February 2022 - Top Ten Cryptocurrencies Rankings
1 February 2022: Welcome to February! The offial RekTimes Top 10 rankings are officially back with some slight modifications. Below are ten identified projects that not only adhere to the new guidelines but have also demonstrated a high probability of longevity.
The following guidelines will be utilized to judge projects:
- Economics / Volume
- Adoption Rate
- Actual Usability
- Community
The following are the selected projects for February 2022:
10. Algorand (ALGO) | -38% YTD
Algorand is an L1 smart contract platform that features an open-source, permissionless, Pure-Proof-of-Stake (PPoS) blockchain protocol.
From a long term outlook on Algorand, the tokenomics offer interested investors the ability to stack ALGO via governance rewards as the project goes through its inflationary phase. Once governance rewards end, all available ALGOs will have entered into circulation and the price will experience deflationary pressures.
Algorand is notably lacking on-chain ecosystem development & use. Additionally, Algorand's scalability strategy has not yet proven effective. Despite these factors the L1 platform is attracting impressive investing partners and should be expected to experience growth, especially from its current price point.
Algorand has a relatively stable floor at its present price point. The downside on Algorand, barring a long term failure to reach adoption, is minimal compared to its upside.
Algorand.comAlgorand Whitepaper
9. The Graph (GRT) | -53% YTD
The Graph is an indexing & querying protocol that assets blockchains through open source subgraphs
While the tokenomics on The Graph don't necessarily promote positive price action in the short run, The Graph is one of the most fundamentally crucial projects in the entire space, providing data management to a large number of blockchains. GRT is the second largest data management & fifth largest Web3 cryptocurrency.
At GRT's present price point with a long term outlooks, this is a historical accumulation opportunity to hold through the next several years.
thegraph.comThe Graph Whitepaper
8. Bitcoin (BTC) | -20% YTD
Bitcoin is the world's first peer-to-peer settlement network not reliant on a central authority to operate.
At its core, Bitcoin has undoubtedly provided the world with a permissionless, dencentralized, digital store of value. Because of its token scarcity, Bitcoin fails to become a suitable universal unit of account, though this is a secondary trait.
Bitcoin is and should be considered "old tech" despite efforts to upgrade the network to fit in with the growing smart contract-powered economy. While Bitcoin's volume is almost entirelty dependent on Tether (USDT), Bitcoin provides portfolios with a slightly more reliant anchor.
Bitcoin is current priced over $38,000 USD, a price point it had first reached a year ago in February 2021. Bitcoin is down 20% since New Year's Day and should be considered a hold.
bitcoin.orgBitcoin Whitepaper
7. Tezos (XTZ) | -20% YTD
Tezos is an L1 smart contract platform that operates through a combined self-amending protocol and on-chain governance system.
Despite being the 16th largest smart contract platform, Tezos has seen considerable institutional investor interest, especially with regards to its emerging NFT and blockchain gaming markets. Tezos also has more on-chain usage and development than rival Algorand.
Market pressures have had a negative impact on short term price action, but XTZ remains in a long term uptrend with present price levels being close to the overall floor. This is an accumulation opportunity for Tezos.
tezos.comTezos Whitepaper
6. Avalanche (AVAX) | -36% YTD
Avalanche is an L1 smart contract platform that has broad developmental capabilities, allowing for the launching of decentralized finance applications
Compared to other smart contract platforms, Avalanche has substantially more total value locked (TVL) and on-chain utilization. Currently, Avalanche hosts a hefty $9 billion USD + in TVL. Avalanche is the 10th largest cryptocurrency by market cap and is the 6th largest smart contract platform.
Avalanche is experiencing rapid growth and is in the process of going through price discovery. This means price action may be highly volatile. Being such a young project, AVAX is a buy as the opportunity to accumulate coins nearly 50% below all time highs is currently available.
avax.networkAvalanche Whitepaper
5. Polgyon (MATIC) | -36% YTD
Polygon is a L2 Ethereum scaling solution that provides a flexible framework for the successfully connecting and development of L2 infrastructure on the Ethereum blockchain.
