Bitcoin (BTC) is the first cryptocurrency blockchain that was ever launched.
Since its launch in 2009, some 4,000 other crypto platforms have come into existence as of early 2021 according to reports by Statista and Investopedia.
Yet, BTC has remained the well-off most popular crypto option accounting for 46.9% of the market with its total capitalization volume of 652.15 billion USD as of early July 2021.
However, Bitcoin is widely thought to have reached – or about to reach – its saturation point. In fact, out of the supply limit of 21 million BTC, Blockchain’s live graph shows that 18.745 million BTC are already mined and in circulation as of late June 2021.
This and other reasons may make it necessary for you to seek other cryptocurrencies that have brighter futures in your investment prospecting.
The trillion-dollar question now is, “what are the best alternatives to Bitcoin in the market right now?” Here are the best options I could find and why I think they are the best:
Also Read: Coin Vs Token – What’s the Difference?
Best Bitcoin Alternatives
1. Ether (ETH)
Ether (the cryptocurrency of the Ethereum blockchain) is one of the best alternatives to Bitcoin as we talk. First off, Ethereum is the most popular cryptocurrency blockchain after Bitcoin – judging by their respective market capitalizations.
For example, as I write this on the first day of July 2021, Bitcoin’s market capitalization stands at 652.15 billion while that of Ethereum is 250.47 billion according to the crypto authority CoinMarketCap.
You might think that the Ether figure is a far cry from the Bitcoin figure, but it also has the unique advantage of making the ether realm less saturated as we’re going to see.
Popularity matters because the crowd is hardly wrong as they say. But, as an investor, what should certainly matter to you more than market capitalization is the current price trend. In this sense, Ethereum is performing far ahead of BTC as I write this.
In the last 7 days, Ethereum has gained 7.40% to be priced at 2,133.57 USD while BTC has gained only 1.96% to be priced at 34,758.14 USD.
This is in addition to ether’s year-on-year price appreciation which surged from just $11 to $2,500 (a whopping 22,000%) in the last half a decade. So, the investment prospects look much better with Ether than with BTC.
When it comes to the long-term future of both cryptocurrencies, you have many reasons to consider Ether as a highly qualified alternative to Bitcoin.
First, Ether was founded six years after Bitcoin. So, ordinarily, you won’t expect Ether to be nearing its saturation point half as much as Bitcoin.
In addition to that, while Bitcoin has a supply limit of 21 million BTC (with about 19 million of that having been mined and circulated as earlier mentioned), Ether has no absolute supply limit. Ether has an annual supply limit of 18 million ETH though.
Other reasons why I think that Ether is one of the best alternatives to Bitcoin are:
- Recent authoritative reports (such as this Bloomberg article) show that Ethereum is generating the highest amount of activities in the crypto market right now. Coupled with its popularity that’s almost at par with Bitcoin’s, this further indicates that Ether’s future remains one of the brightest in the market.
- If you asked me to tell you one of the top reasons why Ether is generating so much more activity than BTC, I’d say “security”. Apart from the security afforded by sheer tech in both blockchain platforms, Ether also offers a layer of legal protection through its smart contract functionality, unlike Bitcoin.
- Ethereum’s founders are also known persons who can be held legally responsible, unlike Bitcoin’s shady founder Satoshi Nakamoto.
- Ethereum is working to reduce its blockchain’s energy consumption by 95.5% through the implementation of the proof of stake (PoS) protocol in the Ethereum 2.0 expected to be released soon. This will put to rest yet another criticism often leveled against crypto: its standard proof of work (PoW) consensus protocol is known to consume excessive amounts of energy via mining.
Check Out: Best Coinbase Alternatives
2. ADA
ADA is the cryptocurrency on the Cardano blockchain platform. Founded in 2015, ADA has spent barely half a decade in the market. But the cryptocurrency is already one of the most influential around.
