading off our list of the top 10 cryptocurrencies you should know more about is one you might never have heard of. BudBlockz is the only token on our list that has not officially launched, but the success of its private sale, along with an equally strong presale, make it the most intriguing value proposition we know of to end Q4.
Our interest stems from BudBlockz’s smart association with the retail cannabis market, a rich and growing sector that previous tokens have gotten wrong. Where other cannabis cryptos presented themselves as lifestyle accoutrements and answers to the cannabis industry’s banking woes, BudBlockz steers clear of both frivolity and overweening ambition. Its focus lies squarely on supporting the growing cannabis industry by facilitating fractional ownership of real businesses throughout the supply chain, partnering with brick-and-mortar retailers to create collaborative virtual dispensaries, and supporting existing payment mechanisms through a low-overhead payment network. Not that BudBlockz is all business all the time—like many of the best cryptocurrencies, it is also developing a P2E gaming platform devoted to vintage console games.
Investors have taken note, and with less than a month left in the third phase of its presale, BLUNT is up more than 200%.
Huobi Token (HT)
If HT seems like a strange entry in a list of the best cryptocurrencies to invest in, consider two words: Justin Sun. When the TRON founder and BitTorrent CEO announced that he would join HT’s leadership team as an advisor, its price shot up…and when Sun transferred 74 million HT to his wallet, analysts speculated that he was planning to become more than Huobi Token’s biggest investor. Those suspicions were confirmed when Sun’s About Capital Management officially acquired a majority stake in Huobi Global, the exchange for which HT is the native cryptocurrency.
The move gives Huobi a new lease on life following China’s 2021 ban on cryptocurrencies, which left the exchange scrambling to forge a new business plan. After sliding to eighth place among the world’s cryptocurrency exchanges in terms of trading volume, Huobi Global has received a fresh influx of capital and a renewed chance to establish itself as a truly international trading hub.
HT shot up more than 70% on the news of Sun’s moves, and has sustained its heightened valuation in the midst of a broader market still looking for solid growth opportunities. Its long-term prospects appear to be promising, and its Q4 outlook even more so.
Quant (QNT)
In a cryptocurrency market that has become wary of hype, investors are looking more closely than ever at each token’s use cases and value propositions. That’s what makes Quant such an intriguing investment. Its unique blockchain-agnostic gateway, Overledger, offers the convenience of API-based interoperability in a platform geared expressly to businesses, especially those in the financial industry. Quant also benefits from a large and active developer community thanks to another API, Overledger Integrate, that facilitates dApp development and implementation.
Its standing in the financial community was confirmed earlier in October with Quant’s strong presence at Sibos 2022, the financial services conference organized by SWIFT, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. An estimated 10,000 delegates were on hand at Sibos, and many attended Quant founder Gilbert Verdian’s keynote address on the impact of Ethereum’s Merge and the wider prospects for finance-oriented blockchain technology in the near future.
As Quant becomes more widely adopted by a wider range of financial institutions, it continues to prove itself to investors. Bucking the broader trend, QNT has been resiliently up since the beginning of Q3, and began Q4 with an impressive surge, with plenty of room to run.
Binance Coin (BNB)
Tokens with strong track records and firm market leadership might not offer the same opportunities for explosive growth as newer cryptocurrencies, but they have a significant place in any investment plan. BNB is a case in point. Binance is the world’s largest and most active cryptocurrency exchange, and BNB is its native token. At first, BNB’s use case was limited to its original purpose: facilitating trades on the Binance platform. But as Binance has grown, so has the application of BNB.
A bold-yet-deliberate strategy has expanded BNB’s use cases and enhanced its value proposition. Last year, Binance introduced Binance Pay, a payment-processing platform that quickly gained significant traction. Earlier in 2022, Bifinity launched as Binance’s fiat-to-crypto payment provider, joining established payment platform Paysafe to expand into new territories and integrate card processing services into its range of offerings.
Payment processing is a natural extension of BNB’s original application, and perhaps the most important to investors looking for resilient medium- to long-range returns from BNB. Other consumer-oriented uses of BNB include travel bookings and NFT purchases, and BNB has long been a trusted medium of exchange for other cryptocurrencies. It may be too late to buy BNB at its 2017 level of $0.10, but it now stands as a reliable investment with significant future prospects.
Ethereum (ETH)
The Merge was the biggest cryptocurrency news of 2022, and Ethereum’s switch to a proof-of-ownership model affected the entire market. Aside from a bit of a run-up in advance of the Merge, ETH’s performance has mirrored that of Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency space as a whole, sliding in early 2022 and struggling to recover. Investors hoping that the Merge would immediately lift Ethereum out of the doldrums have been disappointed so far, but this is one case in which the markets should reward patience rather than bold changes of direction.
Ethereum is still a remarkably popular development platform, and literally supports some of the most popular and useful tokens in the world. Its ability to execute smart contracts has made it the most popular dApp development platform, and ETH continues to fuel innovative demonstrations of blockchain technology.
ETH remains the world’s most trusted and popular altcoin, with nearly $1 trillion in market cap. Its value has increased more than a hundredfold since its April 2016 launch, and just a year ago analysts were speculating that it could more than quadruple in value within the next few years. Those speculations were tempered by 2022’s crypto winter, but the reasoning behind them remains sound: Ethereum isn’t going anywhere, and in retrospect the shakeup caused by the Merge might have set it up very nicely to take full advantage of the market’s next thaw.
