12 Best Crypto to Buy Now in February 2025
With the cryptocurrency markets being in a constant state of unpredictability, many crypto investors are wondering if it’s time to sell in order to secure their profits, or continue to hold, or even accumulate, to benefit from a potential price rally that could be in the store in the short to medium term.
Even though the crypto markets have always recovered from their bearish periods so far, every bear market has its “casualties” that never make a strong recovery. Therefore, it’s important to choose quality crypto projects that have a good chance of surviving the bear market and thriving when the market sentiment is bullish.
We’ve analyzed 200 of the top cryptocurrencies based on their liquidity and availability, technology, sector leadership, tokenomics, and other key factors. You can read more about our criteria a bit further down in the article.
By doing so, we’ve narrowed the list down to a dozen cryptocurrencies that present the most compelling opportunities at the moment. The top three coins on our list are updated weekly to reflect the most up-to-date developments in the crypto and blockchain sectors.
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List of the best cryptocurrencies to invest in February 2025:
Bitcoin – Decentralized peer-to-peer cryptocurrency
Bittensor – P2P marketplace for machine intelligence
Arkham Intelligence – On-chain analytics platform and crypto exchange operator
Ethereum – The leading blockchain for smart contracts
XRP – Highly efficient digital currency
BNB – A popular cryptocurrency utilized in the Binance ecosystem
Solana – High-performance blockchain platform for smart contracts
Uniswap – The biggest DEX on Ethereum
Aptos – Highly scalable blockchain with Move smart contracts
Sky – A key decentralized finance project
Zcash – Privacy coin based on zero-knowledge technology
Chainlink – The leading decentralized oracle network
Examining the best cryptos to buy right now
Let’s start off by highlighting three cryptocurrency projects that have seen important developments recently or have big events coming up in the near future. We update these highlighted coins on a weekly basis to reflect the latest developments in the world of crypto and blockchain.
Before we dive into our list of the best cryptos to buy, we should note that choosing which crypto to buy is only the first step in your crypto investment journey. It's also important to choose the right platform to buy crypto, and you also have to decide how you will be storing your cryptocurrency.
In our opinion, the best way to invest in crypto is to transfer your coins to a hardware wallet after you buy it on an exchange. A great starting point is to buy cryptocurrency on KuCoin and store it in a Ledger hardware wallet.
1. Bitcoin
Bitcoin is a decentralized peer-to-peer cryptocurrency that was initially described in 2008 and launched in early 2009. Bitcoin was invented by a person using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, whose real identity is still unknown.
Bitcoin introduced the concept of a blockchain and provides a fully decentralized digital currency that’s extremely secure. It implements Proof-of-Work to make it very difficult to alter the history of transactions or double-spend coins. The network is secured by miners, who are rewarded with BTC coins for adding blocks to the Bitcoin blockchain.
BTC can be sent anywhere in the world on a 24/7 basis, and transactions cannot be blocked by any intermediaries. By holding their own private keys, users can self-custody their Bitcoin without requiring institutions such as banks.
Even though countless cryptocurrencies and blockchain platforms have been released after Bitcoin, BTC is still easily the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
Why Bitcoin?
Bitcoin has been holding strong despite a broader downturn in the crypto market, as leading altcoins such as XRP, Solana and Dogecoin registered substantial losses in the last 7 days. Meanwhile, Bitcoin is trading at practically the same price as it did at the beginning of last week.
Despite the price remaining relatively stable, we should note that investors have been pulling funds out of Bitcoin ETFs, as these investment products saw $559 in net outflows last week. This was the second straight week of net outflows into Bitcoin ETFs.
Bitcoin spot ETFs have recorded two consecutive weeks of net outflows. Image source: SoSo Value
Recently, analysts at banking giant JPMorgan released a bearish short-term forecast for Bitcoin, noting that the pricing of Bitcoin futures contracts on the CME exchange signals weakening demand for BTC. The analysts also cited a lack of short-term catalysts for Bitcoin, as they don’t expect Trump’s crypto friendly initiatives to come into effect in the first half of the year.
However, there are still significant players in the market that will continue to accumulate Bitcoin regardless of short-term price action.
Strategy, the company that has been aggressively accumulating Bitcoin over the past 4 and a half years, has raised approximately $2 billion in capital through an offering of convertible senior notes.
