7 Promising New Cryptocurrencies in 2022
While the cryptocurrency market has experienced particularly strong expansion since the fall of 2020, the market now seems to be reorienting itself. Market-leading virtual currencies are evolving. In particular, we are witnessing the growth of an offer of crypto currencies oriented around decentralized finance and the metaverse. In parallel with the outperformance of certain sectors, the crypto market has been exposed for several months to corrective risks, mainly for monetary reasons.
Discover in this article 7 new promising cryptocurrencies in 2022 with great potential to follow after the strong bullish and corrective movements of the last few months.
Solana (SOL): a cryptocurrency that is revolutionizing the blockchain
World position (February 2022): 8th
Capitalization: $30 billion
Annual performance: +945%
Solana experienced a particularly strong enthusiasm in the spring of 2021 among cryptocurrency investors. In March 2020, the Solana Foundation, based in Geneva, launched a resounding project to build a more efficient Blockchain system. The Solana blockchain is based on a Proof of Stake (PoS) Blockchain, but also on a totally innovative Proof of History (PoH) system, literally "Proof of History" to identify past transactions. The success of Solana in 2021 is explained above all by its speed and its low transaction cost, which defy all competition or almost.
In September 2021, the Solana blockchain system is capable of processing nearly 2,000 transactions per second, far from the 3 transactions per second of Bitcoin or the 15 transactions per second of Ethereum. The average transaction cost is $0.00025, compared to currently more than $3 for Bitcoin and $15 for Ethereum. The performance of Solana thus makes it possible to process large quantities of operations quickly and at a particularly low cost. Thus, in November 2021, Solana recorded nearly 1.5 billion transactions, far ahead of Binance (400 million transactions), Polygon (116 million) or even Ethereum (39 million). It therefore still appears to be one of the most active cryptocurrencies on the network.
Solana thus allows many decentralized finance applications to develop their project and benefit from an attraction effect due to better productivity. Nevertheless, Solana's competitors are numerous and the trend concerns the sector as a whole. In recent months, the price of the Solana cryptocurrency has followed the overall evolution of the cryptocurrency market. Although the price of Solana has increased nearly 10x in 2021, there is a slowdown in bullish performance as the cryptocurrency continues its circulation growth favorably.
USD Coin (USDC): a star of stablecoins
World position (February 2022): 5th
Capitalization: $52 billion
Annual performance: -0.01%
The USD Coin belongs to the cryptocurrencies of the category of stablecoins. That is to say that its value remains relatively stable compared to other crypto currencies because it is indexed to a given underlying, most often a traditional asset, in this case the dollar. In other words, 1 USDC = $1. Launched in September 2018 and led by Circle, the USD Coin (USDC) is 100% pegged to the dollar. USDC is further based on the Blockchain Ethereum, and is transparent about its collateral reserves, quantities in circulation, etc.
Stablecoins are particularly useful during periods of correction in the virtual currency market, in order to limit the risk of loss during corrective periods. Between January and September 2021, the dollar rose by +3.5% against the euro. Investing in the USD Coin after periods of crisis, generally periods of dollar strengthening, allows you to reduce the risks when the cryptocurrency market corrects as a whole.
This is how the USDC ranks 5th among the largest cryptocurrencies in the world, with a capitalization up 20 billion dollars over the last 6 months. This shows increased investor interest in stablecoins in periods of market contraction, of which the UDC is a leader along with USDT. Unlike almost all other virtual currencies which began a correction in early 2022, the capitalization of stablecoins continues to grow.
Polygon (MATIC): a virtual currency with dazzling success
World position (February 2022): 16th
Capitalization: $12.6 billion
Annual performance: +1,590%
Polygon is among the virtual currencies that have outperformed in recent months, increasing by more than 6,000% between mid-2020 and mid-2021, then by almost 1,600% for the whole of 2021. Polygon is a competitor from Solana and offers similar solutions. The Polygon (MATIC) cryptocurrency thus corresponds to an underlying Blockchain responding to the problems of Blockchains such as that of Ethereum. Like Solana, Polygon is indeed based on a Blockchain PoS.
The number of active addresses on the Polygon Blockchain has increased from 10,000 in April 2021 to nearly 180,000 in September 2021, 6 months later, and up to nearly 220,000 at the start of 2022. All statistics in time real Polygon Blockchain are available here. The number of transactions carried out per second is almost 37, which is still higher than the main virtual currencies. In addition, Polygon, which is issued in a limited quantity (10 billion MATIC Coins), is tradable on most major cryptocurrency exchanges such as Coinbase, Binance, Kraken or Bitpanda. At the price level of the asset, MATIC maintains its outperformance and rises in the rankings in recent months, but its bullish performance also tends to decrease.
