Let’s face it: most crypto enthusiasts who missed their chance to snatch Bitcoin at $0.30 back in 2011 would gladly jump back in time. For better or for worse, time travel is out of our reach now (allegedly). But the good news is that BTC is not the only crypto out there, and some later additions to the market are attached to major blockchain projects or have other advantages that may propel their value in the coming years.
So, maybe it’s time to stop crying over spilled milk (cheap Bitcoin) and explore cryptocurrencies that are trading low at the moment but may have some potential to show progress in the future.
Top Low-Price Coins with Potential
If you’re interested in joining the market but are reluctant to splurge on the costly coins, want to buy cryptocurrency with more room to grow, or are simply looking to diversify your portfolio, here are some promising cheap cryptos worth considering in 2023.
XRP (XRP)
One of the largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, XRP, was developed by an enterprise blockchain company, Ripple, and deployed in 2012. Like Bitcoin, XPR has a finite supply of 100,000,000,000 coins, with 50,343,500,506 in circulation at the time of writing. This crypto is used to settle transactions on the open source, permissionless, and decentralized XRP Ledger, known for its speed, reliability, and lower costs.
Apart from the Ledger, Ripple offers innovative blockchain-based solutions for financial institutions, businesses, and governments. Its on-demand liquidity payment product grew ninefold in just a year. The picture is somewhat tarnished by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit against the company, which has been dragging on for nearly two years. However, the case seems to be close to resolution, with Ripple scoring small wins and even exploring the possibility of holding an IPO after the lawsuit is settled.
Ripple’s progress might attract new audiences to the XRP Ledger and reflect on the XRP price trajectory, which has been on the decline for a while.
Dogecoin (DOGE)
Forked from Litecoin at the end of 2013, Dogecoin (DOGE) is an open-source digital currency that started as a lighthearted, fun alternative to the serious Bitcoin. The creators wanted to attract audiences beyond the crypto community. In January 2021, DOGE finally seized the spotlight and skyrocketed 800% thanks to Reddit users, the GameStop short squeeze, and, of course, Elon Musk.
With no additional utility aside from tipping on Reddit and Twitter, no maximum supply, and no big project behind it, Dogecoin remains highly volatile and dependent on its “god-father” Elon Musk and overall crypto market trends. After this year’s massive crypto sell-off, trading at $0.07 per coin on December 26 makes it accessible for those waiting for the next blow-up.
Chainlink (LINK)
LINK is a native token and enabler of the Chainlink decentralized blockchain oracle built on Ethereum and launched in 2019. The protocol allows blockchains to extract critical real-world data and computation from off-chain data resources, like APIs or payment methods. Chainlink nodes then validate the external information and feed it to the smart contracts that need it for execution. Such integration is critical if we’re hoping for a future where smart contacts become the dominant form of digital agreement, regardless of the progress of crypto adoption.
Chainlink is already securing billions in value for leading DeFi applications, including Synthetix and Aave, by connecting their smart contracts to real-time off-chain data on asset prices and reserve balances. Also, the protocol lets trusted data providers sell the information they have directly to Chainlink and make money from it.
The LINK price dropped from $28 to $6 in a little less than a year, giving interested investors a chance to buy it cheaply.
Uniswap (UNI)
Uniswap is a decentralized crypto trading protocol on Ethereum that creates liquidity by automating the market-making process for DeFi tokens.
The project is managed by a global community via UNI, its governance token with a 1 billion total supply. UNI holders can propose upgrades and participate in discussions shaping the protocol’s future. They have every incentive to do so, as Uniswap’s success will positively impact the token price.
Deployed in November 2018, the project has become vastly popular in 2022 thanks to a surge in DeFi projects and, subsequently, token launches. Uniswap has had two major updates so far. The most recent one came out in May 2021 and gives liquidity providers better use of their capital and better infrastructure.
UNI reached its all-time high of nearly $45 leading up to the latest protocol update but has since significantly dipped, coming in at $5.17 on December 26.
Cardano (ADA)
Cardano is a public blockchain platform developed by IOHK, a blockchain engineering company overseen by the Cardano Foundation. At the time of its launch in 2017, Cardano was the largest cryptocurrency that used proof-of-stake, a significantly more energy-efficient consensus mechanism when compared to proof-of-work. It’s also the first network based on peer-reviewed research developed through evidence-based methods.
From the get-go, Cardano developers aimed to outdo the slow and inflexible Bitcoin and offer decentralized entities superior Ethereum scalability, security, and sustainability. Because it is fast and cheap to process transactions, the blockchain is often used to build NFT marketplaces and DeFi platforms.
ADA is Cardano’s settlement layer token with a governance feature. There is a maximum supply of 45 billion coins, with roughly 34.5 billion currently in circulation. ADA hit its all-time high of $3.10 in September 2021, ahead of Cardano’s “Alonzo” hard fork that introduced smart contract functionality and enabled dApps.
The next upgrade, called “Vasil”, was originally planned for June 2022 but has been postponed several times. The highly anticipated hard fork is supposed to update Plutus, Cardano’s smart contract programming language, and improve networks` scalability and usability.
Polygon (MATIC)
Polygon is an open-source, decentralized Layer-2 Ethereum-scaling platform. It combines the Plasma Framework and the proof-of-stake blockchain architecture to enable scalable dApps with low transaction fees without sacrificing security. So far, over 35 thousand decentralized apps have used Polygon to scale their performance.
MATIC, Polygon’s native token, has a finite supply of 10 billion coins, with more than 8.7 billion already in circulation. It is very versatile and is used for payment services on Polygon, as a settlement currency between users operating within the Polygon ecosystem, and for staking in exchange for the right to validate transactions. Network participants also need MATIC to pay transaction fees on Polygon Plasma and PoS sidechains.
Stellar (XLM)
XLM, or Lumens, is a native token of Stellar, a decentralized peer-to-peer network designed to facilitate reliable, swift, and cheap cross-border transactions. It was first envisioned as a solution for financial institutions that deal with large transactions across the globe, so now even the heftiest operations can be processed almost instantaneously on Stellar.
Smaller businesses can also use the network’s currency connections to easily build global payment apps, asset exchanges, and micropayment services by using its API and SDKs.
Lumens act as an intermediate currency for operations and are also required for transaction fees on Stellar. The total supply has gone down from 100 billion XLM issued upon launch in 2015 to 50 billion coins after the Stellar Development Foundation burned through half of the supply in 2019. The circulating 20.7 billion XLM are at $0.074 at the time of writing, making it one of the cheapest coins on the list.
Honorable mentions:
The Sandbox (SAND) is a token native to a play-to-earn blockchain-based metaverse game “The Sandbox”’. Within the game, users can create, buy, collect, or sell digital assets in the form of NFTs, or even create their own games and earn SAND when someone plays them.
NEAR Protocol (NEAR) is the native token of the NEAR blockchain that focuses on the usability of the technology as a means to accelerate crypto adoption. The protocol uses a combination of the PoS consensus mechanics and nightshade sharding to ensure secure and seamless scaling with high speed and minimal fees.
Summary
Thirteen years ago, Bitcoin was the only viable cryptocurrency investment option. Now, if you want to buy cryptocurrency, there are more than 22,000 to choose from; and the list of cheap crypto coins with potential is almost endless. Explore the up-and-coming blockchain-based enterprises that might become mainstream in 2023, taking their native tokens on a ride, and stay tuned to the news if you don’t want to miss another rising star!