Strategy’s executive chairman Michael Saylor has announced that the company has spent $1.99 billion to acquire 20,356 BTC, bringing the company’s holdings to 499,096 BTC.
Strategy has acquired 20,356 BTC for ~$1.99B at ~$97,514 per bitcoin and has achieved BTC Yield of 6.9% YTD 2025. As of 2/23/2025, we hodl 499,096 $BTC acquired for ~$33.1 billion at ~$66,357 per bitcoin. $MSTR https://t.co/mNWDaXRE7N
— Michael Saylor⚡️ (@saylor) February 24, 2025
2. Bittensor
Bittensor is a decentralized platform that provides a peer-to-peer market for machine intelligence. Bittensor consists of multiple subnets, which are specialized for particular tasks, such as text prompting, transcription, or audio generation. There are currently more than 60 Bittensor subnets in operation.
Bittensor incorporates a very unique consensus mechanism called Yuma Consensus, which allows validators on different subnets to shape what the network should learn.
The computational resources required to perform machine learning tasks on the Bittensor network are provided by miners, and TAO tokens are used to incentivize them. Users who require machine learning services have to pay with TAO tokens to access them.
By providing a decentralized and cost-effective network of machine learning algorithms, Bittensor makes these advanced solutions accessible to everyday users.
Why Bittensor?
Bittensor has been a strong performer recently, especially considering the downturn in the altcoin market. The network’s TAO token is up 18% in the last week, which is good enough for the 5th best performance in the cryptocurrency top 100.
One of the catalysts for TAO’s overperformance is likely the fact that the token was recently listed on Coinbase, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency trading platforms.
Crypto + AI is the next major era for digital assets, reminiscent of the early days of bitcoin. Now with $TAO on @Coinbase, Bittensor can further drive a shift toward truly decentralized intelligence https://t.co/gesetV9u6O pic.twitter.com/0fLvDibMpX
— Barry Silbert (@BarrySilbert) February 20, 2025
The Bittensor network was recently upgraded with the Dynamic TAO proposal, which improves the functionality of subnets and makes it possible to invest in individual subnets. This could incentivize additional capital to enter the Bittensor ecosystem.
Another interesting development for Bittensor is the recent launch of Precog, a subnet that’s designed to provide Bitcoin price forecasts in 5-minute intervals. The subnet was launched by crypto market data firm CoinMetrics with support from Bittensor ecosystem accelerator Yuma. Currently, the Bittensor ecosystem has 70 subnets.
A new era begins on Bittensor: Introducing Precog by @CoinMetrics (SN55). An established crypto leader, CM data is trusted by the world's biggest ETF issuers, will set a new standard for quality and innovation for deAI.
Consider the bar: raised. pic.twitter.com/uvOgS4Wc1S
— Yuma (@YumaGroup) January 14, 2025
3. Arkham Intelligence
Arkham Intelligence is a blockchain intelligence platform that supports a wide range of networks, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB Chain, TRON, and several others. The functionality of Arkham Intelligence can best be described as a mix between a blockchain explorer and a crypto whale tracker.
The platform is powered by the native ARKM token, which is utilized for governance and in the decentralized marketplace of ARKM Intel Exchange. The marketplace allows users to submit crucial data and information about potential scammers, which in turn earns them ARKM tokens for their efforts. There's also a bounty section, which allows hacked protocols to put a bounty on hackers and other malicious actors.
In late 2024, Arkham Intelligence launched its own cryptocurrency derivatives exchange, and is currently also in the process of introducing spot markets.
Why Arkham?
The Arkham Intelligence team has recently announced that it will be launching spot cryptocurrency trading services, which will initially be available in 17 U.S. states starting with March 1.
With its launch, Arkham will enter the competition against other USD-backed exchanges in a market largely controlled by Crypto.com and Coinbase, which together account for 85% of the market share.
Another reason why Arkham Intelligence has been getting an increased amount of attention is the record-breaking Bybit crypto exchange hack, in which $1.4 billion worth of crypto assets was stolen. Through a bounty submitted on the ARKM Intel Exchange, popular on-chain analyst ZachXBT was able to provide proof tying the security breach to Lazarus, a North Korea-backed hacker group.
BREAKING: BYBIT $1 BILLION HACK BOUNTY SOLVED BY ZACHXBT
At 19:09 UTC today, @zachxbt submitted definitive proof that this attack on Bybit was performed by the LAZARUS GROUP.
