There’s no shortage of under-the-radar cryptos this year, as the appreciation of the broader crypto market was mostly driven by the top projects. In my opinion, this is healthy as it implies that more people realize the risks of investing in new projects.
However, there are exceptions among new projects. Some hidden gems exist outside of the big caps that continue to stay under the radar. If you’re a risk taker looking for more upside, these investments can deliver multibagger returns if they start getting recognition. Of course, caution is advised as they can also be easily manipulated and carry high risk-reward ratios. For this reason, I also recommend against putting in a meaningful amount of money and encourage individuals to invest accordingly.
That said, here are the three top under-the-radar cryptos:
Nano (XNO-USD)
Nano (XNO-USD) supports fast, feeless and eco-friendly. In simple terms, Nano uses a block-lattice data structure that allows wallet accounts to have their own blockchain. This gives the network infinite scalability. It also uses a unique system for verifying transactions and restricting any attacks on the network. As the website states:
“…Nano uses a unique consensus mechanism called Open Representative Voting (ORV). In ORV, user-selected representative nodes vote on each transaction, and every node (representative or not) independently cements each transaction after seeing enough representative votes to achieve quorum. Since Nano transactions are processed individually and asynchronously, deterministic finality (irreversible, full-settlement) is achieved in a short period of time, typically less than 1 second…”
Thus, one could argue that Nano is similar to Bitcoin Cash (BCH-USD), which recently experienced a significant price surge. I believe it could potentially follow in Bitcoin Cash’s footsteps, as it offers an even faster and cheaper alternative for peer-to-peer payments.
Storj (STORJ-USD)
Storj (STORJ-USD) is a blockchain-based cloud storage platform that offers censorship-resistant data storage solutions at a comparatively discounted rate. Simply put, Storj is a peer-to-peer marketplace where users can rent each other’s unused cloud storage space. Further, users can then encrypt their data to be distributed across a network of storage nodes to provide extra privacy and data availability. Once blockchain cloud storage becomes more tested, I believe Storj will expand into institutional storage as well.
The caveat is that Storj is often overshadowed by its bigger peer, Filecoin (FIL-USD). While Filecoin has a larger market cap and trading volume, I believe Storj is a better long term investment. The biggest drawback is Filecoin’s high inflation rate, currently around 80% annually. In contrast, Storj has minimal inflation.
As I’ve said before, blockchain cloud storage needs more time to start being widely adopted. Storj’s low inflation makes it one of my top under-the-radar cryptos in this sector. As more investors realize this, I believe Storj can swipe away much of the capital flowing into Filecoin.
Aleph Zero (AZERO-USD)
Aleph Zero (AZERO-USD) is a privacy-enhancing, proof-of-stake public blockchain with instant finality. It is built on a novel directed acyclic graph (DAG)-based consensus protocol that has been peer-reviewed and presented at an ACM conference.
The project claims to have solved the “scalability trilemma,” which refers to the trade-off between security, scalability and decentralization in blockchain design. Indeed, it boasts high throughput and low latency and has privacy features based on secure multi-party computation (sMPC) and zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP). However, it has one part of that triangle lacking, which I will discuss later.
Simply explained, Aleph Zero is full of potential and utility and could emerge as the next Ethereum (ETH-USD) like Solana (SOL-USD) did in the last bull run. Solana is another high-performance blockchain platform that gained tremendous popularity and recognition during the crypto bull run in 2021.
Aleph Zero has very similar properties, and I think it could potentially replicate Solana’s success. Aleph also has some unique features that set it apart, such as its interoperability with other blockchains. One caveat is that it does not have a high level of decentralization. Aleph Zero currently has only 125 “era” validators on its network, compared to over 853,000 on Ethereum 2.0. That’s why, unfortunately, Aleph Zero does not truly solve the scalability trilemma.
Nevertheless, Aleph Zero could still deliver impressive returns if its pros start to outweigh this caveat in the eyes of the market. I believe that’s the case, but time will tell.
On the date of publication, Omor Ibne Ehsan had a LONG position in XNO. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.
