Top 10 Cryptos to Buy on Coinbase for February 2023
It’s okay to love again
After a rough 2022 stumbled to a sad end, many beginning crypto investors might have wanted their auld acquaintance to be forgot.
But instead, the total crypto market cap jumped by nearly one-third in January, the best month the asset class has had since October 2021, rewarding those who stuck around.
In fact, in 2021 there were three calendar months where the total crypto market cap surged 33% or more, along with a 29% and a 28%. For the year, the asset class rocketed 188%.
But 2022 posted a dismal -65.5%, erasing all of those gains and a little extra.
So what kind of year will 2023 be? If I knew that, I’d be buying SBF’s old pad in the Bahamas (and probably burning it down and starting over).
And nobody else knows about 2023, either. If you follow Crypto Twitter, il Capo has not taken his call for Bitcoin to land at $12,000 off the table. But PlanB is back on his hobbyhorse as well, calling for BTC to be somewhere between $100K and $1 million by 2025.
To make this even more fun, they could actually both be wrong.
The most pressing concern continues to be the macroeconomic environment, especially in the United States. On February 1, Federal Reserve chair James Powell emerged and s̶a̶w̶ h̶i̶s̶ o̶w̶n̶ s̶h̶a̶d̶o̶w̶ raised interest rates by 25 basis points. By doing what basically everybody expected, Powell triggered even more bullish action in crypto.
But the question remains: did the Fed pull off their “soft landing”?
(breath)
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooo₀₀₀₀₀₀₀₀₀₀₀₀₀₀₀₀₀₀₀₀₀₀………
Maybe.
Friday’s job numbers were good, until you remember that the Fed is still trying to cool down the economy, so the good numbers were actually . . . bad? Is that how this works?
Whatever. I’m not convinced that the same people who told us inflation is transitory have moved fast enough to outflank it. The last time inflation was this high, in the early ’80s, then-Fed chair Paul Volcker jumped on it with both feet by jerking interest rates all the way up to 20%. That caused a hard landing, but inflation fell back to under 3% in three years.
“But it’s not as bad now as it was then!” you might say, to which I spin my head around and utter the 1s and 0s necessary to form this graphic:
Here’s my two sats: The bear is not dead. He is only hibernating.
And if I’m wrong? Well, cool: enjoy going vertical on these crypto tokens available on Coinbase. (And maybe buy more eggs, too.)
As always: next to each coin is how much I’d allocate out of a $100 position. However, I Am Not A Financial Advisor™, and I don’t know your specific investment needs. Assume that I have owned all of these coins at some point, own most of them now, and will likely own several of them whenever you’re reading this. Not enough to matter. #DYOR
🐻❄️🐻❄️🐻❄️🐻❄️🐻❄️
1. Bitcoin (BTC) — $50
January: ⬆️️ 39.9%
Whether or not the bottom is actually in, some major money is investing like it is:
According to the chief strategist of the entity I’ve never heard of before reading this article, since over the last few weeks, most bitcoin has been bought during U.S. business hours, that indicates a majority is being purchased by American institutional investors.
Which makes sense, but a lot of things have made sense in this market and then wet the bed.
Since crypto investments tend to roll from Bitcoin to altcoins, Mr. Chief Strategist suggests front-running a possible move to alts:
If history is any guide, then we should see the outperformance of layer 1 and altcoins relative to Bitcoin.
Aside from the fact that this starts with the second-most money-losing phrase in investing (only “if present trends continue” has been more deadly), there’s just one problem:
Alts are already up a ton (as you’ll soon see). The backside of the roll from Bitcoin to alts is that profits from are generally harvested and reinvested in BTC. And if the bear strikes any harder, risk-on assets will get rekt. That’s bad for Bitcoin, but worse for alts.
I’m a bear until the Fed and/or Arthur Hayes tells me different. Long-term, I think il Capo and PlanB might both be right.
I am literally begging for this scenario.
2. Ethereum (ETH) — $14
January: ⬆️ 32.6%
The world’s number-two crypto has, for the foreseeable future, dodged the existential “is it a security” question from U.S. regulators. And with America’s legislative house divided, gridlock probably means no further action until after the 2024 clown-show presidential election is decided, which will likely be sometime in 2026. (#WeASS).
So the original timeline is back on track, including Ethereum’s Shanghai hard fork, set for March. This fork will formally conclude Ethereum’s merge to proof-of-stake and, it’s hoped, allow anyone who’s locked ETH up for staking in what used to be called “Eth2” to finally recover their tokens.
