Here is my best cryptocurrency to buy in 2022

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I’m very bullish on Fantom (CRYPTO:FTM) right now. It is extremely volatile, going from $3 a coin to $2 a coin and back again. Over the past few months I have added crypto positions like Solana (CRYPTO:SOL), Ankr (CRYPTO:ANKR) and The Sandbox (CRYPTO:SAND). Fantom is my new crypto, so I am building a position in it. This is one of the reasons why I buy it: my position is too small and I want to add more.

But I also think Fantom is the best buy in crypto right now. It is similar to Solana, in that it has super-fast blockchain technology and can scale in ways that Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) currently cannot. But there are also specific reasons that make Fantom the strongest buy in the crypto space today. So here are four reasons I’m buying the coin in 2022, and why I think you should also consider the coin.

Image source: Getty Images.

1. You want to own the platform technology on which the crypto universe will be based

Ethereum is the great whale of decentralized finance, or DeFi. If you want to stake your crypto and earn high returns, historically Ethereum is the Tier 1 blockchain that provides the platform for all of this to happen. The total value locked on the Ethereum blockchain is $116 billion.

Over the years, people have built decentralized applications (dApps) on the Ethereum platform, and thus the value of this network has become greater and greater. This is why the Ethereum coin has a market capitalization of $295 billion: the network is a validation of the importance of the blockchain.

Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC) has never fulfilled this function; It’s too slow. Now that interest in crypto has exploded, we find that Ethereum is also too slow. It does not have the capacity to perform a large number of transactions – it does not scale. Its blockchain can handle around 15 transactions per second. Although that sounds like a lot, it’s not. As you have more and more people trying to get their transactions on the Ethereum blockchain, there is a traffic jam. And so the fees for performing transactions on the Ethereum network have gone up, and up, and up.

At one point last year, Ethereum fees soared to over $300 per transaction. Compare this ridiculous price with the Fantom and Solana networks, where a transaction costs well under a penny. This is because these chains have a huge capacity for speed. Fantom’s network can handle around 25,000 transactions per second, and Solana is twice as fast. And Fantom can validate a transaction in one second (about 12 times faster than Solana and 60 times faster than Ethereum).

Last year, the crypto value of Fantom and Solana jumped 14,000% and 11,000%, respectively. In my opinion, the crypto market buys these coins thinking that one of these networks will replace Ethereum as the main level 0 blockchain in the crypto universe. We don’t know (yet) which coin will win, and Ethereum is addressing its lack of speed in a long-awaited network upgrade, but there’s reason to think Fantom has an edge.

2. $12 billion worth of DeFi apps are on the Fantom network

Fantom has come out of nowhere to be the third largest dApps network by value of apps using the channel. Ethereum, as shown above, sits at $116 billion, a significant position it has accumulated over the years.

Fantom, however, soars dramatically. By early December, it had $5 billion worth locked into its ecosystem. Now it’s up to $12 billion. There are now 129 protocols built on the Fantom network, twice as many protocols as Solana. It all happened incredibly fast. Fantom went live in December 2019. It is now the third largest crypto ecosystem in the world, measured by the dollar value of its network.

What makes me even more excited about Fantom is how cheap it is compared to other cryptos. The market capitalization of Ethereum is nearly $300 billion. The coin is valued at more than double the value of dApps on its network. Solana’s market capitalization (and its valuation is down substantially) is nearly four times the value of the dApps on its network. Meanwhile, Fantom has a market cap of less than $6 billion. Its coin is trading at half the value of its ecosystem.

3. You cannot buy the coin on Coinbase

Coinbase Global (NASDAQ:COIN) is my favorite coin retailer and is where most of my coins are. But one thing I noticed is how limited the selection is. Although there are thousands of cryptocurrencies, at Coinbase you only have 152 choices. And Fantom is not one of them.

Why doesn’t Coinbase list Fantom yet? Well, the play came out of nowhere last year, like Solana. And all coin dealers have a limited selection. Providing a crypto market is not as simple as listing a stock for sale. Trading a cryptocurrency involves serious technical issues that need to be resolved. Given how limited the selection is compared to the stock market, I suspect it can take several weeks or months for a coin to go live at a dealership.

To purchase the Fantom coin (or The Sandbox), I had to open an account with another reseller, Gemini. When you see these coins with skyrocketing returns (Solana is up 11,000% last year and Fantom is up 14,000%) one of the main reasons is that for much of this run you won’t could not acquire the coin on a major exchange. You still cannot buy Fantom on Coinbase or buy Solana on Gemini.

I suspect Coinbase knows that people abandon it for competitors when it fails to provide high-demand altcoins on its website. And he can and will rectify that by adding Fantom to his list of available parts.

So despite last year’s remarkable surge, it’s still very early in Fantom’s history. Its market cap is less than $6 billion. And the coin has yet to be traded on the largest crypto exchange in the US

4. Fantom is compatible with Ethereum and Solana

My main reason to be bullish on Fantom is that it’s a super-fast network (like Solana). I think one of these two networks will eventually replace Ethereum as the platform for the crypto universe. What gives Fantom an advantage over Solana is that Fantom is compatible with the old guard network, Ethereum. (Solana is not). It is therefore quite easy for Ethereum dApps to switch to this faster (and cheaper) ecosystem.

It might be a good idea to buy a mini-cart of all three coins: Ethereum, Solana and Fantom. Or, like me, you can just buy the super-fast coins where transactions cost well under a penny (Solana and Fantom). But if you were only buying one coin in 2022, I would suggest buying the super-fast coin that facilitates Ethereum network migration: Fantom.

This article represents the opinion of the author, who may disagree with the “official” recommendation position of a high-end consulting service Motley Fool. We are heterogeneous! Challenging an investing thesis — even one of our own — helps us all think critically about investing and make decisions that help us become smarter, happier, and wealthier.

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