His submission included a detailed analysis of test transactions and connected wallets used ahead of… https://t.co/O43qD2CM2U pic.twitter.com/jtQPtXl0C5
— Arkham (@arkham) February 21, 2025
We should note that the ARKM token has been a terrible performer in recent months, losing a whopping 65% against the U.S. dollar in the last three months. However, it could be a compelling opportunity at current prices given the overall strength of Arkham Intelligence’s products.
4. Ethereum
Ethereum is a blockchain that supports smart contracts, enabling more complex use cases such as decentralized lending protocols and non-fungible tokens. The Ethereum project was founded by Vitalik Buterin, who published the Ethereum whitepaper in late 2013. The Ethereum blockchain launched in July 2015.
One of the first use cases enabled by Ethereum that gained a lot of traction was the ability to issue custom tokens that could be transacted over the Ethereum blockchain. This feature was utilized by many projects to conduct fundraising through Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) and other types of token sales.
Today, Ethereum has an extremely vibrant ecosystem of decentralized applications – including decentralized financial services, NFT marketplaces, publishing platforms, decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges, and more – which makes it a good investment in 2023, in our opinion.
ETH is the native asset of the Ethereum blockchain, providing an incentive for users to secure the network. The Ethereum network originally implemented a Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism but switched over to Proof-of-Stake in September of 2022.
Why Ethereum?
Ethereum developers have agreed to target March 2025 as the release for the next big upgrade, Pectra (the name is derived from Prague/Electra). The Pectra upgrade will deliver several improvements to Ethereum.
This includes wallet UX improvements (EIP-7702), an increase to the maximum amount that can be staked by validators (EIP-7251) and several other improvements. In total, there are 11 Ethereum Improvement Proposals scheduled for inclusion in the Pectra upgrade.
The Petra upgrade will initially be deployed on the Sepolia and Holesky testnets in February. If the upgrade performs as expected, we can expect to see Pectra on the Ethereum mainnet in mid-March.
Ethereum’s recent underperformance relative to the rest of the crypto market has led to some frustration among ETH holders. For example, ETH has gained 27% against the US dollar in the last month, a performance that has been easily outclassed by other top coins including Bitcoin (61%), XRP (521%) and SOL (54%) in the same time period.
Still, the Petra upgrade shows that the Ethereum project continues to make significant strides on the fundamental level, improving both scalability and the user experience.
5. XRP
XRP is a cryptocurrency that was launched in June of 2012. It was developed by David Schwartz, Jed McCaleb and Arthur Britto, who started a company called OpenCoin together with Chris Larsen. 80% of the XRP supply was gifted to the company by the developers of XRP. OpenCoin has since been renamed to Ripple, and the company has put the majority of its XRP holdings into escrow.
XRP provides very fast and low-cost transfers, making it suitable for use cases like remittances. It uses neither Proof-of-Work nor Proof-of-Stake but instead implements the XRP Ledger Consensus Protocol. Every participant in the XRP network can choose a set of validators that they trust to behave honestly.
Ripple has implemented the XRP cryptocurrency into its products, most notably On-Demand Liquidity (ODL). ODL works in partnership with cryptocurrency exchanges and uses XRP to provide efficient cross-border money transfers.
Why XRP?
XRP displayed strength last week, gaining 10.6% amid disappointing price action displayed by Bitcoin. Most likely, the rally in the XRP market was driven by news related to XRP ETFs, as the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) officially acknowledged an XRP ETF application for the first time.
ETF Store president Nate Geraci said the acknowledgment was an “enormous message” from the SEC due to the ongoing litigation between the regulator and Ripple.
Shocked more people aren’t talking about SEC accepting XRP ETF filing…
They have open litigation w/ Ripple.
Meanwhile, they just acknowledged filing of ETF holding asset in dispute (they easily could have rejected this filing).
Enormous message IMO.
— Nate Geraci (@NateGeraci) February 14, 2025
It’s important to keep in mind that the SEC acknowledging an ETF application is not the same as approving it. After acknowledging the application, the SEC has given itself a 240-day window to either reject or approve the application.
Bettors on Polymarket are currently optimistic on XRP’s chances to get an ETF in the United States this year, giving it a 79.3% chance.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg ETF analysts Eric Balchunas and James Seyffart are slightly less optimistic, giving 65% odds for an XRP ETF to be approved in 2025.