Tether (USDT)
Most Wall Street investors balance their equity portfolios with bonds, and stablecoins can fulfill a similar function for cryptocurrency investors. USDT is the most widely held stablecoin on the market and one of the oldest, making it an important part of investment strategies that seek to retain value through market upheavals like the ones that have made 2022 such a remarkable year (yes, we’re looking for ways to put that nicely).
USDT is backed by fiat assets, including US dollars and US Treasury bills (or T-notes). This gives it a truer peg to the US dollar than algorithmic stablecoins, which seek to achieve the same result by adjusting supply in response to fluctuations in demand. The nature of Tether’s fiat holdings has not always been clear, leading to government inquiries and even legal action. The result of that litigation, though, has been a cleaner slate for Tether—it recently replaced the commercial paper in its portfolio with T-notes—and has pledged to issue more frequent, more transparent guidance on the array of assets supporting USDT’s valuation.
Polygon (MATIC)
With a market cap of just under $7 billion, MATIC isn’t the biggest player in the crypto sphere. But Polygon’s developer-friendly, flexibly scalable platform has made it a favorite for dApp developers looking to take advantage of Ethereum’s power without paying the full cost of Ethereum’s sometimes-onerous overhead. Its ERC-20 native token, MATIC, collects a much smaller gas fee per transaction than applications built and hosted on Ethereum itself would charge.
The strength of its developer community has led some big names to invest in Polygon-based projects. Instagram, for example, recently launched an NFT service on the platform, joining brands like Prada and Adidas. Stripe’s global crypto-based payment system runs on Polygon as well. Those sorts of partnerships have helped Polygon emerge as more than just a useful development environment for programmers trying out new things. They give Polygon real legs, and MATIC a strong and growing set of use cases.
Investors have taken note of Polygon’s rising profile, helping it add value steadily throughout H2 2022 and build significant momentum heading into Q4. With more than 37,000 dApps and counting, the Polygon platform continues to be a hotbed for innovation and a platform that investors can take as seriously as the world’s leading brands do.
Monero (XMR)
The typical cryptocurrency transaction occurs on a public blockchain, making it relatively easy for anyone with the right know-how to associate a given transaction with the owners of the wallets involved. It’s not quite as direct a means of identification as a signature on a credit card slip, but it’s not far off, either. Monero was created to address that issue (or problem, as some might see it) with an entirely untraceable approach to cryptocurrency transactions.
When a user initiates a transaction on Monero’s platform, all information supporting that transaction is sliced up and randomly mixed with information describing other transactions before being re-assembled when needed. Once the transaction is completed, it is as impossible to recreate its details, including the parties and amounts involved, as it is to unscramble an egg. This approach has made Monero extremely popular with privacy and security enthusiasts among others—and though the others certainly include denizens of the dark web, Monero itself is entirely above board.
Its unique position among major cryptocurrencies has made Monero something of an outsider in the best of ways, a durably valuable token that posted yearly gains as deep into 2022 as late April and that enjoyed a far stronger August resurgence than BTC (and a far less pronounced hangover in the months that followed). As a value play on a distinct, important, and growing facet of the cryptocurrency market, Monero makes a strong case for itself looking toward the rest of Q4 and beyond.
Bitcoin (BTC)
You didn’t think we’d leave out the granddaddy of them all, did you? Bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency and still the market’s leader. It has built and maintained that position both because of and despite some significant bursts of speculation. Over the last six years or so, BTC’s value has increased more than fortyfold, enriching its longtime holders somehow without pricing itself beyond the interest of new ones.
Its ubiquity is more than just a sign of Bitcoin’s strength. It also helps ensure its future. When developers imagine widespread adoption of their dApps, they include support for BTC, regardless of the blockchain on which they’re working. Aside from the most narrowly focused projects, Bitcoin is an important medium of exchange throughout the decentralized universe. And for those of us who like to hold a variety of tokens in our portfolios, we’ll always be able to exchange them for BTC.
Bitcoin remains a proof-of-work token, and Ethereum’s switch to a proof-of-stake basis may put additional pressure on BTC in time. That time is not now, and may not arrive for several years. As a short- and medium-term investment, BTC remains an important stabilizing factor for a well-diversified portfolio.
Kucoin Token (KCS)
We’ll end with another promising flutter. KuCoin is a relatively new cryptocurrency exchange whose vanishingly low (and sometimes nonexistent) fees and generous incentive program have earned it a place in 25% of all crypto wallets worldwide, if its website does claim so itself. This approach supports valuation that kept KCS on the winning side of the ledger for nearly half of 2022. When a token proves itself for that long in the midst of a crypto winter, it deserves serious consideration.
Fully half of the revenue KuCoin generates from transaction fees is returned to investors in the form of KCS. Those fees themselves are remarkably low, and KuCoin regularly waives fees altogether to mark special occasions or to celebrate the launch of new services—its current Fifth Anniversary offer waives fees for trades of BTC and ETH. Other exchanges, notably Binance, offer low fees and incentives for holding their native tokens, but KuCoin is particularly aggressive in both respects.
It bears mentioning that KuCoin’s operations are based in the Seychelles, which gives it the benefit of a more relaxed regulatory environment than similar exchanges based in Asia, North America, and Europe. That’s more of a long-term consideration. For now and into the near future, KuCoin’s strong support for its native token’s price makes KCS a reliable and highly resilient investment.
Learn more about BudBlockz (BLUNT) at the links below:
Official Website: https://budblockz.io/
Presale Registration:: https://app.budblockz.io/sign-up
BudBlockz Community Links: https://linktr.ee/budblockz