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Which Altcoins Will Give Bitcoin and Ethereum a Run for Their Money?

By:
Bob Mason
Published: Mar 29, 2022, 08:01 UTC

For some time, Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) have made way for some new names in town for crypto investing and trading. While Bitcoin and Ethereum continue to dwarf the broader crypto market by market cap, new players provide the unheard-of potential to be positively disruptive for novice traders and seasoned traders alike.

Crypto

Here we take a look at some of the projects.

Bitcoin, the world’s first cryptocurrency, has been around for over a decade. In 2015, Ethereum entered the blockchain scene as the first smart contracts platform. Both have seen a marked shift in sentiment, driving adoption over the years. The main drivers for adoption have been decentralization and corruption-proof technology.

Adopting trends also hold true for the trading community. Bitcoin’s and Ethereum’s yearly trading volumes are consistently rising.

Adoption has been so significant that not only multinational companies have adopted cryptocurrencies (like Twitter, Tesla, Etsy, Microsoft, or PayPal), but also entire countries. For instance, El Salvador declared Bitcoin legal tender in 2021, allowing citizens and companies to use both the Salvadoran colon and Bitcoin.

While some governments have adopted the decentralized ethos sooner, others continue to withhold this decision for as long as possible. But that’s a topic for another occasion.

The blockchain industry, as a whole, has evolved from the backbone of Bitcoin and Ethereum.

So, there is no way that these two cryptocurrency monoliths would ever leave the sphere anytime soon. But there are new blockchain projects launched every year that solve issues inaccessible to the big players above.

Much smaller by market capitalization, these cryptocurrencies are still in their infancy and have tremendous room for growth and expansion of market share. Investing in and trading with these can prove decisive while steering clear of the often-confusing waters of Foreign Exchange.

Lately, the international Forex broker OctaFX has upgraded its trading pool by adding 25 new and promising cryptocurrencies. Let’s take a look at a few of them.

Cardano (ADA)

Cardano is a direct Ethereum competitor among smart-contract platforms. Its founder aided the development of the Ethereum network before founding Cardano in 2015. Since 2019, Cardano’s (ADA) native token has seen sizeable growth. The Cardano ecosystem is considered one of the most decentralized—having an exceptionally high and rare level of self-initiative within its global community. Most of the Cardano community not only hold ADA but also found pools, adding liquidity to support ecosystem growth.

Solana (SOL)

Solana is another ‘Ethereum killer’, as some like to claim within the crypto community. More than killing anything, Solana dilutes ETH’s dominant market share. Much like Cardano, Solana solves issues of scalability and transaction fees that have been a cause of pain for Ethereum users. 2021 was a big success story for the Solana ecosystem.

Binance Coin (BNB)

Binance Coin is the native token of one of the biggest crypto exchanges—Binance. Binance also launched its blockchain to compete with Ethereum’s financial and computing ecosystem. Binance is one huge success story with just one undeveloped aspect—decentralization. But other than that, the company went through tremendous pains to give an exquisite and reliable user experience. Transaction costs are next to none compared to Ethereum and most other competitors.

Polygon (MATIC)

Matic is a ‘layer-2 solution’ formed to support mass adoption of the Ethereum platform. It aims to solve Ethereum’s onchain scalability restrictions. There were and are others, but Matic did a great job back in 2019–2020 of bundling powerful partnerships, setting up collaborations, and garnering a faithful and committed community. Eventually, this led to a meteoric rise in adoption and market capitalization in the first quarter of 2021.

Zcash (ZEC)

With an uncertain future for fiat currencies and monetary policy worldwide becoming more obscure and unpredictable, privacy coins are in high demand. It was one of the most powerful promises of Bitcoin back in 2009—financial privacy in a digital age. Since then, much has changed. Bitcoin proved not to be as private and untraceable as some had expected. After 2014, coins like Monero, Dash, and Zcash entered the crypto playground. Zcash has great bitcoin-based technology and a magnificent team that stands for what it believes in.

Decentraland (MANA)

Decentraland is an Ethereum-based platform that builds a virtual reality, the Metaverse, where you can buy digital land, engage in it and maneuver through it with other users, and capitalize on the processes occurring within the Metaverse. So, keeping MANA in mind as one of the key players in the much-talked-about ‘Metaverse rush’ can prove lucrative in the long run.

An investment opportunity of a lifetime

These are just a fraction of the cryptocurrencies worth discussing. A vibrant, new industry is unfolding—one that will define the destiny of the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ and the entire new world that ‘Web 3.0’ has in store for us.

Major smart-contract players are serious contenders for significant future market share. While Ethereum will not vanish, its challengers will likely seize opportunities to grow massively. This is true for their governance tokens as well as their cryptocurrencies.

Privacy coins with powerful code and inventive protocols are almost no-brainers, investment-wise. Their straightforward use-case will soon be in such desperate demand—especially with inflation being on the loose long term—that investing in them now will print much wealth for those who dare. Their relative worth will skyrocket compared to today’s prices.

According to many, a virtual, parallel reality called the Metaverse is no fringe gamer’s dream anymore. There is already a vast virtual marketplace manifesting that will soon vividly mimic the real world. So much so that trade, business, administrative procedures, and entertainment will have powerful substitute domains. It’s no niche for some futurologists anymore. Metaverse projects will thrive, no matter what.

In conclusion, these new financial instruments are well worth exploring. Behind them are standing entities akin to what Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook have been to the IT industry over the last few decades ago.


OctaFX is a global broker providing online trading services worldwide since 2011. It offers everything one needs to reach their investment goals, providing top-notch conditions utilized already by 7.5 million clients globally.

The company is involved in a comprehensive network of charity and humanitarian initiatives, including improvement of educational infrastructure, short-notice relief projects, supporting local communities and small to medium enterprises.

On a side note, OctaFX has also won more than 45 awards since its foundation, including the 2021 ‘Best Forex Broker Asia’ award from Global Banking & Finance Review and 2021 ‘Best ECN Broker’ award by World Finance.

About the Author

Bob Masonauthor

With over 20 years of experience in the finance industry, Bob has been managing regional teams across Europe and Asia and focusing on analytics across both corporate and financial institutions. Currently he is covering developments relating to the financial markets, including currencies, commodities, alternative asset classes, and global equities.

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