NEW: @EricBalchunas and I took a look at the filings for spot crypto ETFs. We're putting out relatively high odds of approval across the board. Mainly focused on Litecoin, Solana, XRP, and Dogecoin for now.
Here's the table with the odds and some other details: pic.twitter.com/xaXaNXLb0M
— James Seyffart (@JSeyff) February 10, 2025
6. BNB
BNB is a token that was launched by the Binance cryptocurrency exchange in 2017. BNB serves two primary functions. Holders of the token get access to special benefits when using Binance – this includes lower trading fees, access the exchange’s Launchpad and Launchpool programs, cashback on Binance Visa card purchases, and more.
The token is also used as the native asset of the BNB Chain blockchain. BNB Chain is a variant of Ethereum that offers significantly lower transaction fees to users, and it allows developers to easily deploy EVM-compatible decentralized applications. Previously known as Binance Coin, BNB has now gone through an extensive rebranding.
Why BNB?
BNB was one of the strongest performers among major coins last week, gaining 11.2% despite Bitcoin dropping by 1.6% in the same time frame.
The strength displayed by BNB recently is a result of BNB Chain gaining momentum with meme coin traders, which has positioned the chain as a potential competitor to Solana. In the last 7 days, BNB Chain handled more trading volume than Solana.
The PancakeSwap decentralized exchange handled $25.7 billion worth of trading volume in the last week, continuing a hot streak that started in mid-January.
The rise in speculative meme coin trading on BNB Chain has resulted in close to $15 million worth of gas fees over the last week. The BNB Chain has responded in the increased demand for trades by releasing an optimization that gives higher priority to transactions interacting with time-sensitive smart contracts, such as those used in token trading.
Trading memecoins? Speed matters.
BNB Chain now allows validators to optimize transaction order within blocks, making trades more efficient.
Read more 👇 https://t.co/NkRdnjtaYi
— BNB Chain (@BNBCHAIN) February 17, 2025
Another reason for BNB’s strong performance last week was the Solayer HODLer airdrop campaign on the Binance cryptocurrency exchange. The exchange rewarded BNB holders with a LAYER token airdrop, which further highlighted the benefits of holding the token.
7. Solana
Solana is a smart contracts platform with a unique architecture that allows it to process thousands of transactions per second while keeping costs extremely low. Solana achieves this by utilizing a unique Proof-of-History algorithm and a Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism. SOL is among the cheapest cryptos to transfer on the market, as users pay less than $0.001 per transaction on average.
Solana was founded in 2018 by Anatoly Yakovenko. The platform’s mainnet launched in March 2020 and saw a huge boost in adoption in 2021. While SOL has lost a lot of its value in the 2022 bear market, Solana still has one of the most impressive ecosystems in the cryptocurrency sector and is potentially still one of the next cryptos to explode.
Why Solana?
Even though SOL saw a major price decline over the weekend, the Solana ecosystem continues to be a crucial hub for on-chain activity. Solana-based decentralized exchange Raydium has surpassed Uniswap in terms of 30-day volume. Raydium facilitated $122.5 billion worth of trades in the last 30 days, compared to the $98.7 billion facilitated by Uniswap.
📊REPORT: @RaydiumProtocol surpasses @Uniswap in 30-day volume to become the #1 DEX across all chains, despite operating solely on @Solana.
- Uniswap: $98 billion
- Raydium: $122 billion pic.twitter.com/qhdujw1rNQ
— SolanaFloor (@SolanaFloor) February 3, 2025
Another notable development for Solana is that real-world tokenization platform Securitize is expanding its services to the Solana blockchain. The project cites Solana’s “fast, scalable infrastructure” and its ability to support “high-throughput financial applications” as key reasons for expanding to Solana.
Real world assets 🤝 Solana
Apollo — investment firm with $730B AUM — will offer tokenized access to private credit via the Apollo Diversified Credit Securitize Fund (ACRED) on Solana. https://t.co/SxKj8vFt86
— Solana (@solana) January 30, 2025
Thanks to the integration, eligible investors will be able to access products such as the Apollo Diversified Credit Securitize Fund through the Solana blockchain.