The MATIC network is home to a significant amount of applications and hosts nearly $5 billlion USD in total value locked (TVL). The development of numerous MATIC integrations with other networks has allowed it to scale and expand within the Ethereum ecosystem.
Polygon has a fixed total supply with a currently implemented staking rewards as the means of releasing premined tokens. Those interested in Polygon can get the best ROI on their investment through the staking and accumulation of additional MATIC.
Polygon has entered price discovery mode as it remains in a long term uptrend and even above its 200 DMA.
polygon.technologyPolygon Whitepaper
4. Chainlink (LINK) | -18% YTD
Chainlink is a decentralized oracle network, serving as the "link" between external data sources and smart contract networks
Similar to Bitcoin, Chainlink has acted closer to a stable, value storage asset as it has grown steadily for much of the past two years. While the price action is less exciting, Chainlink's immense importance concerning the overall functionality of the cryptocurrency space will keep it relavant and growing for years.
Chainlink is the largest data management asset ahead of The Graph and is also the largest protocol within Web3 projects. LINK is in the top 25 by market cap.
By many metrics, LINK is fundamentally undervalued within the cryptocurrency space and should be accumulated long term.
chain.linkChainlink Whitepaper
3. Aave (AAVE) | -39% YTD
Aave Protocol is an open source, non-custodial liquidity protocol offering serves within the scope of DeFi.
over $20 billion USD in total value locked including borrows, Aave is soundly the largest lending protocol on the market. Aave trails only Uniswap (UNI) in DeFi protocols, which is around three times bigger than Aave.
The native token for Aave (AAVE) is an ERC-20 token as Aave is built on the Ethereum blockchain. The connectivity of the Ethereum ecosystem has greatly assisted Aave in growing to its current size. In terms of usability, Aave has liquidity pools available for users to take advantage of, and there are reliable borrowing / lending markets with stablecoin compatability that enables true decentralized transacting.
There are a total of 16 million AAVE tokens ever. ~3 million AAVE are owned by the founding team while 13 million are currently circulating.
aave.comAave Whitepaper
2. Ampleforth (AMPL) | -36% YTD
Ampleforth is an algorithmic rebasing protocol that stabilizes purchasing power and establishes a standard unit of account.
AMPL automatically rebases each day with the goal of returning to its target price set to a 2019 USD adjusted for inflation. Ampleforth accomplishes this through a fluctuating monetary supply. If AMPL falls below its target price, more AMPLs are released proportionately to all outstanding wallets and vice versa for when it rises above.
AMPL has substantial market value because it A. does not rely on collateral to maintain value and B. establishes an ideal unit of account that can be easily denominated in smart contracts to facilitate P2P transacting. For example, 100 AMPLs will always be worth $100 USD (2019) adjusted for inflation.
That value is now up to $1.08 because of increasing inflation, making it a hedge against fiat inflation as well.
ampleforth.orgAmpleforth Whitepaper
1. Ethereum (ETH) | - 25% YTD
Ethereum is the world's first L1 distributed blockchain smart contract platform. Ethereum has a native token ETH and supports chain-specific ERC-20 tokens.
Ethereum is currently in the process of switching its consensus algorithim from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake in what is now known as ETH V2. A recently implemented upgrade to Ethereum saw the ability for the protocol to burn ETH, helping to provide deflationary pressure on the price of ETH. This has also had the side effect of increased gas costs for Ethereum users, something that has been the topic of extensive discussion.
Over the past few years, the Ethereum ecosystem has been developing, expanding, and connecting. Newly arriving L2 protocols are now helping to scale the network appropriately which should, in theory, lower transactional costs for Ethereum users.
Ethereum should be viewed as a long term hold until the full implementation of ETH V2. Supporting by far the largest ecosystem in the entire space means that blockchain space is valuable, not necessarily just expensive.
ethereum.orgEthereum Whitepaper
Other Bubble Projects:
- Uniswap (UNI)
- Ripple (XRP)
- Cardano (ADA)
- Decentraland (MANA)
- Loopring (LRC)
- Ampleforth Governance Token (FORTH)
- Polkadot (DOT)
- Solana (SOL)
- SushiSwap (SUSHI)
- Harvest (FARM)
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