How to make money on cryptocurrency in 2024

Despite the instability of the cryptocurrency market many digital currencies have become good investments. But you should not forget about fraudulent projects, investments in which may bring losses.

This article will show you how to find promising cryptocurrencies for investment and what to pay attention to when choosing one.

TOP 3 cryptocurrencies to invest in 2024

There is a small list of digital assets that have been on the market for some time and proof their reliability represented by the following coins: Cardano, Tron, PancakeSwap.

1. Cardano

• Exchanges to buy the coin: Binance, OKX, ByBit.
• Launch year: 2017;
• Team: Input Output Hong Kong (IOH) and Charles Hoskinson, former co-founder of BitShares, Ethereum and Ethereum Classic;
• The project and its features: a decentralized network based entirely on scientific and mathematical principles and developed by experts in the field of cryptography and engineering. The Cardano blockchain can be used to create smart contracts, decentralized applications and protocols;
• Problems that project solves: instant sending and receiving of funds with minimal commissions, many applications in the world of business and finance. Committed to provide a more scalable, secure and efficient alternative to Ethereum;
• Coin: native cryptocurrency of the Cardano blockchain – ADA;
• Smart contracts: BNB Smart Chain (BEP20), Lovelace, Cardano;
• Using of the coin: transactions, staking, voting, support for the smart contract platform on the Cardano blockchain;
• Wallets: Metamask, Atomic Wallet, Trust Wallet.

2. Tron

• Exchanges to buy the coin: Binance, OKX, Huobi, Gate.io;
• Year of creation: September 2017;
• Team: the founder founder is Chinese crypto entrepreneur and business leader Justin Sun;
• The project and its features: Tron blockchain functions similarly to the Ethereum blockchain (it’s used to create decentralized applications). The TRON network hosts the largest circulating supply of USDT stablecoins (more than Ethereum). The TRON network completed its full decentralization in December 2021 and now is a DAO project fully driven by the community;
• Problems that project solves: Tron network uses Delegated-Proof-of-Stake (DPOS) and consumes much less energy than competing currencies. The developers claim that Tron is capable of processing 10,000 transactions per second without fees, which is much more than systems using the Proof-of-Work algorithm, which rely on a huge network of cryptocurrency miners (for example, Bitcoin);
• Coin: TRX is an internal token of the TRON protocol network issued by the TRON DAO. TRX is the main unit of account in the TRON blockchain and brings together the entire TRON ecosystem, as well as numerous applications that enable transactions on the network;
• Using of the coin: transactions, voting, staking;
• Smart contracts: BNB Smart Chain (BEP20), Tron20;
• Wallets: Atomic Wallet, Trust Wallet.

3. Pancakeswap

• Exchanges: Binance, OKX, KuCoin;
• Year of creation: September 2020;
• Team: anonymous developer group;
• The project and its features: PancakeSwap is used to swap BEP20 tokens based on Binance Smart Chain. PancakeSwap uses the Automated Market Maker (AMM) model, meaning users trade against liquidity pools. These pools are filled with funds from users who receive liquidity provider (LP) tokens in return. LP can be used to get your share back along with a portion of the trading fees. PancakeSwap has undergone a series of audits and reviews by CertiK (a blockchain formal verification company) to ensure legitimacy and security;
• What problems does the project solve: faster transactions than other DeFi projects on Ethereum, in addition to lower fees;
• Coin: CAKE is a BEP20 token built on BSC;
• Smart Contracts: BNB Smart Chain (BEP20);
• Using of the coin: PancakeSwap exchange governance, reward and utility token. CAKE holders can vote on governance decisions, receive perpetual futures trading fee discounts, access IFOs, buy lottery tickets, etc.;
• Storage wallets:MetaMask, Trust Wallet and others.

How to choose a cryptocurrency for investment

To choose which cryptocurrency to invest in and protect yourself from losing your investment you should make your own research. To do this, find out and study the following information:

• General information about the project and its uniqueness: when investing in cryptocurrency for the long term, you need to have a fundamental understanding of what the project is before going deep into the technical factors that affect the market value of a cryptocurrency;
• Coin sustainability: A coin worth investing in should solve a practical problem, and solving that problem should be the goal of the coin’s creators, not just making money;
• Availability of the coin on large crypto exchanges: if the coin has passed the listing procedure on the exchange, then the project has no serious violations of the requirements of regulators, problems with transaction security, etc.;
• Project website and social networks: it is important to make an initial general overview of the project. To do this, visit the site and check up project’s pages on social networks. The site should be functional and easy to navigate, containing details about the project, team, white paper and roadmap;
• Team: the credibility and experience of the team behind a project plays a significant role in its success or failure. Sometimes the developers of the project remain anonymous, which makes it impossible to assess their reputation. Once the identities are revealed, it’s easy to see the team’s previous experience and the projects they’ve worked on before (if any). You can pay attention to partnerships with well-known companies, which is also a positive criteria;
• White paper and roadmap: an important component of assessing the long-term value of a coin or token for an investor is a white paper and a project roadmap. The White Paper provides technical information about the project to help determine its merits. Roadmap helps to determine project development directions. If a clear vision is not formed it’s a situation when you can start to doubt the future success and value of the project;
• Main investors: explore the pool of investors. It is good if well-known companies or large investors have already invested in the project. This means that they have done it due diligence and believe in the viability of the project;
• Community: community of users can support or destroy the potential of the cryptocurrency. A large and active community plays an important role in the initial and ongoing success of the project. But sometimes the hype can exceed the real usefulness. Therefore, investor should not invest in coins based on this factor only. The largest crypto communities can be found on Reddit, Discord and Twitter.

The best cryptocurrencies for long-term investment

Long-term investments are assets that an individual or entity intends to hold for more than three years. The long-term coin holding strategy is often referred to as HODLing or HODL. It idea is to wait out short-term volatility.

TOP 3 of the best long-term crypto investments can be found below.

1. Bitcoin

• Exchanges to buy the coin: Binance, OKX, ByBit, Huobi and more.
• Year of creation: January 3, 2009;
• Team: the whitepaper was signed by Satoshi Nakamoto, whose identity remains a secret to this day;
• Project: Bitcoin (BTC) needs no introduction. The leading digital currency has been around the longest and despite many bear markets remains strong;
• Potential: While BTC still has a lot of upside potential, it is often viewed as a hedge. The reason is that, like gold, BTC has a final supply (21 million coins) that will be reached around the year 2140. Therefore, Bitcoin is more suitable as a long-term store of value than as a means of payment;
• Coin: a fully decentralized peer-to-peer digital cryptocurrency that allows any user to send and receive coins without intermediaries. The most important factor that determines the value of BTC is the maximum coin limit of 21 million;
• Using of the coin: Bitcoin is the largest cryptocurrency in the world by market cap. It can be used to make purchases online and offline or held as one of the assets in an investment portfolio;
• Wallets: Exodus, Trust Wallet.

2. Ethereum

• Exchanges to buy the coin: Binance, KuCoin, ByBit, Gate.io and more;
• Year of creation: The Ethereum network went online on July 30, 2015 with 73 million ETH pre-mined;
• Team: Vitalik Buterin published an introductory white paper for the project in 2013. The main idea was to use blockchain technology like in the Bitcoin network to create a decentralized and programmable platform;
• Project: an open source decentralized technology that powers most of the crypto world. Offers many solutions ranging from decentralized finance (DeFi) applications and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to enterprise blockchain solutions based on Ethereum technology;
• Features: Ethereum’s programmability means that you can create applications that use the blockchain for data storage or control. The result is a general-purpose blockchain that can be programmed for anything. Since there is no limit to what Ethereum can do, it allows for great innovation on the network. Ethereum owns over 90% of the NFT market;
• Potential: Ethereum has great potential thanks to a well-known team that is constantly working to improve network capabilities;
• Coin: ETH is the native digital currency of the Ethereum platform. It is currently the second cryptocurrency in terms of capitalization after bitcoin. The total amount of potential ether is not predetermined;
• Using of the coin: launching smart contracts of increased complexity, creating applications with various functions, creating tokens. Among other things: NFT, digitization and storage of data for user identification, creation of decentralized exchange platforms, electronic voting systems, etc.;
• Smart contracts: BSC, HECO, Avalanche C-Chain, TomoChain, Sora, RSK RBTC, Velas, Solana, Near, Klaytn;
• Wallets: MetaMask, Trust Wallet and others.

3. Ripple

• Exchanges to buy: Binance, KuCoin and others;
• Year of creation: the project and XRP cryptocurrency were launched in 2012. The company was originally called NewCoin, then changed its name to OpenCoin and later to Ripple;
• Team: Software developer Ryan Fugger founded RipplePay in 2004. At that time, the project allowed to provide loans in its community and was one of the first crypto projects that existed before Bitcoin, although at that time it was not a cryptocurrency. The development of the blockchain and the XRP coin was started by the programmer Jed McCaleb in 2011. He recruited a team, found investors, and suggested to Fugger that he use the RipplePay network;
• The project and its features: Ripple is a payment protocol that uses blockchain technology to process international money transfers. This makes it an alternative to SWIFT (the modern international payment system used by most banks);
• Benefits: low transaction fees and fast processing time (on average, a transaction is processed in 5 seconds, the transaction fee is 0.00001 XRP). In addition, the company cooperates with many financial institutions using its technology;
• Coin: XRP is the initial cryptocurrency of the Ripple network. XRP uses the RPCA (Ripple Protocol consensus algorithm) to verify transactions;
• Using of the coin: XRP can be used as an intermediate currency. This gives financial institutions a cheaper way to trade currencies. They can store XRP instead of different types of fiat money;
• Potential: Despite some problems (in particular, at the end of 2020, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against the company), Ripple has great potential due to the technology it uses;
• Smart contracts: BSC (BEP-20), Klaytn;
• Wallets: Trust Wallet, Exodus and others.