We’re also seeing an increasing level of interest for Solana ETFs, as the SEC under the Trump administration is expected to be much more likely to approve such an investment vehicle in the United States compared to the previous administration. So far, five asset management companies have filed to list a Solana ETF in the United States, although the SEC is yet to approve any of the applications.
8. Uniswap
Uniswap is a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange that introduced and popularized the AMM (automated market maker) model. This unique design removes the need for order books, providing an elegant way for swapping between different tokens directly on the blockchain without relying on intermediaries.
The Uniswap protocol is decentralized, and anyone can create liquidity pools for any token. This means that the newest crypto assets are often traded on Uniswap before they make their way on centralized cryptocurrency exchanges.
The model introduced by Uniswap has been adopted by many decentralized exchanges on different blockchain platforms. However, Uniswap remains the most active decentralized exchange in terms of trading volume.
Uniswap is governed by holders of the UNI token, who can submit and vote for proposals. UNI was distributed to past users of the Uniswap protocol via an airdrop in 2020, and the token is now available for purchase on a variety of both decentralized and centralized trading platforms.
Why Uniswap?
The Uniswap project has announced plans to launch Unichain, a layer 2 blockchain that will function on top of Ethereum. Unichain is built using Optimism’s OP Stack framework, and will therefore be compatible with other networks in the “Superchain”.
Introducing @unichain — a new L2 designed for DeFi ✨
Fast blocks (250ms), cross-chain interoperability, and a decentralized validator network
Built to be the home for liquidity across chains pic.twitter.com/lqfJh6Ltio
— Uniswap Labs 🦄 (@Uniswap) October 10, 2024
Unichain is a blockchain specifically designed for DeFi (decentralized finance), targeting 250 millisecond block times and low transaction fees (roughly 20 times cheaper than Ethereum). Currently, Unichain is available as a testnet, which can already be used to make test token swaps.
Unichain will also feature UNI token staking. By staking their tokens, UNI holders will be able to earn part of the sequencer revenue generated by Unichain.
The Unichain news has had a positive impact on the UNI market, helping the token surpass the $8 price level for the first time since July. Since the new blockchain platform will provide additional utility for UNI, it could be a long-term driver of demand for the token.
9. Aptos
Aptos is a layer 1 blockchain that aims to provide a highly scalable platform for smart contracts. Aptos utilizes the Move smart contracts programming language, which was initially developed for the Libra blockchain project. In addition to its strong performance, the Move language includes safeguards that help prevent unpredictable bugs in smart contracts.
According to developers, the Aptos protocol is capable of handling up to 100,000 transactions per second (TPS). This is possible thanks to a pipelined and modular approach to transaction processing, in which the different stages of processing a transaction are performed concurrently.
Why Aptos?
Aptos has been displaying an impressive amount of activity, with the number of monthly active accounts on the Aptos blockchain recently surpassing 3.6 million. In the last 30 days, the Aptos blockchain peaked at 435,000 daily active accounts, although this figure has dropped to around 145,000 at the time of writing. In the last months, Aptos has been seeing between 75,000 and 100,000 new accounts on a daily basis.
This activity is reflected in various decentralized applications on the Aptos blockchain – for example, decentralized exchange aggregator Panora recently hit the $1 billion trading volume milestone. According to data by DeFi Llama, Aptos is ranked 10th among all blockchains (including Ethereum layer 2s) when it comes to 24-hour trading volume, and 17th when it comes to TVL (total value locked).
In addition to the growth in activity, Aptos developers recently announced Move 2.0, a release that will add multiple new features to the Move programming language to make it more flexible and powerful.
In tech updates for the ecosystem 💻
An extension of the Move programming language, Move 2, was announced at #ExperienceAptos to bring several new features designed to make writing DeFi applications easier with Move on Aptos.
➕ Raptr—the next-generation BFT consensus… https://t.co/kPss3WlBX4
— Aptos (@Aptos) September 14, 2024
In terms of market performance, APT has been lackluster recently, losing -1.3% in the last month, which is on par with Bitcoin’s price action in the same time period. However, with all the activity surrounding the Aptos ecosystem, APT could have what it takes to stage an impressive rebound, especially if the overall sentiment in the altcoin markets goes on an upswing.
10. Sky
Sky is a decentralized finance protocol that issues and manages USDS, a decentralized stablecoin pegged to the US dollar. Users that hold assets that are supported as collateral (for example, ETH) can lock their coins into Sky’s smart contracts in order to issue USDS. The protocol also incorporates the SKY token, which facilitates decentralized governance.
