4 min read

What are the top 10 Cryptocurrencies to invest in 2021?

Here's how much money you'd have if you put $1,000 into four of the year's most popular cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin

Price on Jan. 1: $29,290
Price on Dec. 28: $47,795.40

At the beginning of the year, a $1,000 investment in bitcoin at a price of $29,290 would have bought you 0.034 tokens, which would be worth about $1,632 at the current price of $49,150 per coin on Tuesday afternoon.

The world's largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization had a strong year in 2021, with a 65 percent increase in value between January 1 and late December. It reached a market capitalization of $1 trillion for the first time in February, but has since dropped to around $900 billion.

Ether

INA FASSBENDER | AFP | Getty Images

Price on Jan. 1: $730.30
Price on Dec. 28: $3,816.67

Over the last year, the value of a single ether, the Ethereum blockchain's token, has increased by over 400%. A $1,000 ether purchase on Jan. 1 for $730.30 would now be worth about $5,226.16 at the price of $3,816.67 on Tuesday afternoon.

Ethereum supporters claim the blockchain will become more scalable, secure, and long-lasting after the Eth2 upgrade in 2022, when the network will switch to a proof-of-stake (PoS) model. Ethereum currently uses a proof-of-work model, in which miners compete to solve complex puzzles in order to validate transactions. Because it causes a large amount of computer power, this model is frequently chastised for its environmental impact.

The shift to PoS will allow users to validate transactions according to how many coins they hold, rather than the energy-intensive mining rigs used now.

Solana

Price on Jan. 1: $1.53
Price on Dec. 28: $181.18

At Tuesday's price of $181.18, a $1,000 investment in the Solana blockchain's native cryptocurrency SOL at the beginning of 2021, when one coin cost $1.53, would have grown to about $118,418.

Solana, which only launched in 2020, has grown by over 13,800 percent in the last year and now has a market cap of over $57 billion, making it the fifth largest cryptocurrency. Solana is viewed as a rival to Ethereum's blockchain. Solana was created by its founder, Anatoly Yakovenko, to support the creation of decentralized applications, or dapps, and smart contracts, which are collections of code that carry out a set of instructions on the blockchain.

Dogecoin

Yuriko Nakao | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Price on Jan. 1: $0.0056
Price on Dec. 28: $0.18

If you invested $1,000 in Dogecoin at $0.0056 per coin at the start of the year, it would now be worth $32,142 at the current price of 18 cents. Not bad for a digital token that began as a joke inspired by a meme.

In the first half of 2021, the cryptocurrency, Elon Musk, fueled by whose popularity in part, grew by as much as 12,000 percent. The value of Dogecoin dropped in the second half of the year.

Did you find my article to be interesting? Please give me a 5-star rating and a Google review to show your support and to assist me in growing my community and sharing my ideas.