Even after a dramatic sell-off across crypto markets, Dogecoin (DOGE -2.35%) sits at a valuation of nearly $11.5 billion. This makes Dogecoin a top-10 cryptocurrency by market cap, despite the fact that the meme coin offers little in the way of utility.
Here are three cryptocurrencies that currently have just a fraction of the valuation of Dogecoin, but that could far surpass it one day based on their growth prospects and the exciting ecosystems they are building on their platforms.
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Hedera Hashgraph
Hedera Hashgraph (HBAR -1.42%) clocks in at a $2 billion market cap, less than one-fifth of Dogecoin's current market capitalization. While Hedera may not have the valuation or the notoriety of Dogecoin, it is quietly building up its use cases and applications.
One thing to note about Hedera is that it actually isn't a blockchain at all. It is a distributed ledger like blockchains, but it instead uses a consensus algorithm called a "hashgraph." Hedera says this technology is "a faster, more secure alternative to blockchain mechanisms." Hedera can achieve a throughput of up to 10,000 transactions per second with finality in seconds. As with Near, these transactions also come at a very low cost of under a fraction of $0.01.
The Hedera platform has some serious backers. It is owned and governed by a council that includes an impressive cohort of backers ranging from tech giants like Alphabet and International Business Machines to manufacturers like Avery Dennison and Boeing.
These backers are using Hedera for exciting real-world use cases. For example, Avery Dennison worked with Hedera to develop a connected product cloud that allows for the end-to-end tracking of a product's entire lifecycle from manufacturing to the end-user. Neuron, an aviation company that provides data from sensors on the ground to drones, chose Hedera for an experiment collecting and logging millions of data points on its drone flights because of its high throughput and low latency.
Near Protocol
With a market cap of $4.4 billion, Near Protocol (NEAR -2.19%) is only about a third of the size of Dogecoin right now, but Near could one day far surpass Dogecoin's valuation. Near is a proof-of-stake cryptocurrency that offers massive throughput, enabling up to 100,000 transactions per second. Additionally, Near also boasts near-instant transaction finality of less than two seconds. Despite this performance, Near's fees are minimal at less than $0.01 per transaction.
The platform has done a great job of attracting developers to build on Near and it prides itself on being user- and developer-friendly. Developers can build applications for Near using common programming languages like Rust and AssemblyScript without having to learn a new language to build on Near. These applications include non-fungible token platforms plus decentralized exchange Ref Finance, where daily trading volume eclipsed the $100 million mark four days in a row last week, including a record $165 million on May 10.
Near has also grown its user base and transaction volume significantly over the past year. For example, on May 10 last year, there were about 51,000 transactions on the Near blockchain for the day. On May 10 this year, there were over 1.5 million transactions. That's a massive year-over-year leap.
At the time of this writing, there are over 10 million accounts on Near. That's up from just under 200,000 at the end of last May, representing user growth of 5,000%. This includes over 450,000 new user accounts on May 4 and nearly 700,000 on May 5, so growth seems to be accelerating further, an encouraging sign at a time when the broader crypto market is in a downturn.