The system is overcollateralized—in order to mint USDS, users need to provide collateral that exceeds the value of minted USDS, and users are required to monitor the value of their collateral in order to avoid liquidation.
Sky was founded under the name Maker in 2014, and the platform’s stablecoin was first launched in late 2017 under the name Dai. Initially, the protocol only supported ETH as collateral. With the launch of Multi-Collateral Dai in 2019, it also became possible to use other forms of collateral. Today, Sky’s stablecoin USDS is backed by a diverse range of assets.
Why Sky?
The recent rebranding of Maker to Sky has brought renewed attention to the highly established DeFi project, and their new stablecoin USDS has seen a rapid increase in supply. At the time of writing, there’s already $493 million worth of the stablecoin in circulation.
How DAI’s stablecoin rebrand hit $490m in five dayshttps://t.co/84iLWHwfT8
— DL News (@DLNewsInfo) September 23, 2024
According to Sky co-founder Rune Christensen, the project is looking to position USDS as a stablecoin for users who are already familiar with Tether, but would like to access a straightforward way of earning rewards on their holdings. Currently, USDS holders are earning a 6.25% APY, and the yield is sourced from the revenue generasted by the Sky protocol.
In a post on X (formerly known as Twitter), Christensen outlined the next steps for the Sky project. This includes the Sky Aave Force partnership with DeFi lending protocol Aave, in which USDS holders will be able to receive both the USDS Savings Rate and the regular Aave interest rates.
The Sky protocol will also be launching on Solana, bringing the first decentralized stablecoin with integrated rewards to the high-performance blockchain platform.
11. Zcash
Initially proposed in a publication entitled "Zerocash" in 2014, Zcash is a decentralized public peer-to-peer cryptocurrency launched in 2016 that offers features similar to Bitcoin with a twist of unique privacy and security features found only in a handful of public digital currencies.
More specifically, ZEC was the first cryptocurrency to leverage 'zk-SNARKS', a zero-knowledge protocol that was considered among the top 10 breakthrough technologies of 2018 according to MIT's Technology Review.
New ZEC coins are introduced into the circulating supply through mining - Zcash is a cryptocurrency based on Proof-of-Work. Tokenomics-wise, Zcash has kept the same 21 million total supply cap introduced by Bitcoin. Similarly to Bitcoin, Zcash also has a halving mechanism. The first Zcash halving happened at block height 1,046,400 in 2020.
The Zcash project is very likely to adopt a Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism in the future, as Zcash’s main developer Electric Coin Company and the majority of the Zcash community have expressed support for transitioning away from Proof-of-Work.
Why Zcash?
Zcash has been seeing some interesting developments as of late, and ZEC has displayed robust price growth with a 24.3% increase in the last 30 days.
Coinbase, which is one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world, recently added support for sending ZEC to TEX addresses. A TEX address is a special type of Zcash address that only accepts funds from transparent addresses.
📢 Exciting news!
We're pleased to announce that Coinbase․com users can now send Zcash to TEX addresses. https://t.co/Zkd27RUMRo
— Coinbase Assets 🛡️ (@CoinbaseAssets) October 10, 2024
TEX addresses were introduced to Zcash as a way to keep ZEC listed on exchanges that were under pressure from regulators to delist privacy-enhancing cryptocurrencies. For example, all ZEC coins deposited to Binance must come from a transparent address.
Another notable development for Zcash is a bundle of new updated to Zashi, a Zcash wallet developed by Electric Coin Company (which is also the primary developer of Zcash).
The latest update introduces several handy features, including an address book, QR code payments, a redesigned send tab, an improved transaction history section, and various user interface improvements. For the full list of changes, be sure to check the official blog post.
12. Chainlink
Chainlink is a decentralized oracle network that allows blockchains to access reliable data outside of the blockchain. The project aims to address the “oracle problem” faced by blockchains—by reliably connecting blockchains to the “outside world”, Chainlink unlocks a wide range of use cases that wouldn’t be possible with on-chain data alone.
Chainlink is already the most widely used oracle service in the decentralized finance sector, and is also gaining traction in the NFT and crypto gaming sectors. For example, a decentralized finance protocol could leverage the Chainlink network to feed data about crypto prices on centralized exchanges (which function off-chain) to its smart contracts. NFT projects can utilize Chainlink for provable randomness, which establishes trust in the fairness of NFT minting and distribution.