The best cryptocurrencies for short-term investment

Short-term investments are investments that last less than three years. The main advantages of short-term investments are its flexibility and less risk.

There is a list of coins suitable for this type of investment below.

1. Decentraland

• Exchanges to buy: Binance, KuCoin, OKX and others;
• Year of foundation: 2015;
• Team: Ariel Meilich and Esteban Ordano are the founders of the project. Ariel Meilich has launched a number of start-ups and also has analytical experience in a Silicon Valley venture capital fund. Esteban Ordano has extensive experience in the field of cryptocurrencies and has been involved in the development of smart contracts. Despite the fact that the creators of the project have left their main positions, they still cooperate with Decentraland as advisors;
• The project and its features: a decentralized platform in virtual reality, which consists of 90,601 land plots. The platform is a metaverse where users can create, consume and monetize content. The emphasis of the project is the game decentralized economy. The uniqueness of Decentraland lies in its DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) and free economy. DAO allows users to make changes to the platform, while creators take a backseat. Another feature that many players enjoy is the gambling. Decentraland has casinos powered by cryptocurrencies. Metaverse has easy controls and constructor instruments;
• Potential: Many large companies have bought land in metaverse. Celebrities also use Decentraland, which helps the game grow in popularity;
• Coin: Decentraland uses two tokens: MANA and LAND. MANA is a token ERC-20 to be burned, to get LAND – a non-fungible ERC-721 token;
• Using of the coin: MANA can be used to pay for avatars, clothing items, names, tickets to metaverse events, and more. MANA holders can control the development of the Decentraland world through proposals and voting;
• Smart contracts: Ethereum, xDai, Solana, Fusion Network;
• Wallets: Trust Wallet.

2. VeChain

• Exchanges to trade: Binance, Huobi Global and others;
• Year of creation: 2016;
• Team: VeChain was created by Sunny Lou, former CIO of Louis Vuitton China. His merit lies in drawing attention to the ability of the blockchain to solve the problem of transparency. The second co-founder of VeChain is Jay Zhang. He manages the finances of the project and manages the corporate structure. He has extensive experience in finance and risk management;
• The project and its features: VeChain was originally aimed at the development of a logistics supply chain, but over time it turned into a full-fledged platform for dApps (decentralized applications). Now VeChain is one of the oldest blockchain platforms that provides logistics services to various companies, thanks to which they can develop and run their own decentralized applications. Scope of use: food safety, anti-counterfeiting, medical records, carbon tracking;
• Blockchain: VeChain runs on its own VeChainThor blockchain using the Proof-of-Authority (PoA) consensus mechanism;
• What problems does the project solve: VeChain aims to be a blockchain that can be adopted by enterprises. The project aims to reduce transaction costs and be flexible enough to adapt to changing technologies;
• Coins: VeChain has two utility tokens – VET and VTHO;
• Smart contracts: BNB Smart Chain (BEP20);
• Using of the coin: VET is used for transactions and other activities, while VTHO provides fee payments (it is a “gas token”). VET holders can create VTHOs. 70% of VTHOs used to pay for VETs are destroyed;
• Wallets: Atomic Wallet, Trust Wallet.

3. IOTA

• Exchanges to buy the coin: Binance, Huobi Global, KuCoin, Bitfinex;
• Year of creation: 2015;
• Team:David Sönsteboe, Sergey Ivancheglo, Dominik Shiner and Sergey Popov;
• The project and its features: IOTA was created to improve applications related to the Internet of Things (IoT). The IOTA team has developed a unique technology that puts it in a strong position in competition with other similar projects. Instead of a traditional blockchain, IOTA uses Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG – Tangle) technology. This technology makes IOTA one of the fastest and most scalable blockchains ever developed;
• Problems that the project solves: IOTA (MIOTA) is trying to fix some of the problems facing the IoT (Internet of Things) and blockchain sectors. First, it provides developers with an alternative to blockchain networks for programming Dapps. This diversification allows better dissemination of information. Scalability is another important issue that IOTA eliminates. The unique structure of the platform means that the more users join the network, the faster and more stable it becomes;
• Coin: MIOTA – IOTA’s main initial token;
• Using of the coin: accounting for transactions, paying fees and initiating smart contracts. In total, 27 quadrillion IOTA will be issued over the lifetime of the project. By investing in IOTA, users get a lot of benefits. First, no transaction fees. Secondly, the network is very fast, has almost unlimited scalability and is more energy efficient;
• Smart contracts: BNB Smart Chain (BEP20);
• Wallets: MetaMask.

