Top 10 Cryptos To Buy on Coinbase in April 2022
Balanced crypto portfolio for the new investor
As I write on March 31, the overall crypto market has slid after exploding over the last week, presenting an excellent time to make a regular investment. Ordinarily, the purpose of dollar-cost averaging is to use a set-it-and-forget-it method of investing that most often earns more than playing the guessing game — “time in the market beats timing the market,” as the saying goes.
But when the market throws a sale, might as well take advantage of the discount. These are the ten coins available on Coinbase that I feel have both long-term staying power and short-term profitability for April, 2022.
EDIT: April Fool, I guess. My laptop betrayed me so by the time I got this out, the dip was done. Oh well, it doesn’t change anything below.
“Why Coinbase?”, some of you ask. “They’re terrible because [reasons].” Maybe so, but for many newbies to the crypto space, it’s the first stop. It’s user-friendly and doesn’t come with gas fees, liquidity issues, or the need to maintain wallets on different networks. In fact, I still have funds on Coinbase.
In the future I might do other exchanges, but in truth, most of the coins would be the same, anyway.
I’m not shilling Coinbase, I swear. I’m not above it — they’re just not paying me, and I’m trying to do an SEO thing here. (Here’s where I’m available. I work cheap.)
(Also for the record: 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.)
Unsurprisingly, the two largest coins sit in the top two spots. 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.
1. Ethereum (ETH) — $25
March: ⬆️ 11.2%
Momentum continues building for the world’s #2 crypto in front of their upcoming switch from a proof-of-work protocol to a more environmentally sensitive proof-of-stake system. Some analysts even believe that the change could lead to the long-anticipated “flippening” of Bitcoin’s market capitalization. At the very least, it should help ETH compete with newer layer-1 “Ethereum-killer” blockchains that are nibbling away at their overwhelming market share in smart-contract networks.
ETH offers tremendous upside for April and beyond with the security of a coin so big it’s beginning to trend away from being called an altcoin and more toward being the Pepsi to Bitcoin’s Coke. Coinbase users can also choose to stake their ETH, locking it up until the merge in exchange for a 3.68% APY (though this was recently reduced, to some users’ chagrin).
2. Bitcoin (BTC) — $15
March: ⬆️ 5.3%
Ethereum maxis talk a big game about flippening as ETH continues to differentiate itself from Bitcoin, but BTC is still #1 by about double the market cap. The king crypto is still the straw that stirs the drink, as outside fiat tends to flow to BTC first before rolling into altcoins.
It is once again Bitcoin season, even though its gains in March aren’t as eye-popping as some other alts on this list (to say nothing of Zilliqa, which sadly isn’t available on Coinbase). Bitcoin boasts by far the safest floor, as it has not one but two whales ready to buy every dip.
So why isn’t it #1? Well, in a way, it’s tied if you add it up, due to . . .
3. Wrapped LUNA Token (WLUNA) — $10
March: ⬆️ 17.25%
Coinbase doesn’t offer the Terra ecosystem’s crown jewel directly, but it does offer the next best thing: a token on the Ethereum network designed to mimic LUNA’s price action.
Terra’s all-star DeFi play, Anchor Protocol, yielded on its yield a bit but does not appear likely to break. With equilibrium established, co-founder Do Kwon has set about backing up both his stablecoins and his trash talk with $10 billion worth of Bitcoin.
As Terra’s dollar-pegged stablecoin, UST, grows more secure on the Bitcoin standard, users will continue flocking to their ecosystem. Terra’s unique tokenomics burn LUNA to mint UST. So even though LUNA posted new all-time highs in March, it can still go higher due to fewer tokens in circulation. (Imagine that: a supply chain issue that makes you money!)
The BTC ➡️ UST ➡️ LUNA ➡️ WLUNA gain train isn’t an express, but the line is still easy enough to follow.
4. Polygon (MATIC) — $8
March: ⬆️1.8%
For all that the Ethereum upgrade promises, one remedy that won’t be immediate is lowered gas fees. For that reason, layer-2 solutions like MATIC that ride on the Ethereum network have a sound investment thesis for at least the medium term.
But Polygon is bidding to become a major player in its own right, adding ventures into the gaming space to go with its blossoming NFT catalogue. The network also recently introduced Polygon ID, a zero-knowledge proof of identity that aims to provide verification status without compromising personal data.
MATIC’s middling March numbers don’t match some of the other coins on this list. But where most of the market peaked last November, Polygon’s ATH came just after Christmas, and its descent lasted well into March. MATIC gained more than 30% in the back half of the month before the bears reared their heads on the 31st.
5. Cosmos (ATOM) — $8
March: ⬇️ 9%
Because Ethereum couldn’t eradicate its competition before they gained footholds, it’s likely the future will belong to a plethora of blockchains that prioritize their best features. If that happens, then an easy play will be a network with interoperability between chains. Several high-profile hacks have exploited bridges between networks, so the need for security is obvious.
