Polkadot Picks Revealed: Top 4 DOT Altcoins

The Polkadot ecosystem is one good place to shop for your next bull market coin. Why? Because lots of these projects are under the radar but have good potential for long-term success. And most of them are at a decent entry point.

In this article, I will show you 4 good Polkadot (DOT) projects you should consider looking at this year.

1) Moonbeam (GLMR)

Moonbeam is one of the biggest projects on Polkadot. I’ve followed this project for years. And I think it’s one of the best for developers seeking an Ethereum-compatible platform to build. By design, Moonbeam is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), so developers can easily port their existing Ethereum dApps to Moonbeam.

Moonbeam gives developers a familiar experience by replicating Ethereum’s web 3 RPC account keys and tooling.  So, developers do not have to undergo many changes in terms of programming language tools or accounts. In addition, Moonbeam also provides two key advantages for developers:

• Shared security from Polkadot’s relay chain.
• Moonbeam uses XCM, Polakdot’s cross-chain messaging protocol to promote interoperability between more than 100 chains. This means users can bridge tokens like DOT and KSM between these chains. The advantage of this interoperability is that it unlocks multi-chain dapps. 

Moonbeam also provides various tools to help developers build their applications. Moonbeam recently celebrated its second year on mainnet. Here are some of its landmarks:

• At the end of 2023, Moonbeam grew to 2M addresses. About 1.785M of these addresses are end-user accounts (EOAs). The other 250K + are smart contract addresses (CAs).
• Moonbeam has had an average of 12,492 daily active addresses for the past 3 months.
• Over 300 teams have launched on Moonbeam.
• Moonbeam has recorded 48.1M total transactions since January 2022. This amounts to 2M transactions per month since Jan 2022. About 1.2M of these transactions took place on the EVM.
• About 250K smart contract addresses have been deployed by 5,087 developers.

These figures show how much impact Moonbeam has achieved in promoting interoperability. And if you are interested in that sort of thing, you should check out this project.

2) Astar (ASTR)

Astar Network is pretty close to Moonbeam in terms of its scope and use cases. There’s a lot to love about this project and I think it’s got a good future ahead of it.  Astar, like Moonbeam, helps advance Polkadot’s vision of connecting users. However, Astar provides more flexibility in terms of its programming languages. 

This means developers can use familiar languages such as JavaScript to develop apps on Astar.  Astar also provides developers with incentives to earn. Here’s what I find fun. Astar is already getting noticed by the big players. It raised over $30 million with participation from:

• Polygon.
• Coinbase.
• Binance.

Why is Astar Special?

Astar uses a cross-virtual machine since it is a parachain that can communicate with Ethereum virtual machine (EVM) and web assembly smart contract (WASM.) This means that developers don’t have to use other parachains to build their projects.

Astar also runs a build-to-earn program known as Build2Earn. The program rewards developers who build their projects on Astar. So, this adds to its appeal and makes it a developer-friendly destination. As I said earlier, Astar is beginning to enjoy the spotlight and receive more recognition. It has already collaborated with industrial giants like Sony and Toyota. 

Astar is also the first public blockchain listed in Japan. For me, the biggest appeal is its commitment to growth and development. Last year, Astar announced plans for Astar 2.0. This would introduce changes to its staking, governance, and tokenomics.

Astar 2.0 supernova is Astar’s grand entrance to the Ethereum ecosystem. Astar’s focus is currently on interoperability. It recently partnered with Polygon to launch Astar ZK EVM, an Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution. Part of their plan is to build trustless bridges and promote interoperability. Astar has a growing ecosystem featuring over 30 dapps which is a good sign of growth.

3) Acala (ACA)

Our third project, Acala Network is a decentralized project. It offers multiple financial services such as:

• Staking derivatives.
• A multi-collateralized stablecoin called aUSD
• Decentralized exchange.

The goal is to create a cross-chain DeFi network and become a liquidity hub for Polkadot. Acala Network is also EVM compatible. This provides developers with the option to build dapps in both Solidity and Substrate.  Acala also offers backend infrastructure for institutional-grade financial solutions. ACA is Acala’s native token. It serves different purposes such as:

• Smart contract execution.
• Micro gas fees. 
• Node incentives.
• It is also a governance token for the network.

On its website, Acala claims to have: 

• A TVL of $157,073,810. 
• Completed 144,749 cross-chain transfers.
• 193,227 account holders.

Acala also has some notable backers such as:

• Haskey Capital.
• Coinbase Ventures.
• Pantera.
• CMS and others.

These teams support Acala with the experience and vision to become a liquidity hub. Acala is one of the most promising projects in Polkadot. It’s exciting to see how it continues to grow.

4) Centrifuge (CFG)

Last but not the least is Centrifuge. This project has heavy ambitions. It plans to bring real-world assets (RWA) to DeFi. The tokenization of real-world assets is one of the biggest narratives of 2024. This puts Centrifuge at the center of recent trends.

Centrifuge has already teamed up with MakerDAO to onboard over $200 million worth of assets. But that’s not all. It also has a partnership with Aave Protocol that allows investors to earn a yield on RWAs. Centrifuge uses NFTs to bring real-world assets on-chain. Its associated Dapp, Tinlake, is a marketplace for tokenized real-world assets. Users can tokenize assets like:

• Royalties.
• Invoices.
• Real estate and transform them into NFTs. 

Centrifuge could revolutionize traditional finance. As we all know, the RWA space has huge potential. And it makes sense to add Centrifuge and its CFG token to your watchlist.

Disclaimer
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