FTX Token: a token linked to a booming exchange platform
World position (February 2022): 27th
Capitalization: $6.2 billion
Annual performance: +113%
FTX Token is the underlying cryptocurrency of the FTX exchange, launched in May 2019. FTX is the world's third largest virtual currency exchange, after Binance and Crypto.com. The FTX platform enjoys high visibility and the number of weekly visits is much higher than that of Coinbase.
The FTX token is issued in a limited quantity of 352 million tokens. The latter is also used to ensure the proper functioning of the platform's financial services. FTX notably offers financial products of the Option and Future type. The success of FTX Token (FTT) in 2021 is largely due to the huge rise in active crypto users. Nevertheless, the crypto also suffers a drop in this performance with the market correction, and the rise in price is still comparatively lower than other cryptocurrencies.
Quant (QNT): a virtual currency that connects Blockchain systems
World position (February 2022): 65th
Capitalization: $1.5 billion
Annual performance: +200%
Quant is a particular cryptocurrency that stands out from most other projects. Quant was launched in 2018 with the aim of developing a project to connect several types of Blockchain systems. When it was introduced, Quant had raked in nearly $11 million. The company is attracting more interest in recent months, as many next-gen blockchains compete.
Quant (QNT) is based on its Overledger platform, intended mainly for decentralized applications, connecting several transaction systems with each other. Quant has already connected public Blockchains such as Ethereum, Ripple or Stellar, which makes it possible to create, technically speaking, interoperability between systems (crossing system transactions, etc.). Nevertheless, over part of the year 2021, the virtual currency suffered a strong loss of capitalization and the bullish performance is slowing down sharply while QNT has been excluded from the top 50 global cryptocurrencies.
Fantom (FTM): a cryptocurrency specializing in the development of decentralized finance systems
Position mondiale (février 2022) : 32ème
Capitalisation : 5Mds$
Performance annuelle : +1 030 %
Nous pouvons également évoquer le cas de Fantom. Sa forte performance en 2021 était déjà à rebours de la stagnation globale du marché. Là encore, Fantom est spécialisée dans le développement de systèmes de finance décentralisée. Fantom cherche ainsi à fournir une blockchain plus efficiente à travers son algorithme Lachesis. Ce dernier se base sur un système blockchain PoS. De plus, Fantom s’est jusqu’ici développé à l’aide d’un système d’un genre nouveau, nommé DAG (acyclic directed graph). En clair, le système DAG, contrairement à la Blockchain, ne contient pas de blocks : chaque transaction est validée à partir du référencement des transactions précédentes. C’est un système vertical : chaque transaction fait suite à la précédente.
Ce système offre l’avantage d’une plus grande rapidité et de faibles coûts de traitement. Néanmoins, ce n’est pas un système entièrement décentralisé. Pour finir, Fantom a en outre levé près de 40 millions de dollars en 2018 pour mettre en œuvre ses projets. La surperformance à l’été 2021 s’inscrit dans le cadre du boom du secteur de la finance décentralisée.
The Sandbox (SAND): a Metaverse cryptocurrency
World position (February 2022): 35th
Capitalization: $4.2 billion
Annual performance: +1,470%
The Sandbox is one of the crypto currencies linked to the Metaverse, and which sees its position in the ranking of virtual currencies boosted by the enthusiasm for this technology also supported by giants like Meta. Sandbox was launched a long time ago, in 2011, by French people (Sébastien Borget and Arthur Madrid, graduates of Paris Dauphine in 2000). Sandbox is actually a video game that is said to have over half a million users. Sandbox has revolutionized the way of looking at video games, mainly by introducing Blockchain technology and NFTs.
While many companies are embarking on this race for the Metaverse, Sandbox benefits from its strategic position in decentralized finance with its SAND token. The token is thus used by players to create content on the platform themselves, buy or sell digital objects (such as buying virtual land, etc.). Many famous brands have already shown their interest in the platform, such as Adidas, Ubisoft and even Carrefour, while many video game competitors such as Fornite seem to be taking the same development strategies. To date, only 35% of SAND's limited 3,000,000 quantity has been created. Although the price of the token is linked to the crypto market, the merger with the imposing video game market raises high hopes.