As we potentially approach the start of a new “altcoin season” in the next couple of months, the opportunity for finding overlooked gems before they shoot to the moon could be huge.
What exactly is altcoin season? It’s when Bitcoin (BTC-USD) dominance starts to decline as money flows out of Bitcoin and into high-potential altcoins. This happens after Bitcoin goes through a halving and possible correction period, and investors start looking for the next shiny object with big upside. And with Bitcoin’s halving happening fairly soon, the ingredients for another altseason seem to be in place.
Obscure altcoins can deliver once-in-a-lifetime, 100x gains over a short timeframe. But finding these winners involves a lot of research and luck (getting in early before bandwagon investors jump aboard). While risky, having a small slice of one’s portfolio dedicated to carefully-selected moonshot altcoins could set you up nicely if altseason kicks into high gear.
Many crypto investors believe the current bull market cycle will be the last “supercycle” where we see such extreme events in the crypto markets. If so, the chance to get into promising projects at dirt-cheap prices could be fading. With that said, let’s take a look at three cryptos to buy before the super cycle begins!
Alephium (ALPH-USD)
As decentralized finance projects gather momentum, a bifurcation is building among certain scalability and efficiency-focused proejcts. Leading blockchains like Ethereum (ETH-USD) continue to wrestle with congestion, high fees, and bottlenecks that inhibit certain applications. This is where Alephium (ALPH-USD) comes into play. It is a sharded layer-1 blockchain.
What sets Alephium apart is its unique stateful UTXO model, which matches Ethereum’s account-based programmability, while improving security. More impressively, Alephium utilizes a novel Proof-of-Less-Work consensus, dynamically calibrating mining difficulty to reduce energy consumption compared to other proof-of-work chains like Bitcoin.
Alephium has pulled back from $3.80 to $3.30 per token, and is starting to make a turnaround. Often compared to Kaspa (KAS-USD), I believe Alephium actually retains even better upside potential, with a current market cap of $244 million against Kaspa’s $3.2 billion valuation.
Sonorus (SNS-USD)
Sonorus (SNS-USD) is a project integrating AI and blockchain technology to support music discovery. This project touts features like AI-generated compositions and decentralized voting on content. Accordingly, Sonorus spans these techs through a model called TrendFi – fusing music trends with DeFi incentives.
With a micro-cap valuation of only $7 million, Sonorus is definitely a high-risk bet. The crypto has pulled back from its recent peak in a big way. But I think this only improves the project’s upside potential for those looking for picks with massive upside ahead.
My only hesitation with this project lies with its tokenomics. Sonora’s has a massive 1 billion max supply of tokens, and only 60 million are currently circulating. While full dilution won’t materialize overnight, increased token inflation over time could mute gains for longer-term investors. So, this token may be more of a trade for those seeking 100X gains.
Unizen (ZCX-USD)
Unizen (ZCX-USD) offers a unified interface for accessing decentralized and centralized exchange liquidity. Through modules connecting various products and aggregating trades, Unizen allows seamless asset acquisition at optimal rates across liquidity pools. The project’s CeFi component integrates Binance Cloud, permitting trades that leverage Binance’s shared order books.
With intensifying crypto trading volume ahead, ZCX seems attractively-positioned with a still-tiny $225 million market cap and only 69% of its supply in circulation. This should limit dilution concerns. My one hesitation revolves around extensive Binance dependence, although the dominance of Binance’s order book does afford this project great stability.
Crypto Real Estate (CRE-USD)
Crypto Real Estate (CRE-USD) is undoubtedly a high-risk, high-reward altcoin play with its minuscule $3 million market cap as of writing. But for the bold speculators out there, it offers an intriguing concept – blending real estate and blockchain technology. Some of CRE’s key utilities include a crypto hotel allowing bookings and payments via CRE tokens, as well as a marketplace app connecting real estate buyers and sellers.
