What happened
After what has been an incredible few weeks of near-incessant selling pressure, the crypto market appears to be recovering nicely today. That said, outside of rather small gains for most megacap tokens, there are a few smaller cryptocurrencies that are making big waves today.
As of 11 a.m. ET, Litecoin (LTC 0.01%), Chainlink (LINK +3.23%) and Aptos (APT 1.63%) are among the biggest beneficiaries of a bullish wave of sentiment hitting this sector. These tokens surged 13.2%, 10%, and 7.7%, respectively, over the past 24 hours. Aside from broadly bullish macro sentiment building across most risk assets (stocks are also up today), these tokens have their own unique catalysts that investors are watching closely.
Chainlink has seen its active address numbers surge to a one-year high, despite the ongoing contagion-related concerns from the fallout of now-defunct crypto-exchange FTX. Litecoin has also continued to work its way up the market-cap rankings list, surging on this tweet: The "Litecoin Network just processed its 135,000,000th transaction. Over 11 Years of continuous immutable, uncensorable, flawless uptime."
Aptos appears to be benefiting from the network's Layer-1 status as a Solana alternative, given how exposed Solana has become to FTX. This is a result of its ties to FTX via Project Serum, an integral piece of the Solana ecosystem.
So what
Sometimes, a good old-fashioned washout can really define which projects carry value and which are exposed to the types of systemic risks investors want to avoid. The idea that we're in a stock-picker's market (or a crypto-picker's market, for that matter) is one that appears to be truer than ever. It's becoming clearer by the day that there may be more embedded risks in the crypto sector than many thought just a year ago.
Last year, buying any crypto appeared to be a solid strategy. This entire asset class surged, along with speculative momentum that was driven by cheap money and ultra-aggressive risk-on sentiment from investors. Now that fear has completely overtaken any sort of greedy sentiment in the market, investors are becoming more careful about how they position their portfolios.
Now what
The extent to which crypto investors can view the FTX debacle as a positive development may be limited to a few projects that have shown strength in this period of madness. Litecoin, Chainlink, and Aptos are three unique projects with their own set of individual catalysts that investors appear to be honing in on.
In this market, investors looking for digital assets to buy have to put in the work to identify projects with true growth upside over the long term. Right now, it appears these three cryptos are generating more buzz than usual, making these tokens worth watching in the weeks to come.