Both Cosmos and Polkadot operate in this niche — in fact, they recently completed a bridge between their networks. I also like Polkadot more than an itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny yellow bit, so no hard feelings if you lean that direction. But where DOT gained over 12% in March, ATOM only . . . dropped by 9%? Wait, that can’t be right . . . *checks notes* . . . ah, Cosmos spiked hard at the start of the month when its spot market was offered on FTX, then slid back down. Coinbase users can enjoy a tasty 5% APY on ATOM without having to lock tokens.
6. Gala (GALA) — $8
March: ⬆️ 4.8%
Video games are such an enormous moneymaker that grown humans have forged entire careers making Jeff Bezos richer by inducing other people to watch them play. But in exchange for the $70 non-professional gamers can expect to pony up for new titles, they get only the satisfaction of winning trophies that don’t exist in the real world or playing in a digital open-world landscape.
If those sound like more or less the definition of, respectively, NFTs and the metaverse, well, Gala agrees. They have more than a dozen games in their development pipeline, and all of them will allow players to earn NFTs or GALA tokens, which are far easier to make money with than Twitch clout.
They’re also looking to migrate off Ethereum to their own blockchain, solving gas fees and congestion and potentially allowing other gaming dapps to build on their network.
7. Cardano (ADA) — $8
March: ⬆️ 17.5%
I get it. Cardano has been all talk and no walk for what seems like eons, and just when you thought it couldn’t sink any lower, it continues to disappoint. I should know: I was a bear when ADA was at the $2.50 level last September, then bought in under $1.50 and under $1.25 and under $1.00 and exited all of those positions with egg on my face — just in case you think I fancy myself a crypto savant. (Also, the username “CryptoSavant” was taken.) Last month, I joked when it was at $0.82 that it only had eighty cents more to pull back before I would flip bullish.
And I very nearly unintentionally called the 78¢ bottom. While I snarked in my self-satisfaction (self-snarkisfaction?), buyers with conviction caught a 60% upswing in less than two weeks.
Savant.
The bull case for ADA has always been the long game. Cardano’s developers are favoring the slow-and-steady approach over “move fast and break sh*t.” They’re making their biggest investments in Africa, where web3 infrastructure can work for a population that was left out of web2 the same way cell phones allowed them to leap over the era of landline service.
So you throw an acorn in a meadow and come back in 50 years and maybe it’s an oak tree. The trick was waiting for the short term to catch up. It may have finally started when Grayscale Investments offered an ETF basket of smart-contract layer-1s not named Ethereum — and gave Cardano the biggest piece of the pie.
If you just can’t bring yourself to trust Cardano again: trust me, I understand. I also like Algorand to catch up to sexier coins Solana and Avalanche. But Coinbase will give ADA holders 3.75% APY to wait for the long haul, nearly ten times the meager ALGO dividend.
8. Synthetix Network Token (SNX) — $8
March: ⬆️ 64.7%
SNX was a legit snack in March, and I might be tempted to back away from the table. But as centralized exchanges like Coinbase will have no choice but to abide by “know-your-coin” laws in Canada and Europe, savvy investors will take their business to decentralized exchanges, of which there are approximately 23 million.
What makes Synthetix different is that they offer a decentralized market where users can create synthetic assets without having to own the asset. Just as Coinbase users can buy WLUNA and reap the benefits of LUNA’s mooning, Synthetix users can create “synths” of different cryptos — or forex — and ride the price action.
So, yes, you can buy a DEX token on a CEX. I don’t know how to explain that irony, but I was also flummoxed whenever I saw Rage Against The Machine videos on MTV.
9. Powerledger (POWR) — $5
March: ⬆️ 4.9%
Have you ever heard of DentaCoin? It’s a real crypto that’s intended to be used by the dental industry. Everybody needs dental care, right?
You can get 800 of ’em for a penny. (Not on Coinbase, though. Bummer, right?)
Powerledger, on the other hand, aims to disrupt the energy industry, which has a bit more money attached to it. The traditional energy grid is archaic, and blockchain will revolutionize it the same way it will finance and gaming. Anyone who has solar panels on their roof can contribute energy to a peer-to-peer network. As renewable energy components get cheaper (and tax incentives increase), harvesting energy can be a passive income stream. POWR tokens are a way to buy into the system without having to erect a wind turbine in your back yard.
10. Zcash (ZEC) — $5
March: ⬆️ 52.8%
Zcash is a mirror image of Bitcoin with one major improvement, at least for everyone except EU busybodies and Elizabeth Warren: total privacy. Yes, this means Russian oligarchs and drug cartels and money launderers can use it to hide their illicit activities. But you know what? Before then they were using good old American cash, and nobody judged the dollar for it.
Privacy is important for evildoers. But good guys wear masks, too. Some people need to stay hidden, like Ukrainian freedom fighters and whistleblowers and people who insult Jada Pinkett Smith’s hair. And it’s just plain a good idea for many transactions — why should an online store have my wallet address and search all my past transactions so they can find out my secret love of vampire erotica?
ZEC is up a zitload since Russia invaded Ukraine, and has been known to torch holders in the past. But this narrative isn’t going away, and it doesn’t really have another way to play on Coinbase.
Okay, there, I put my name on recommendations. I am officially a blathering crypto broseph.
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