I know what I just said about that chief strategist, and this is even worse, but at least I’m going to disclaim it a little: if recent history is any guide . . .
. . . ETH tends to do very well both before and after its forks:
The hype train will have already left the station by this time next month.
Choo-choo.
3. Avalanche (AVAX) — $8
January: ⬆️ 81.8%
This is an easy one. Ava Labs and AWS have formed a partnership so that e-commerce, institutions and even governments can use Avalanche’s blockchain on Amazon’s web2-dominant infrastructure, and that’s the biggest win anyone has had in the space in months.
That news, naturally, trampolined AVAX’s token price, stemming the tide of what had otherwise been, well, an avalanche:
AVAX caught more than a double over about a three-week stretch (remember how I said alts were up a ton?), and obviously I missed it. But does anyone think this partnership isn’t going to continue to bless Avalanche and its token?
Let’s just say this: Amazon is getting into the NFT game. Also, unlike seemingly everyone else in tech, they’re hiring . . . in web3.
4. Litecoin (LTC) — $7
January: ⬆️ 34.3%
I always hate to recommend coins after a huge pump . . .
— me, in December, recommending a buy for LTC after it rose 44% in November
Yeah, this is going to be a theme, considering pretty much everything blew up in January.
But LTC is still not done. While politicians and bureaucrats in the U.S. waste time deciding just exactly which method they will use to kill the golden goose, Litecoin is pressing forward in the EU:
Litecoin is secure in its niche as the Greta van Fleet to Bitcoin’s Led Zeppelin: an updated version of a classic. In this case, LTC is billing itself as a more spendable BTC, and according to BitPay, they’re coming for Bitcoin’s market share:
“I think it goes to 1,000,000%” — PlanB
Whales continue to buy into LTC as we’re under 200 days from its next halving:
Also, there’s a Litecoin metaverse now, if you’re into that sort of thing.
5. Tezos (XTZ) — $6
January: ⬆️ 48.1%
Ah yes, another boring ancient alt my grandpappy has some coins from buried in his back yard.
And speaking of boring, California’s DMV wants to put vehicle titles on the blockchain, and they’re partnering with Tezos to do it.
This may seem like a laugh, but there were more than 31 million privately-owned cars, trucks and motorcycles registered in California in 2010, many of which have been stuck in traffic since. Not only will back-end blockchain tech make the lines at the DMV faster, but the state also intends on rolling out front-facing apps like NFT titles for digital wallets. What’s next? Why not a permanent record of cars that have been flagged for lemon laws? Why not a full Carfax-type record?
“As California goes, so goes the nation,” so goes the saying. Which is why you can look on the label of some of the most innocuous products in your house and find that it’s known to the State of California to have cancer-causing agents. It’s just one state, but those 31 million California vehicles represent 12.7% of all the vehicles on America’s roads, and other states are likely to build their own versions on Tezos to maintain compatibility.
If Tezos becomes the default blockchain for government paperwork, that’s a business that will sustain them for a very long time. Meanwhile, you can stack 3.19% APY.
6. Cardano (ADA) — $5
January: ⬆️ 58.9%
ADA’s strong January allowed it to flippen Dogecoin and once again claim the #5 position by market cap among non-stablecoins. Bullish momentum figures to continue with a mid-month cryptographic upgrade that will foster further cross-chain DApp interoperability.
Last month also featured the launch of Djed, an algorithmic stablecoin on Cardano’s blockchain, in partnership with COTI. Unlike some other failed algostables in the past (not saying anybody in particular), DJED’s reserve is overcollateralized by its reserve coin, SHEN, to the tune of 400–800%.
Early returns are promising enough that they use the statistic every startup uses: “We went from zero to this much, everybody check out our huge and totally sustainable growth!”
7. Stellar Lumens (XLM) — $4
January: ⬆️ 27.7%
The Stellar Development Foundation will be a part of the Global Market Advisory Committee, which meets later this month. The SDF joins three other crypto-oriented entities, but is the only one that represents a blockchain. According to their website, the GMAC advises the Commodity Futures Trading Commission “on issues that affect the integrity and competitiveness of U.S. markets and U.S. firms engaged in global business, including the regulatory challenges of a global marketplace that reflects the increasing interconnectedness of markets and the multinational nature of business.”
This sounds really boring, and it almost certainly is really boring, but here’s the kicker. The GMAC also “makes recommendations regarding international standards for regulating futures, swaps, options, and derivatives markets, as well as intermediaries.”
That’s a pretty big seat at a pretty big table, overshadowed only by the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where according to one report, Stellar’s foundation “rocked”:
“SDF is heavily represented in many sections of the forum, from humanitarian topics to cross-border blockchain opportunities.”