Here are the specific reasons why ADA’s popularity is skyrocketing – and why I think it is one of the best alternatives to Bitcoin right now:
- Its consensus protocol is already ahead of most of the market. Most of the more popular cryptocurrencies (including Bitcoin and Ethereum) are still guided by the extremely energy-intensive proof of work (PoW) consensus protocol. ADA has already adopted Proof of Stake (PoS). So, many prospectors are seeing ADA as a top next-gen cryptocurrency. This is in addition to the fact that it is actually saving a lot of transaction time and energy through its futuristic algorithm.
- Accordingly, ADA’s recent price gain is one of the most encouraging in the market. CoinMarketCap’s live stats show that the ADA token has gained 8.55% in the last 7 days to be priced at $1.34 as I write this.
- ADA has thrown up one of the best performances in the market in the few years it has been around. For instance, it rose to its current dollar value from $0.02 in 2017 — a whopping 7,400 percent appreciation in four years. It also rose in market capitalization from 9.8 billion USD in January 2021 to $42.50 billion in June 2021.
- The ADA platform still has a huge opportunity for growth. With the dollar value of the ADA token still relatively on the floor, the chances of it appreciating is far higher than the chances of depreciation. So, the investment prospect is much brighter than Bitcoin’s.
- Another reason I trust ADA as one of the best alternatives to Bitcoin is that it is backed by arguably the most solid experience in the crypto market today. It is a product of sustained peer-reviewed interdisciplinary research. Also, the initiator of the ADA project Charles Hoskinson is one of the founders of the Ethereum platform. So, ADA takes after and improves on Ethereum in many ways. It’s such that it has been nicknamed “the Ethereum killer”.
- Therefore, similar to Ethereum, ADA has known founders who can be held legally responsible.
- Similar to Ethereum too, ADA provides an added layer of legal protection by implementing the smart contract functionality.
- ADA is also working on implementing a more legally binding contract structure than the smart contract functionality it shares with Ethereum.
Check Out: Best Kraken Alternatives
3. UNI
One of the best alternatives to Bitcoin presently, UNI is the cryptocurrency token on the Uniswap protocol. Its transactions take place on the Ethereum blockchain and its prospects are equally promising.
My major reason for considering UNI as one of the best alternatives to Bitcoin is its recent price history. For example, after it was launched in November 2018, UNI’s price was reported to have doubled in just two days of trading.
After that, the price remained stable with instances of leaping increases well into 2020 before a steep decline later in the year. However, since early 2021, it has been good news almost all the way for UNI.
From being priced at under $2 in the first few days of January, the token rose as high as $19 in value by the end of the month. The price upswing continued in February adding up to $10 by the end of the month. By April, it sold for over $43.
Compared with Bitcoin, UNI is performing much better right now. Although Bitcoin also threw up one of its best performances this year since it came into existence, it’s at a terrible low at the time of writing this in early July 2021.
To be fair, UNI’s price also dropped more than halfway through. But its current performance is way better than Bitcoin’s.
After rising as high as $58,000 in March 2021, BTC dropped as low as $31,000 in late June 2021. Although Bitcoin has seen slight appreciation over the last seven days at 4.12% in the last few minutes, it’s nothing to compare with UNI’s 12.24%.
This is in addition to the fact that, in the last 24 hours, Bitcoin depreciated 1.46% while UNI appreciated a whopping 4.33% at the same time and duration.
Other reasons why I consider Uni as one of the best alternatives to Bitcoin right now are:
- Expert predictions favor UNI. To start with, UNI now sells at $18.82. But, crypto authorities such as Coinpedia predict that it will get as high as $85 by the end of the year.
- There is a special collaboration going on currently to enhance the prospects of this crypto token. In fact, that’s what Coinpedia holds responsible for its overarching optimistic outlook on UNI.
- UNI has no supply limit like Bitcoin. So, its value does not halve. But it also means that it can be prone to the inflation of the US Dollar. For me, this even makes UNI a better Bitcoin alternative because, after all, it mirrors the real-world economy better.
