It’s been a fantastic year for cryptocurrency investors and Bitcoin in particular.
As impressive as the crypto token’s performance has been, a panel of Motley Fool contributors has identified three cryptocurrencies they believe are primed to deliver better performance from here on out.
Like Bitcoin, Ether has recently attracted attention as a speculative asset that could have explosive upside and a potential hedge against inflation and other destabilizing economic and market factors.
Bitcoin’s price per token may very well continue to climb higher and higher, but the superior utility offered by the Ethereum blockchain and its developer network lead me to think the Ether token is a more promising forward-looking bet.
James Brumley : While Bitcoin has clearly been the poster child for the cryptocurrency movement — particularly now that it has its own ETF — the explosion of alternative digital money has thrust a major problem into the spotlight.
It’s kind of complicated, but here’s the simple, condensed explanation: Bitcoin miners use their computer rigs to compete for the right to produce an eligible blockchain; this is the “mining” process you hear about.
Not only does this process require less than 1% of the electricity needed to mine a bitcoin, Cardano’s underlying tech makes it more interoperable.
It’s impossible to have all three, as each currency compromises strengths in certain categories.
Ethereum, by comparison, is somewhat in the middle of all three categories.
By comparison, tokens like Polygon are what’s called “layer-2” scaling, meaning they are third-party integrations that run on top of a layer-1 blockchain.
But it also means processing and verifying transactions on its blockchain are much faster compared to the over 10,000 nodes that are actively supporting the Bitcoin blockchain.
Like anything with cryptocurrency, it’s important to know what you’re getting into and why you’re getting into it.