XLM may have just power-played past Ripple and XRP to be the front-runner for the the new digital future, including central bank digital currencies. Stellar’s blockchain hosted a pilot of the digital Ukrainian denomination, and crypto is becoming a pretty big deal there.
Yes, CFTC, WEF and CBDC might all be dirty words in your opinion. But if that’s true, then own them before they own you.
8. Quant (QNT) — $3
January: ⬆️ 35%
Man, it’s getting late. Time to get lazy.
Quant Network is a blockchain infrastructure company that has developed the Overledger Network, a multi-chain interoperability platform that enables communication and transfer of value across different blockchain networks . . .
The Overledger acts as a layer above different blockchain networks and stores metadata about the transactions taking place on these networks. This allows the network to provide a single point of access to all the underlying blockchain networks, and enables the creation of applications that can interact with multiple blockchain networks simultaneously . . .
The Quant Network has the potential to revolutionise the way different blockchain networks communicate and exchange value with one another, and could help to drive the adoption of blockchain technology across a wide range of industries . . .
The network has been adopted by a number of enterprise clients, and has partnerships with several major companies and organisations. This suggests that the Quant Network has a strong foundation and is well positioned to continue to grow and develop in the future.
I like this.
9. Fetch.ai (FET) — $2
January: ⬆️ 200.33%
200.33%.
200.33%.
Is this because AI is so hot right now that anything that even has the letters “A” and “I” in it go vertical?
Let’s ask the expert. ChatGPT, why should I buy FET?
As an AI language model, I don’t have opinions, but I can tell you that buying any cryptocurrency, including Fetch.ai (FET), is a highly speculative investment.
Way to hedge. Okay, how did Tin Money put it? Please give me an analysis of Fetch.ai.
Fetch.ai is a blockchain platform that aims to provide infrastructure for decentralized autonomous organizations and digital marketplaces. The platform is built on a decentralized network of agents that can interact with each other and with the world around them, creating a decentralized digital economy.
One of the key features of the Fetch.ai platform is its ability to handle complex data, which is useful for applications such as supply chain management, logistics, and financial services. Additionally, the platform has a unique consensus mechanism that is designed to be fast and scalable, allowing for more efficient and cost-effective transactions.
The Fetch.ai token (FET) is used as the platform’s native currency and is required for many transactions on the network, including participating in the network’s consensus mechanism.
But what does that have to do with artificial intelligence?
Fetch.ai is a blockchain platform that aims to advance artificial intelligence (AI) by creating a decentralized digital economy where AI agents can interact with each other and with the world around them.
The platform provides a decentralized infrastructure that allows AI agents to securely share data and collaborate to solve complex problems. This is made possible through the use of blockchain technology and smart contracts, which provide a secure and transparent environment for data exchange and computation . . . Additionally, the platform’s decentralized architecture also has the potential to increase the trust in AI systems and to reduce the risk of data breaches or other security incidents.
Overall, Fetch.ai is an innovative platform that has the potential to shape the future of AI by creating new possibilities for data exchange and collaboration among AI systems.
Pretty strong opinion from something that says it doesn’t have them.
And despite the protesting of Fantom co-founder Andre Cronje that AI and blockchains don’t mix, it’s likely that less-savvy blockchain tech minds — which is basically all of us — will continue to conflate the two. “Smart contracts” and “AI” are indistinguishable to most.
10. Lido DAO Token (LDO) — $1
January: ⬆️ 130.47%
In the pre-social media days, my fellow dorks and I on one bulletin board service were fond of using the shorthand “LDO” to mean “like, duh, obviously.”
LDO is LDO a winning play because it pioneered the concept of liquid staking, which returns a token for a token. Instead of locking tokens for rewards, as many staking networks do, Lido exchanges a staker’s token with another, for example stETH for ETH. Users can then trade stETH on other exchanges.
While Lido now has competition (including, after many months, Coinbase and its cbETH), it has first-mover advantage:
I had some blah-blah here about Lido’s coming upgrade, but . . .
While everybody is taking the SEC to the woodshed:
. . . some people have noticed that, much like Uniswap was the beneficiary of FTX’s demise, the primary winners of Kraken being forced from the field are DeFi entities:
Recall the chart from above: the #3 is now out, and the #2 and #4 officially have to watch their ass.
If the SEC wants to continue hamstringing U.S. based exchanges and DeFi entities, that’s long-term awesome news for LDO regardless of their already-huge moves.
🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖
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