This marketplace aims to facilitate property listings and transactions using CRE as the medium of exchange. Companies pay CRE tokens to advertise listings, while users can browse and potentially acquire properties for free using the crypto. Crypto Real Estate also has ambitious plans to expand its mobile app, launch staking, partner with other real estate projects, and ramp up marketing efforts. If it can gain traction, CRE could emerge as a leading real-world asset (RWA) crypto play.
I can’t stress enough that this is an extremely speculative bet, given its tiny market cap and unproven use cases so far. But this concept is one I think could catch on, given its viability as a key use case.
Over The Reality (OVR-USD)
Over The Reality (OVR-USD) is a spatial computing crypto project that has piqued my interest lately. The project aims to create a digital layer covering the entire world, which is certainly an ambitious vision. With the recent launch of Apple’s Vision Pro reigniting hype around virtual/augmented reality and the metaverse, Over the Reality finds itself in a rather unique niche that could pay off handsomely.
Over the Reality is essentially the first spatial computing crypto I’ve encountered. And it already boasts some impressive metrics – 1.2 million app downloads, 875,000 digital plots sold, and support for Apple’s new headset. The project is slowly but steadily mapping the world, with over 15 million photos and 30,000 3D mappings users can explore. It also incentivizes this crowdsourced mapping through a novel MAP2Earn program.
Perhaps most intriguingly, Over the Reality is bringing photorealistic avatars to the metaverse, allowing users to simply take a selfie and teleport themselves into virtual events from anywhere.
With a modest $23 million valuation as I write this, I believe OVRhas incredible multibagger potential if it continues executing on its roadmap. The spatial computing domain is still largely untapped, so an early mover like Over the Reality could be positioned for exponential growth in the coming years.
zKML (ZKML-USD)
zKML (ZKML-USD) is a cybersecurity-focused crypto project that has caught my eye, despite its recent downtrend. To be fair, the entire altcoin market has taken a breather lately, so zKML’s 46% drawdown from its highs isn’t too surprising. But with a modest $48 million market cap, this privacy-focused layer 1 could see a big swing to the upside when bullish momentum returns in this sector.
zKML leverages cutting-edge cryptography like “zero-knowledge proofs, multi-party computation, and homomorphic encryption” to enable secure, anonymous blockchain applications and transactions. The project also offers zKOS operating systems and Mobile-zKOS for secure communication on mobile devices, including a privacy router for confidential CBDC transactions. The integration of “Snarky” technology also makes it possible to perform confidential transactions on this blockchain.
While zKML’s underlying tech is certainly impressive, I’m most compelled by this token’s risk/reward profile. With a relatively small market cap, and so much robust utility, zKML could deliver outsized gains for risk-tolerant investors if its ecosystem continues to expand.
OctaSpace (OCTA-USD)
OctaSpace (OCTA-USD) provides a framework for a distributed cloud ecosystem, incentivizing individuals to rent out their spare computing resources.
The project’s roadmap outlines ambitious plans to develop various services like a GPU marketplace, VPNs, distributed rendering, and file sharing. This makes OctaSpace a potential one-stop hub for decentralized cloud utilities down the road. And while it’s still in the very early innings of its development, OctaSpace offers exposure to this rapidly-emerging domain at just a $38 million valuation.
To put that number into perspective, a comparable project like Filecoin (FIL-USD) already commands a market cap exceeding $4.7 billion. So, if OctaSpace can execute and gain similar traction, assigning even a fraction of Filecoin’s multiple could translate to significant upside from current levels. Of course, that’s an oversimplified view, but it highlights the potential for OctaSpace to surge much higher long-term if it sees robust adoption.
Small, low-volume cryptos
On Low-Capitalization and Low-Volume Cryptocurrencies: InvestorPlace does not regularly publish commentary about cryptocurrencies that have a market capitalization less than $100 million or trade with volume less than $100,000 each day. That’s because these “penny cryptos” are frequently the playground for scam artists and market manipulators. When we do publish commentary on a low-volume crypto that may be affected by our commentary, we ask that InvestorPlace.com’s writers disclose this fact and warn readers of the risks.
Read More: How to Avoid Popular Cryptocurrency Scams
On the date of publication, Omor Ibne Ehsan 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.
