While stocks have flirted with bear market territory of late in a turbulent 2022, there's no question that cryptocurrencies have already beaten them there, with the top two cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin and Ethereum, down nearly 40% and 50% year to date, respectively, as of this writing.
Many so-called altcoins have fared even worse. Pundits are talking about a "crypto winter" like that of 2018. But this time around feels different. Back then, many projects were little more than a white paper and some hopes and dreams with little substance to back them up, whereas now cryptocurrency is a much bigger part of the overall global market and more widely adopted. Many of these projects are continuing to grow their user bases, develop more applications, and gain more use cases. If winter is here, I'm throwing on my heaviest coat and grabbing these three high-quality cryptocurrencies, all down 70% or more year to date, for the long haul.
Image source: Getty Images.
StepN and NFTs burnish the Solana ecosystem
Like the vast majority of major cryptocurrencies, Solana (SOL 2.09%) has had a difficult start to 2022, with a 77% loss so far, with over 50% of that loss coming in just the past 30 days. Solana has dealt with the same problems as other cryptocurrencies as well as a large hack of the Wormhole communication bridge that links Solana and Ethereum and a series of denial-of-service attacks that slowed the network and knocked it offline several times.
But there are some encouraging signs. StepN, a "move to earn" app, has become one of the most discussed projects in crypto, and it is built on the Solana blockchain. To participate, users must buy a non-fungible token (NFT) of a pair of sneakers -- with a minimum price of around 12 SOL -- and can then earn rewards for walking, running, and exercising (in real life). With 2 million to 3 million monthly active users using the app so far, StepN has likely brought a whole new cohort of users into the Solana ecosystem.
It is likely that some of these users had not previously interacted with Solana or any other blockchain before. The app has only been around for five months, so this is an encouraging sign for both Solana and StepN. StepN's native GMT token has quickly accrued an $860 million market cap of its own, larger than that of many other cryptocurrencies.
Beyond StepN, Solana has established itself as the second-largest blockchain for NFTs (trailing only Ethereum), and it passed the $1 billion mark in total NFT sales in January. OpenSea, the world's largest NFT marketplace, began listing Solana NFTs in April, whereas it was previously the exclusive purview of Ethereum and Polygon NFTs. Furthermore, according to data from NFT tracker CryptoSlam, Solana recently surpassed Ethereum for daily total NFT sales for the first time, so Solana is establishing itself as a viable competitor to Ethereum in the NFT space.
CRYPTO: SOL
Key Data Points
A star apparently returns to Fantom
After a phenomenal end to 2021 and start to 2022, Fantom (FTM +0.96%) is down an ugly 86% year to date. In addition to the broader market conditions that have sent all major cryptos into a tailspin, Fantom was dealt an additional blow when a high-profile developer, whom many investors followed into the project, suddenly left Fantom in March. But Fantom is beginning to show signs of life, snapping out of its downtrend and gaining over 50% from its cycle low that it hit in May.
The uptick comes in the wake of Fantom launching its fUSD stablecoin. This will be an over-collateralized stablecoin, backed by assets such as Fantom and USD Coin, that will pay holders an 11% yield. This launch should bring additional users into the Fantom ecosystem, and in the wake of the TerraUSD collapse, it could appeal to investors looking for a new place to earn yield. In addition to the stablecoin catalyst, it appears that the aforementioned developer who left Fantom, Andre Cronje, may be back in the fold. GitHub shows that he recently worked on improving upon fUSD and rumors of FTM being added to a crypto wallet believed to be his have been circulating.
Fantom crossed the 3 million mark for unique addresses for the first time in May. For perspective, last May, Fantom had under 100,000 unique addresses, so the network's user base has increased 30-fold over the past year.
CRYPTO: FTM
Key Data Points
Algorand is hitting the right notes
Algorand (ALGO 0.75%) is down 78% year to date, but the project continues to grow and develop at impressive speed. The Algorand Foundation recently acquired both Napster and Limewire, two of the peer-to-peer file-sharing services that disrupted the music industry in the early 2000s. While the details of how Napster will be revitalized are sparse at this time, Universal Music Group, the record label that some of the biggest artists in the world call home, will partner with Limewire to launch NFTs from its artists on the platform.
CRYPTO: ALGO
Key Data Points
Meanwhile, the number of accounts holding at least 1000 ALGO tokens has more than doubled, from 33,806 a year ago to over 80,000 today. Algorand is growing in terms of holders and continues to appeal to users with low fees of less than 0.001 ALGO and transactions that settle in just 5 seconds .
While the overall crypto market has been down, projects like Algorand, Solana and Fantom continue to build toward an exciting future and I'm ready to buy.