Basic cryptocurrency investment strategies

Let’s consider the main strategies for investing in cryptocurrencies which differ in frequency and terms of transactions, balance of risks and profitability.

• Cost Averaging is a strategy in which investment positions are built by investing equal amounts of money at regular intervals, regardless of the price of the asset or what happens in the financial markets. Intervals can be weekly, monthly, yearly, or whenever it best suits an individual investment plan. The idea of this strategy is that when the price of an asset is high, you can afford to buy a certain amount of coins. When the price drops, you can buy more for the same amount. After the market recovers, you will win: you will have more coins bought at a low price;
• Balanced Portfolio is a strategy in which an investor seeks to balance the risk and return of a portfolio by investing an equal amount of money in high and low risk cryptocurrencies. Thus, high risk coins will give the investor the highest return, and low risk coins will be safer, thus balancing the risk and return of the investment;
• Unbalanced Portfolio – the strategy is to allocate funds in according to the investor’s ideas about the success of a particular cryptocurrency. The disadvantage of this strategy is that the investor may be wrong in his predictions regarding the prospects of the coins;
• Profit Reinvesting – with this strategy, the income received from investments in a particular coin is invested back into cryptocurrencies. Reinvestment works by using the profits made to buy more crypto.

What to pay attention to before buying a cryptocurrency

When choosing a coin, it is important to pay attention to the following parameters:

• The value and demand of the coin in the market: make sure that the cryptocurrency or token has a real use case or that the project solves existing problems in the field of blockchain (improved scalability networks, reduced fees, etc.);
• Authoritative and transparent development: find out about developers and team members. If there is no information or the team is anonymous, there will be less trust in the project. There is no reason for a competent team not to post information about themselves on the company’s website. The authority of the development team, on the contrary, helps attract organizations with a solid reputation in the financial industry to act as reliable investors. In addition, sometimes a condition is set under which investors are returned the invested amount if a certain level of funding is not reached. This acts as a fail-safe in case the project turns out to be underfunded. In general, the team should concern less about money and more about the success of the project;
• Competent and clear white paper: the white paper outlines the risks and opportunities of the company, the proposed ways to use the money raised during the ICO, as well as information about rights coin holder and payout conditions;
  
  

  If the white paper is overly optimistic be aware: overstated goals often lead to disappointment. A complex and technical document (too much jargon, vague explanations, an abundance of incomprehensible terms, etc.) can hide team incompetence by deliberately making the project difficult to understand;
• Feedback and ideas from cryptocurrency forums: BitcoinTalk – the largest forum about cryptocurrencies. This is a place to bring together people who are interested in the technical details of developing digital assets. Each currency has its own discussion thread. This is usually the best way to find the first ICO announcement, find out what the coin has to offer, ask questions to the coin developers and other forum members. Here you can read positive and negative feedback about the project. The abundance of positive reviews should be alarming: evaluate their content, paying attention to the stereotyped and vague ratings;
• Open source and public blockchain: The source code of the coin must be published (you can find this info on Github). The project blockchain must also be public. A private blockchain is contrary to the original vision of a blockchain as a public digital ledger. You can also check if there is a coin on CoinMarketCap (also an indicator of the reliability of the project);
• Transaction processing speed affecting usability: faster transactions are made with altcoins running on the Proof-of-Stake protocol. These are cryptocurrencies like XRP, Solana and others;
• Liquidity: it is important that the coin is traded on the largest crypto exchanges.

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Agatha Redich

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Articles author and website editor. Works with texts for over 12 years. Among Agatha’s clients: Rossman, Zara, Bosch, ING Bank, Lexus and others. Crypto journalist since 2018. She wrote more than a hundred articles about cryptocurrencies and the crypto market. Agatha's professional credo is to reveal complex topics in an accessible and simple way.

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Emil Rabin

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Cryptocurrency expert and financial analyst. Emil has working experience in Bain and KPMG, collaborated with PayPal and Revolut, organized more than 30 educational events about blockchain and cryptocurrencies in Eastern Europe. An expert of the TGDRatings.com portal since 2022.

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