Investing in cryptocurrencies can be a wild ride, but for those who are willing to take the risk, the rewards can be astronomical. Blockchain networks and the game-changing apps you can build around them can disrupt traditional financial systems. As crypto-based apps and ideas move closer to the global mass market, early investors are facing some exciting money-making opportunities right now.
I'll walk you through two top cryptocurrencies to buy in April 2023: Cardano (ADA 2.59%) and Ethereum (ETH -1.25%). These coins are already well-established winners and currently making moves to keep their winning streaks going. Their potential for growth and innovation is hard to ignore.
Before we go any further, you should know that investing in cryptocurrencies isn't a get-rich-quick scheme. Instead, you should see it as a long-term wealth-building exercise where time, patience, and innovation add up to plenty of money in your pocket. The gadflies that promise you instant cash crops are often relegated to the footnotes of cryptocurrency history very quickly. A lucky few might sell at the top to lock in a suddenly surging crypto price, but most will miss that opportunity and lose a lot of money in the end.
So I can't promise that Cardano or Ethereum will skyrocket next month, this summer, or in 2024. What I can say is that they appear to be setting the stage for potentially gigantic gains in the long run.
So if you're ready to join the crypto revolution and make some patient investments in the future of finance, read on to learn more about Cardano and Ethereum -- and why they look like primo investments right now.
Cardano's EMURGO fund emerges
First, let's talk about Cardano, a sophisticated cryptocurrency that's been making some noise in the market lately. Its current price is $0.38 per token, which is up 57% since the beginning of the year.
Looking ahead, there's a lot going on in the Cardano community. One attention-grabbing event is the upcoming Cardano Summit 2023, a massive conference in Dubai that will draw over 10,000 attendees with a range of speakers from the Cardano team, developers, entrepreneurs, and investors. Thrilling stuff, for sure, and the industry connections made at this meetup may very well result in promising future developments
But in my eyes, that's not even Cardano's main event this month.
Instead, the real game-changer is a new $100 million project development fund being launched by the Cardano Foundation, managed as two separate investing bodies named EMURGO Ventures and EMURGO Africa.
The EMURGO fund will support projects building on Cardano by providing grants, investments, and other forms of support, helping to drive innovation and growth within the Cardano ecosystem. This way, the Foundation supports actual developers taking advantage of Cardano's sophisticated and multi-layered smart contract platform to create consumer-facing decentralized finance tools, online games, and other projects.
That monetary support is a great way to inject serious value into the Cardano ecosystem. Every idea won't be a winner but the successful projects could deliver enormous long-term value to Cardano and its owners. Announced six months ago, the investment vehicles are currently rolling out and starting to make a difference. Several EMURGO-funded projects are already underway, and the potential benefits for the Cardano ecosystem and investors are immense.
Ergo, EMURGO is already making a difference.
In addition to the fund launch, the Cardano team is working on a number of new features and updates, including an advanced scaling system called Hydra and the Plutus smart contracts development platform. Together, these features will make Cardano more scalable, secure, powerful, and efficient. They will also help developers build decentralized applications on Cardano, opening up new opportunities for growth and innovation. With all of these exciting developments going on, Cardano is definitely a cryptocurrency to watch in April 2023.
Ethereum is going to Shanghai soon
I'm sure you're already quite familiar with Ethereum. After all, everybody's talking about this mature, influential, and highly valuable cryptocurrency. They've been doing it for years now. And the token is on a roll this year; at a current price of $1,872 and a total market value of $224 billion, this leading smart-contract token has gained 55% in 2023.
No matter how famous Ethereum may be, you may not be completely up to date with everything that's going in this vibrant ecosystem. Frankly, it's a lot.
The upcoming Ethereum Shanghai Hard Fork, scheduled for April 12 2023, will be a major milestone for Ethereum, as it will put the final touch on Ethereum's transition to proof-of-stake. You know, the game-changing platform update that started with the so-called Merge in 2022. That was an important move, but Ethereum's development continues with more upgrades building on the foundation that the Merge provided.
Shanghai is a significant upgrade to the Ethereum network that will improve its scalability, security, and usability. Account abstraction is an important result of this update, providing better support for smart contract wallets that help users to take custody of their digital assets and keep control of their data. Smart contract wallets are a vital piece of Ethereum's future direction -- and the entire crypto industry. Don't forget that Ethereum has a history of blazing paths for others to follow.
Furthermore, the scaling solution known as rollups will further speed up transaction and reduce fees for end users. The funny-sounding but stone-cold serious proto-danksharding upgrade is the next building block is currently being tested and prepped to go live in the second half of 2023. With this improvement -- itself merely a stepping stone to even more ambitious scaling and sharding solutions in the long run -- transaction costs will be even cheaper, allowing for more widespread adoption of Ethereum.
Currently, rollups are already up to 8 times cheaper than the normal Ethereum transactions, but soon they will be able to make them even cheaper by a factor of 40 to 100 times. That means that in the near future, users could pay less than one-tenth of a cent for an Ethereum transaction. Reducing costs to nearly zero is an effective way to increase mass-market adoption of any new technology, and Etherum in moving quickly in that direction.
As you can see, there are some potentially game-changing updates bubbling just under the surface of the Ethereum network. The Shanghai fork probably won't send token prices to the moon right away, but it does pave the way toward a brighter, bolder, and more valuable future for Ethereum owners.
Don't miss out on these winners
In conclusion, Cardano and Ethereum are two cryptocurrencies that offer exciting potential for growth with some seriously innovative developments on the near-term horizon. Both are making significant strides in development and commercialization, backed by strong communities. With upcoming events and major upgrades on the horizon, you should consider picking up some Cardano and Ethereum tokens this month as long-term investments in the future of finance.