Check Out: Best Binance Alternatives
4. SOL – The Most Scalable Bitcoin Alternative
The cryptocurrency on the web-scale blockchain platform Solana, SOL is another crypto option I recommend as an alternative to aging Bitcoin. Here are my reasons for the recommendation.
- The price figures for SOL are positive. As I watched the live chats recently, SOL caught my attention with a 10.31% appreciation in price in the last week as well as 0.02% in the last 24 hours.
The day price difference however sometimes fluctuates down to as low as 1.29%. But the graphs generally show an overall price appreciation for SOL in the last few months.
- I think SOL’s market cap figures are not bad too. The platform was founded only in 2017 by a former Qualcomm and Dropbox software engineer. But as of early July 2021, its market cap stands at $9.11 billion.
Compared with Bitcoin’s market cap of $652.15 billion, I think this is quite impressive. Why? While Bitcoin was about as old as SOL is today in April 2013, its market cap was way lower at $1.54 billion.
If you add the fact that cryptocurrency awareness is far more at SOL’s advantage today than it was at BTC’s advantage in 2013, you can agree with me that SOL has a very bright market cap future ahead of it – far more than Bitcoin.
- Also, consider the fact that SOL has no supply limits like Bitcoin.
- SOL’s recent trade volume is yet another reason for considering it as a good alternative to Bitcoin. I checked SOL’s trade volume in the last 24 hours and it was $516.32 billion. So, if you’re considering replacing BTC with SOL, you can rest assured that it’s fairly sustainable based on the amount of activity it is currently generating.
- Then, the Solana system is reputed to be able to perform 50,000 transactions every second. This makes it the most scalable Bitcoin alternative out there.
5. LEND – The Best Bitcoin Alternative Among The DeFi Projects
LEND is the native cryptocurrency on the Aave protocol. I recommend LEND as one of the best alternatives to BTC mainly based on its leading position as a decentralized finance (DeFi) project.
As the trend in the industry moves ever closer to letting crypto holders have more control over their assets, DeFi is now one of the front-burner topics in the crypto world. It is an enhancement in blockchain technology that expands the cryptocurrency use cases to more than just value exchange.
For example, DeFi makes it possible for crypto holders to lend out their assets directly to other users. Then, with the Ethereum blockchain being the go-to platform for DeFi, the Aave ecosystem leads in the DeFi stake on the Ethereum platform.
For instance, Coindesk reports that out of the $8.64 billion total value locked (TVL) in DeFi, Aave holds 19% amounting to $1.6 billion.
There are other reasons why I think that LEND is one of the best alternatives to Bitcoin right now:
- It’s doing well in terms of market capitalization. According to a recent report by Coinrivet for example, Aave ranks as the 29th cryptocurrency in terms of market capitalization which stands at $3.10 billion.
- LEND is currently generating a fairly healthy amount of activity in the market. A while ago when I checked, the charts showed that LEND’s trading volume stood at $363.72 million. Coinrivet reports a day trading volume appreciation of 0.85% for this cryptocurrency.
- LEND’s prices both in the last seven days and the last 24 hours are also on the positive side. The crypto-token saw an increase of 17.54% in the last seven days and 5.14% in the last 24 hours based on CoinMarketCap’s live reports.
Coinrivet reports that LEND’s price has been mostly bullish in the last 48 hours hovering around its critical resistance at $250. It was $240 when I checked sometime today. By contrast, at the same time, BTC is well below its crucial support price of $35,000. It was $33,627.43 about an hour ago when I checked.
6. MKR
This is the native cryptocurrency on the Maker crypto platform. It is yet another well-performing DeFi project on the Ethereum blockchain.
My main reason for including MKR as one of the best alternatives to Bitcoin is its recent positive price performance. Currently priced at $2,616.97, MKR saw an appreciation of 17.35% in the last 24 hours and 12.58% in the last seven days.
Other positive facts and figures of MKR that merited its place of pride on this list are:
- Its market capitalization figures are one of the best in the market currently. At a market cap of $2.7 billion, it ranks 31st on the charts.
