It’s been a strange year for the crypto markets. Everything’s up, and yet there’s still great debate over whether we’re in a bull market, bear market or the no-man’s land that lies between. While commentators argue over market sentiment, astute traders are ignoring the philosophical debates and zeroing in on the top-performing cryptos. They are proving they can make moves regardless of which way the rest of the market is going.
Here are three of the best-performing cryptos you’ll want to track closely this year. While they’ve already enjoyed a bumper 2023, all evidence suggests the best is yet to come.
| BGB-USD | Bitget Token | $0.39 |
| FTM-USD | Fantom | $0.41 |
| OP-USD | Optimism | $2.08 |
Bitget Token (BGB)
The performance of exchange tokens is closely correlated to that of the exchange that issued them. When the parent company is doing well, this tends to be reflected in the price of its native asset.
So it’s proven to be with Bitget, the crypto exchange that has cornered the market for derivatives trading. Its Bitget Token (BGB-USD) token is up 113% for the year, outperforming Bitcoin (BTC-USD) and Ethereum (ETH-USD) in the first quarter as it soared to new all-time highs. And signs point to it having a lot further to run.
BGB entitles holders to a range of benefits within the Bitget ecosystem. A successful influencer program coupled with a regularly evolving array of community promotions has made Bitget successful with the trading public.
As the derivatives exchange increases its market share, and both spot and futures volumes swell, it’s inevitable that BGB will follow suit. Fade Bitget and BGB at your peril. BGB could pull a 2x this year without breaking a sweat, and if the broader market turns bullish, the sky’s the limit.
Fantom (FTM)
Fantom is a blockchain reborn, with its new Fantom Virtual Machine (FVM) representing a giant leap forward in terms of throughput, fee reduction and scalability versus the Ethereum Virtual Machine.
With DeFi wunderkind Andre Cronje back at the helm, Fantom has regained its mojo. No longer just another low-cost EVM chain, Fantom is forging its own identity, complete with native primitives for lending, trading, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and enterprise usage.
The Fantom (FTM-USD) token is up 105% for the year, but these are rookie numbers. FTM is capable of much more. Indeed, it needs to pull more than 5x just to get within touching distance of its previous all-time high. While that feat may prove beyond Fantom’s grasp this year, there is a compelling case for FTM delivering another 2x-3x before 2023 is consigned to the history books.
Astute investors should consider FTM given it’s one of the best-performing cryptos right now.
Optimism (OP)
With the fanfare surrounding Optimism’s (OP-USD) airdrop having long since subsided, it would be easy to assume that the token’s best days are behind it. In reality, the governance token of the rollup-based Ethereum L2 is just getting started.
In addition to Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) creating its Optimism sidechain as Base, a16z is following suit with its own Optimism implementation.
All of this is bullish for OP, which will play an increasingly critical role in Optimism’s governance framework. Should economic activity pick up on Base when it launches, this will filter through to OP and be mirrored in the token’s price. 2023 is proving to be the year of ZK networks and Ethereum rollups, and Optimism is at the heart of this movement.
Up 128% year to date, OP is currently ranked the 67th largest crypto by market cap. Don’t be surprised if it ends the year in the top 20.
On the date of publication, Julia Magas did not hold (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.
