The crypto market evolved rapidly since the Bear Market in 2018, new projects started, and old ideas strengthened, proving their sound business feasibility. Picking the best cryptocurrencies in 2021 allows you to overperform the market, adding protection in case of price drops. You can rest assured that investors will allocate their funds to the strongest projects when the frenzy passes, supporting the price. Selecting the best coins in advance gives you an edge in the future.

Crypto trends in 2021

The ICO “gold-rush” was the primary catalyst for the 2017/18 Bull Market. The rise of DeFi revamped the Altcoin market during the summer of 2020 while Bitcoin was on pause from reaching a new all-time high. The market may look irrational in the short-term, but when you look at cycles from a larger perspective, you can identify the main forces and trends driving the prices.

The crypto ecosystem shapes upday after day as a digital economy 2.0. Countless different business models emerged from the development of the Internet. Just consider how Netflix, Amazon, and Apple started from unique ideas. It’s worth noticing how, instead, nowadays these companies compete with each other with similar products. But that’s a sign of the Internet-based economy entering a mature stage.

Cryptocurrencies, on the other hand, are still in their early days. Companies embracing Blockchain technology have the possibility of filling many niches or create brand new “sectors.” Let’s look at the most promising crypto trends, out of which you could pick the best cryptocurrencies to buy in 2021.

DeFi is here to stay.

Just like 2017 made history as the year of ICOs, 2020 was definitely the year when the crypto community started to fully embrace DeFi Protocols.

The concept of building a decentralized financial ecosystem is broad and embraces different angles. To date, according to data from DeFi Pulse, more than $30 billion worth of assets are locked into smart contracts. Compared to the size of the legacy financial system, that looks like a drop in the sea. But if you consider that all these assets rely only on a censorship-proof decentralized architecture with no borders, that is worth attention.

The rate at which investors are piling more assets into the system is mesmerizing. Locked assets grew three times in the last two months and over ten times over the previous six months. Definitely, a trend that is not passing unnoticed.

Ethereum has been playing a big part in the adoption of DeFi projects, but recently interoperability allowed more options for investors. Cosmos and Binance Smart Chain seem to be positioned to expand DeFi further in the months to come.

The two most successful use cases so far have been decentralized exchanges and lending platforms.

Top Picks

Uniswap (UNI)

Enzyme (MLN)

The Tokenization of everything.

Cryptocurrencies are, with no question, a unique experiment that is proving successful as time passes. Yet, it’s still difficult to grasp the value of a coin or a token for many. Why should I pay more than $30,000 for a single Bitcoin? Why $1,000 for ETH?

What if you could buy or sell the ownership of real estate, stocks, debt, or intellectual properties?

The tokenization of real assets has already started. Billions worth of USD moved to the Blockchain in the form of stable coins. Pax tokenized the ownership of Gold, and that was just the beginning.

2020 witnessed the rise of new protocols that allow tokenizing virtually every asset. No intermediaries mean greater cost-efficiency, while new emerging trading venues could enhance these new assets’ liquidity like it hass never before been possible.

Top Picks

Synthetix (SNX)

Mirror (MIR)

The rise of the Oracles.

There is no doubt that the crypto ecosystem’s remarkable development was mainly due to Oracles’ role.

Like Ethereum in 2017 proved that cryptocurrencies were more than just currencies, introducing the concept of smart-contracts, Oracles gave smart-contracts the possibility to expand their use cases to meet the needs of users.

Thanks to an Oracle, the smart-contract can elaborate any third-party data to process its functions. In 2019, Chainlink was one of the best coins to buy that year, and slowly it managed to climb the market capitalization ranking up to the current 8th position.

Chainlink has been the first mover. Now rising rivals are rapidly growing. Elements like decentralization of the network, speed of the feeds, transaction cost, and interoperability are only some of the key factors that will heat up the competition.

Top Picks

Band Protocol (BAND)

DIA (DIA)

Kitties are not the only collectibles.

In 2017, one of the most evident signs of an inflating bubble in the crypto market was witnessing people buying digital kitties, paying them thousands of dollars worth of Ether. At a closer look, that was the expression of a new generation attributing a real value to digital things.

If you can buy, sell or transfer a cryptocurrency in fractions, e.g., 0.001 BTC, a non-fungible token or NFT is unique and undividable. The most common standard for NFT is the ERC-721 on the Ethereum Blockchain. They are perfect to represent a digital proof-of-ownership of a specific asset, whether real or digital.

Collectibles under many forms exist for centuries, and cryptocurrencies could give a new life to old fashions, just like creating a whole new way to collect art, rare goods, properties, and rights.

Top Picks

Rarible (RARI)

Decentraland (MANA)

Where is the next Ethereum?

That is the million-dollar question. In some cases, the correct answer to this question could literally be that profitable.

Since the beginning of its development, the ecosystem started to question who could replace the incumbent role of the Ethereum Blockchain in the long term. Many projects tried to offer their alternatives, but basically, all failed so far.

If you can’t beat them, join them.

The approach of new protocol coins is different these days. They abandoned the tribalistic approach that characterized the developments in the past. Nowadays, the most promising protocols are those that value interoperability and cross-chains.

Not only does this help projects scaling and leveraging on each other’s strengths, but it will likely speed up the global development of the ecosystem towards mainstream adoption of crypto.

Top Picks

Polkadot (DOT)

Cosmos (ATOM)

Privacy first

Last but certainly not least, it’s worth holding in mind that one of the pillars on which crypto stands is the idea of privacy. Public Blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum are anonymous, but not private.

That means that all transactions are directly and freely accessible to anyone. This is great in terms of transparency, but when regulators and companies can manage (and to some extent, they already do!) analytics tools to track the transactions’ paths, users may demand higher levers of protection for their data.

Leading privacy-focused projects such as Monero, Zcash, and Dash only offer privacy protection for simple transactions, meaning that their use-cases are limited. Nowadays, most of the transactions on Blockchain involve interactions with smart-contracts. Soon more investors will demand high privacy levels for all their transactions, not just the transfer of coins from wallet A to B.

Top Picks

Secret Network(SCRT)

Haven Protocol(XHV)

The Crypto Bull Market offers countless opportunities every day. To catch them at any time, you will need the proper tools and the best crypto trading strategies.