- Although the bare figures are nothing to compare with those of Bitcoin in these respects, with its recent steep price increases, its market capitalization volume looks good enough to sustain its health throughout the near future.
- The recent activities generated by MKR are another reason why I think it can be a great choice other than Bitcoin. For instance, in the last 24 hours, as much as $216.36 million worth of MKR has been traded. This is in addition to the crypto token’s current circulating supply of 991,340 MKR.
7. Dogecoin
Investing.com’s live pricing history chart shows that Dogecoin has experienced one of the most outstanding instances of volatility in the market recently.
This has seen its prices fluctuating between figures as high as $0.27 and as low as $0.18 in a few days.
Despite this, I still think that this crypto option is one of the best alternatives to Bitcoin for the following reasons:
- The price swings mostly hover around $0.25. For me, this provides a great opportunity for smart short-term investors to make brisk businesses by watching the median.
- Dogecoin’s market capitalization figure is one of the best in the market right now. At $31.4 billion, it ranks sixth on the chart.
- It has seen an overall price appreciation of 5.98 percent in the last seven days. Indeed, this is one of my main reasons for considering it a good alternative to Bitcoin.
- It has a healthy number of coin units in supply: 130,251,141,098 DOGE.
- It is also generating a healthy amount of current activities in the market. The last 24 hours saw the crypto token trading as much as $1.77 billion.
8. XRP
XRP’s recent performance has not been very impressive. Yet I think it is one of the best alternatives to Bitcoin right now for the following reasons.
- With a market capitalization of $30.62 billion, XRP ranks seventh on the chart.
- Although its price appreciation in the last one week has not been good (about 1%), its appreciation is the same compared with most top cryptocurrencies that are struggling in the dungeons of depreciation these days.
- XRP still traded as much as $2.86 billion in the last 24 hours.
9. Ethereum Classic
With its price dipping as low as 5% in the last 24 hours, I wouldn’t have thought of Ethereum Classic as a good alternative to Bitcoin. However, here are my reasons for including it in the list:
- Ethereum Classic’s recent price appreciation has been exceptionally good. It rose by about 28% in the last seven days.
- Its ranking on the market capitalization chart is healthy enough. It ranks 19th with a volume of $63.36 billion.
10. ICP
Internet Computer coin (ICP) is yet another cryptocurrency option that I consider a good alternative to Bitcoin. Here are my reasons.
- It has experienced an overall price appreciation of 3.63% in the last 24 hours – a margin of $1.70.
- The amount of current activities being generated by ICP is well above average. For example, it has traded a total value of $519,962,264.58 in the last 24 hours.
- At the 21st position and a value of over $6 billion, ICP ranks well on the market cap chart.
- At 19.35%, ICP has seen a significant price increase in the last seven days.
Conclusion
Out of over 4,000 crypto tokens in the market currently, these 10 have made it to the top! They have all been selected based on what current authoritative stats are saying.
As a result of using unbiased live reports, there are many crypto options I expected to make the list but couldn’t. While I’m honestly a bit disappointed at what I got at last (like you probably), I must say quite honestly that many of the items that made the list are pure discoveries to me. It shows that many new entrants in the market are giving the oldies a run for their money.
For instance, I hoped that Ethereum would be my best overall pick. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), I am giving that honor to ADA. My reason is based on the future being offered in the crypto option – rather than the raw figures at the present.
Since ADA was established specifically to compete with Ethereum, it is everything Ethereum is and more.
With its PoS consensus protocol, for example, it is already solving a significant problem about resource economy – which Ethereum and many other established options are still only hoping to do in the future.
ADA’s eminently research-based approach also makes it one of the most important alternatives to Bitcoin that you can find.
Why? It’s most likely going to make ADA a top choice for some of the most serious investors across the world. So, its prospects for sustainability are way ahead of most of the market.
Again, with ADA considering a more legally binding contract structure than just the currently standard smart contract structure, I see most top investors going the way of ADA.