Why Chainlink?
World Liberty Financial, the DeFi (decentralized finance) project closely affiliated with U.S. president-elect Donald Trump, has made two separate purchases of LINK tokens, spending around $2 million in total.
Trump's World Liberty(@worldlibertyfi) bought 37,052 $LINK($1M) at $27 and 685 $AAVE($246.7K) at $360 again.
Since Nov 30, #WorldLiberty has spent:
30M $USDC to buy 8,105 $ETH at $3,701;
10M $USDC to buy 103 $cbBTC at $97,181;
2M $USDC to buy 78,387 $LINK at $25.5;
1.25M… pic.twitter.com/l9nnv9Ry94
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) December 13, 2024
According to data from Arkham Intelligence, LINK is currently World Liberty Financial’s sixt-largest holding, following ETH, CBBTC (a wrapped Bitcoin token issued by Coinbase), USDC, USDT and AAVE.
Notably, the World Liberty Financial platform itself uses Chainlink in its integrations with the broader crypto ecosystem, relying on the protocol for pricing and interoperability across blockchains.
World Liberty Financial’s LINK purchases have driven bullish sentiment in the markets for LINK, as the token crossed the $30 price level for the first time since November 21. However, LINK still has a way to go before it can improve upon the $48 all-time high it reached in May of 2021. At the time of writing, LINK is down about 56% from its ATH.
Native asset
Launched in
Description
Market cap*
Bitcoin
BTC
2009
Decentralized peer-to-peer cryptocurrency
$1.91 trillion
Bittensor
TAO
2023
P2P marketplace for machine intelligence
$3.6 billion
Arkham
ARKM
2023
On-chain analytics platform and crypto exchange operator
$137.5 million
Ethereum
ETH
2015
The leading blockchain for smart contracts
$335 billion
XRP
XRP
2012
Highly efficient digital currency
$155 billion
Solana
SOL
2020
High-performance blockchain for smart contracts
$90 billion
BNB
BNB
2017
BNB Chain's native asset and token used in Binance ecosystem
$99.8 billion
Uniswap
UNI
2020
The biggest decentralized exchange protocol
$6 billion
Aptos
APT
2022
Highly scalable blockchain with Move smart contracts
$3.5 billion
Sky
SKY
2015
A key decentralized finance project
$927 million
Zcash
ZEC
2016
Privacy coin based on zero-knowledge technology
$579 million
Chainlink
LINK
2012
Leading decentralized oracle network
$12.4 billion
*Data as of February 17, 2025, at 14:05 UTC.
Best crypto to buy for beginners
If you're a new entrant in the cryptocurrency space, it's probably best to stick to cryptocurrencies that have been around for a longer period of time and have a well-developed ecosystem of resources for users. This will make it easier for you to set up your wallet and find answers if you encounter any problems along the way.
If you're a beginner, consider sticking to cryptocurrencies that satisfy the following criteria:
The coin has a significant market capitalization ($1 billion and up)
The coin is listed on many cryptocurrency exchanges and can easily be exchanged against fiat currencies
The coin has solid liquidity (at least $100 million in 24-hour trading volume)
The coin is already a working product and is not based on future promises
If you stick to coins that meet these criteria, you'll automatically be filtering out a lot of low-quality projects and reducing your chances of falling victim to scams. You will also easily be able to sell your coins and convert them to fiat currency if you ever decide to do so.
Here are a few examples of cryptocurrencies that are worth considering for beginner investors in crypto. These coins have a lot of liquidity, well-developed ecosystems and a lot of educational resources and tools that will help beginners get up to speed.
Bitcoin
Ethereum
Litecoin
Polygon
Solana
Please note that cryptocurrencies are risky investments and typically display a lot of price volatility. This is true even for established cryptocurrencies with multi-billion dollar market capitalizations. Never invest more than you are willing to lose.
Best crypto to buy for long-term investors
Many crypto investors prefer to passively hold their cryptocurrencies over the long term instead of actively trading them. Frankly, this is a good decision if you don't want to put a lot of time and effort into following everything that's happening in the crypto and blockchain space.
