5 promising and cheap cryptocurrencies to invest in 2021
By Ali Raza
15:00, 18 March 2021
The crypto market has recently seen another rise, with Bitcoin (BTC) once again surging to a new all-time high above $61,000 per coin. Ethereum (ETH) also briefly returned to $1,900 before correcting, and similar growth was also seen in a number of other altcoins. The correction that followed took the coins back down for a bit but another hike is currently underway, and BTC has grown by 6 per cent in the past 24 hours. At the time of writing, on March 18, it sits at $58,968, with the potential to hit $60,000 again in the next few hours if the rally continues.
Currently, the top 10 list of largest coins by market cap consists of BTC, ETH, Cardano (ADA), Binance Coin (BNB), Tether (USDT), Polkadot (DOT), Ripple’s XRP, Uniswap (UNI), Litecoin (LTC) and Chainlink (LINK). Among all of these, the best performer is undoubtedly ADA, on a daily and weekly basis, with the coin gaining by 15.76 per cent in the past 24 hours, and 25.48 per cent in the past seven days.
Now, let’s talk about some affordable coins that seem to be good investments in 2021 as there is a plethora of options when it comes to the cheapest altcoins with potential.
Cheap cryptocurrencies to invest in 2021: 5 coins to add to your portfolio
Cardano (ADA)
When it comes to cheap cryptocurrencies to invest in, the top position has to go to ADA. The coin has seen a massive price increase in the past few months, going from $0.182 on January 1 to $1.45 on February 27. After that, it saw a correction that took it back to $1, although in the past day and a half it has managed to rise from these levels to $1.437, which puts it very close to its recent all-time high.
The main reason why Cardano has seen such an increase in usage and popularity is the recent update that finally brought the ability to create smart contracts on its network. Cardano has always been the type of project that does things slowly and takes its time. However, when it comes up with something, it works flawlessly. It took years of slow and steady development, and it has finally paid off, allowing ADA to become the third-largest cryptocurrency in a matter of days, after being stuck out of the top 10 list for years.
With the smart contracts possible, developers can now start working on dApps, new cryptocurrencies and even the DeFi sector. On top of that, Cardano has a fast, scalable network, cheap transactions, a good development team and it is heading towards full decentralisation.
With all that in mind, it is easy to see why its native ADA coin is known as the cheap cryptocurrency with the most potential.
Dogecoin (DOGE)
Next on the list of the cheapest cryptocurrency to buy in 2021 is none other than DOGE — the coin that enjoyed its spotlight earlier this year thanks to Elon Musk. Dogecoin has a long and complicated history, but the short version is that it was created in 2013 as a meme coin. Nobody expected it to outlive its status of a joke, survive for the next eight years in the highly competitive crypto industry and even briefly enter the top 10 list in 2021.
Yet, DOGE did all of that and more, seeing its price skyrocket from $0.007635 to an all-time high of $0.074398. What is even more astounding is that the difference between these two prices is less than two weeks. The coin sat at $0.007635 on January 27 and by February 8 it hit the mentioned all-time high, becoming one of the best penny cryptos out there.
There are two reasons for the coin’s popularity – it being mentioned during the GameStop (GME) short squeeze and Elon Musk’s tweets.
During the GameStop frenzy, a Reddit group called WallStreetBets started massively purchasing GME shares to mess with large investors who decided to ruin the firm by shorting its stock. The group moved on to “save” a number of other firms that were in a similar position, and someone referenced pushing DOGE to $1. The coin has not hit $1 yet, but it did set a new record high.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk, who has been praising DOGE for years, started doing so a lot more openly – tweeting about it on a daily basis this winter.
Now, the coin is among the top performers, although still quite cheap and, as such, has potential to be a great investment opportunity.
Uniswap (UNI)
Halfway down the list of the most promising cheap cryptocurrencies, we have Uniswap. UNI is a native coin of the world’s largest decentralised exchange, also called Uniswap. The exchange emerged as part of the growing DeFi sector and its coin has only been around since mid-September 2020. However, that did not stop it from becoming the first and only native DeFi cryptocurrency to enter the top 10 list in such a short time.
While it traded sideways for months after launch, at around $4.45, UNI started surging in 2021, and it hit an all-time high of $33.54 around March 8. This is still a rather low price, given the coin’s potential, especially since Uniswap recently became the first decentralised exchange to support trading with leverage, or margin trading, with the integration of another project, UniMex.
With DEXes and DeFi itself becoming bigger and bigger as months go by, UNI has excellent potential to skyrocket even further. After all, if Binance Coin – the native coin of the world’s largest centralised exchange – can go from $40 to $332 in a matter of a few weeks, the native crypto of the largest decentralised exchange might see similar progress. Now, granted, Binance has a massive ecosystem which it developed for years, but Uniswap is still young, and it has only started its development and growth.
THETA (THETA)
Nearing the end of the list of the best cheap cryptocurrency to invest in 2021, we have THETA. This is the 15th-largest coin by market cap, currently sitting right in front of DOGE, with a price of $7.61 representing a growth of 7.12 per cent in the past 24 hours. The project grew to be so big thanks to its blockchain, which is the only end-to-end infrastructure for decentralised video streaming and delivery that offers technical and economic solutions simultaneously.
With video streaming being one of the biggest activities on the internet right now, it is clear why Theta has attracted so much attention so quickly. The project has seen a massive price increase in the past few months, going from $0.74 on December 15 to the current all-time-high of $7.59. Its price has increased tenfold in only three months, with the main drive of this surge being the pending launch of the Theta Mainnet 3.0, which will introduce TFuel staking and uptime mining. The launch is supposed to arrive in 34 days, so there is still plenty of time to invest in the coin as its price is likely to keep going up for some time longer.
Terra (LUNA)
Finally, we would end the list of the best cheap crypto to buy with Terra. LUNA is still an affordable cryptocurrency that saw its price go from $0.648657 on January 1 to $18.10 at the time of writing. The reason why it is so big is that the project found a unique way to mint stablecoins pegged to fiat currencies and to do it in a decentralised way. The project has been building new protocols and partnering with plenty of existing ones that leverage the UST stablecoin and use it for borrowing, staking, lending and more.
As a result of this rising popularity, LUNA started growing in price as well. In fact, the coin hit its all-time-high at $20.74 only two days ago, and since the price is now slightly lower than that, it is a great opportunity to buy and ride the next rally when it arrives.
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What is the future of the crypto sector?
The crypto industry remains as volatile and uncertain as ever. However, with that said, the future does look quite bullish. So far, the crypto industry moved in cycles which revolved around bullish and bearish periods. When the bullish periods arrived, prices would skyrocket to new record highs. When bearish periods hit, they would crash to the very bottom, causing many to claim that crypto is a bubble and similar things.
However, this was when the crypto sector was in the hands of retail investors only. Recently, institutional investors started getting involved, primarily with Bitcoin and Ethereum, although many are looking into altcoins now, as well. This might be enough to break the extremely bearish part of the cycle, as institutional interference drives demand and adoption and the more institutions and their clients go for crypto, the higher its price will surge.
Covid-19 also played a large role in preparations for the current surge, as it allowed cryptos to show how much good they could do during periods of major crisis, with the whole world turned on its head. This does not mean that bearish periods will never happen again – only that they might be milder and shorter as the crypto industry continues to mature, grow, and see more adoption and usage.
However, while the crypto market is one of the hottest investment sectors right now, it involves high levels of risk due to its immense volatility. We suggest investors and traders exercise caution and do their homework before investing in any cryptocurrency.
Read more: Polkadot forecast for 2021: read this before you invest in the cross-blockchain project
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