5 coins to watch in 2023

Which crypto projects had a good year this year? Are there any? Yes, in fact, there are. Today we pick 6 winners in different important categories in crypto like DeFi, NFTs, or best ecosystem.

And we show you who is having a good year now and could do even better in 2023. So today, our best altcoin of 2022.

Best Partnerships: MATIC

It’s hard to think of much good happening with the terrible year we just had in the entire crypto market but good things are happening if you know where to look and can get outside the FTX bubble.

Our first altcoin is Polygon. They win our Best Partnerships category. And honestly, it’s not even close. More huge names from Web 2 and legacy industries are partnering with Polygon to access Web3 benefits than any other crypto project. Huge names like:

No one, and I mean no one, is bringing more Web3 access to more people than Polygon. These are the types of moves you want to see projects making if you’ve already invested in them or want to invest more in them.

Best Tech: Ethereum

When it comes to technology, which is best is often subjective as soon as we move away from stats like transaction per second or speed to finality. But our altcoin for the best tech for 2022 is Ethereum. And there’s 2 reasons why.

First, they are still crushing and dominating both DeFi and NFTs although Polygon and Solana are gaining in NFTs and BNB Smart Chain and Arbitrum are gaining in DeFi. Yet, there is no question that Ethereum is still the leader in both of these important categories.

Second, the merge. I once heard someone describe the complexity of The Merge by saying it’s like trying to repair a plane while you are still flying it. I liked this analogy because ETH had to maintain its fully functioning PoW system for all the apps that run on it while testing, implementing, and completing the merge all at once. It’s a huge technical achievement no matter what you think of Ethereum.

And it was great to think of some good news leading the crypto headlines for once instead of a centralized project implosion. What do you think is the biggest positive story of the year? Do you think it’s The Merge? Something else? Let us know in the comments below.

Best Ecosystem: Cosmos

It’s hard to say enough good things about our third altcoin, Cosmos. Our winner for Best Ecosystem for the year. We had a couple of other excellent candidates doing great things like Polygon, Polkadot, and Avalanche but Cosmos is really hitting on all cylinders right now.

Its first big test this year was a surprise for almost everyone when LUNA and UST imploded. The actual LUNA blockchain during this high-stress period performed beautifully. It did just what it was supposed to and the chain only halted when Terra Labs themselves halted the chain.

For most of us, that was the first time any Cosmos chain saw some serious scrutiny to see if their SDK and Tendermint systems could withstand large scale activity. And it passed with flying colors.

So it’s no surprise that former Terra protocol and former ETH protocols like Kujira and dydx decided it was time to make the switch to running their own chain. And doing it on Cosmos. Plus their apps and protocols are more seamless with others in their ecosystem than anywhere else. It’s just a pleasure to use.

Best NFT: DeGods

Casual viewers of the NFT market may not know how big Solana is getting into NFTs. And Solana’s biggest blue-chip collection is DeGods, our winner for best NFT of the year. Its current floor is 352 SOL or a little over $5000.

Although its highest floor price was 585 SOL in August, the floor rebounded from a November low of 218 by a little over 50% to its current 352.

In a year where everything is down, the floor for this great collection went on a steady increase from February to August. Then a 50% rebound off its low. That’s better performance than almost any other investment in crypto right now. For its strength and resilience, DeGods is our top choice.

What’s your favorite NFT collection right now? Let us know in the comments.

Best DeFi: GMX

I don’t think any DeFi platform had a better year than our winning altcoin, GMX. In a year where on average almost all projects are down 70-80% or more, GMX defied the odds. GMX is up 83% in the last 12 months.

GMX is a decentralized exchange for spot and perpetuals (called Perps) trading. In other words, for those of you looking to trade these markets somewhere other than Binance, you now have a DeFi option here. It keeps fees low by working only in Arbitrum and Avalanche.

They also have an attractive index you can buy called the GLP Index that holds 8 coins total including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Chainlink, Uniswap, and 4 stablecoins including DAI and FRAX. This would be a good way to use a DeFi platform to get broad market coverage.

Along with trading, they have 2 coins in their ecosystem. Both earn a piece of trading fees too. Governance coin GMX gets 30% of the fees and you can stake for 13% while the liquidity coin GLP earns 70% of the fees and you can stake that for 19-21%.

Their analytics page shows just how much important trading stats like volume, open interest, and fees generated grew in this last year. And this growth should continue. You can buy the GMX token on Binance, MEXC Global, or Uniswap.

Rotten Banana: FTX

Our rotten banana/d-bag of the year is SBF and FTX. Sadly, between them, 3AC and LUNA, we had lots of choices this year. But FTX looks to be the biggest and the worst of the year’s disasters.

The only consolation is at least SBF has been arrested while Zhu Su and Do Kwon are still walking around free. So, more evidence is coming to light that FTX and Alameda were frauds from the very beginning and were selling Bitcoin they didn’t have while commingling funds and other illegal acts.

But I hope you didn’t miss the lessons from this mess:

  1. Self Custody: This is vital. Even if it’s not a hardware wallet yet, if you have a wallet that you control, the assets are real and they are yours.
  2. The Blockchain NEVER Lies: Some great on-chain analysis helped people see what FTX was doing and keep it from getting worse by reporting to the public. Centralized project scammers can scam people, but they can’t scam the blockchain. It’s always there as a transparent ledger of activity. You should learn how to read block explorers to track this activity at least in a simple way to you can spot things that don’t belong too.
  3. The Asset of Last Resort is Bitcoin: This means that when every scammer cashes out their shitcoins for something, it’s Bitcoin. EVERY TIME. Not ETH. Not ADA. Not whatever your favorite pet project is. It’s Bitcoin. Even scammers know Bitcoin is the highest quality asset in crypto. Don’t forget and make sure you buy some to HODL.

We’ve all been affected by this fraud even if we did not have assets on FTX. But we got these 3 valuable lessons out of it. Don’t lose the lesson just because the way we learned it was so wrong.

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