If you're trying to invest in crypto for the long term, we recommend that you only stick to the most established cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. While they are still risky, their fundamentals are much more robust than projects that heavily depend on just a few developers and community leaders.
In order to invest in crypto successfully over the long term, we recommend that you store your coins safely using a hardware crypto wallet. Although there are plenty of high-quality hardware wallets out there, Ledger's devices stand out as the best choice overall, in our opinion.
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How we chose the best cryptocurrencies to buy
With thousands of different cryptocurrencies on the market, it can be challenging to narrow down the list to only about a dozen coins. When creating this list, we aimed to showcase a variety of cryptocurrency projects, ranging from well-established projects to more speculative projects that could potentially have a lot of upside. Here are the factors we considered when deciding which cryptocurrencies to feature.
Availability
It's important for a cryptocurrency to be easily available across a variety of cryptocurrency exchanges, including both centralized and decentralized options. We also considered whether the cryptocurrency can be traded directly against fiat currencies, which makes the process of buying and selling much more straightforward.
Market capitalization
The coins featured on our list of the best cryptocurrencies to buy in 2023 are all among the 100 largest crypto assets by market capitalization. By itself, a large market capitalization doesn't mean that the project is of high quality. However, it is a good indication that there's a lot of community interest in the project, and coins with a larger market cap are more resilient to market manipulation attempts, as moving the market requires large amounts of capital.
Sector leadership
The cryptocurrency market can be divided into several sectors. For example, we have Proof-of-Work cryptocurrencies and Proof-of-Stake cryptocurrencies, which represent two of the main approaches towards achieving decentralized consensus. We can further identify other sectors such as decentralized finance, non-fungible tokens, layer 2 projects, meme coins and others.
We attempted to highlight projects that are leaders in their respective sectors in order to showcase the variety that can be found in the crypto and blockchain space.
Working products
It's important that the cryptocurrency we're featuring has a working product already and isn't simply based on future promises. When it comes to cryptocurrencies, we generally avoid highlighting coins that don't have a working mainnet yet. When it comes to tokens, we try to focus on tokens that are used as utility tokens in a working product or as governance tokens in an actively used decentralized protocol.
Occasionally, we will highlight coins that are about to launch their mainnet or key product soon. However, we try to limit this only to top-tier projects that are highly anticipated by the crypto community.
Team and development
Most high-quality crypto and blockchain projects are transparent about their team and their credentials. We prefer to highlight projects developed and managed by highly qualified individuals. In addition, we put a lot of value on activity. If a project is being developed actively, we're much more likely to feature it over a project that is only improved occasionally.
Of course, a project's team or founders being anonymous is not a dealbreaker in every single case. After all, we still don't know who created Bitcoin.
How to buy crypto for beginners
If you're new to crypto, the first step is to choose a reliable cryptocurrency exchange. We provide a list of the best crypto exchanges for beginners to help you get started. At the moment, the best all-around exchange for beginners is Kraken.
Create Kraken Account
After you create your account on a cryptocurrency exchange, you'll have to deposit some funds to your account. Most high-quality exchanges will support various payment methods, including bank transfers and credit/debit card transfers.
Next, decide on the amount you would like to invest and the cryptocurrencies you want to buy. If you're a beginner, we recommend starting with smaller amounts and sticking to well-established cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. After you become more comfortable with how cryptocurrencies work and conduct some extra research, you might also become interested in altcoins with a lower market cap.
Next, place a buy order for the cryptocurrency you want to buy using either a market or limit order. For additional security, consider transferring your Bitcoin to your own wallet (preferrably a hardware wallet) after completing your purchase instead of leaving it on the exchange.
The bottom line: What crypto to buy now?
What is the best crypto to buy now is mostly dependent on your own individual risk profile and investment goals. If you are interested in cryptocurrencies that have long-term potential, then staples like BTC and ETH are probably the right choice for you.
If your risk appetite is greater, you can try to pursue investments in cryptos under 1 cent or participate in the latest crypto presales if you are feeling especially frisky. We provide a number of resources that will help you identify interesting opportunities in the crypto market:
Top Crypto Gainers and Losers
Undervalued Cryptos
Trending Cryptos
In any case, please keep in mind that the cryptocurrency market is highly volatile and that investing in cryptocurrency is subject to considerable risk. Always do your research and consider your financial situation before making any investment, and never invest more than you are willing to lose.
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