Key Insights:
Among large caps, Ethereum(ETH) is the most potential candidate for a larger gain in an alt season and is also the most undervalued large-cap crypto.
Shiba Inu(SHIB) seems the next leader among memecoins with a strong ecosystem, a defi-enabled layer 2 blockchains, and innovative marketing.
Among DeFi coins, Lido(LDO) comes out as a market dominator, if not a winner. The protocol hosts approximately 28.5% of all the staked Ethereum.
Among Layer-1 chains, Solana(SOL) is the toughest competitor to all others. The blockchain thrives on a high quality blockchain, high defi growth, high memecoin growth and a well-developed ecosystem.
Finally, the best among layer-2 coins turns out to be Polygon(POL) which processes an average of 2.5 million transactions per day.
Though Ethereum has seen some big corrections from $4000 in May 2024 to $2150 in September of the same year, it is still the uncontested king among all altcoins.
Ethereum has one of the biggest ecosystem in terms of DeFi with on-chain TVL of more than $80 billion. Further, it hosts more than 400 dapps, 50 million smart contracts and over 90 million addresses. The king of altcoins (ETH) is also 3.5 times larger than BNB, its nearest competitor in terms of market cap.
Further, if any rally takes place in late 2024, ETH will be the highest gainer in terms of market cap among all its competitors. One such rally is expected around later this month when the US Fed is expected to cut the federal interest rates.
Shiba Inu could emerge as the next memecoin leader because of its ability to innovate and the concrete steps taken by the team in the recent past.
After successfully launching its own blockchain, Shibarium, the crypto has added more than 1.8 million users on its new chain, along with 4.1 million transactions by the end of its first year.
Shiba Inu also has a defi ecosystem of its own where users can stake Shiba Inu for high rewards.
Another reason for expecting Shiba Inu to dominate the memecoin market is the laggardness in Dogecoin's price. The latter has erased most of its 2024 gains and appears to be highly bearish among these market corrections.
Not so surprisingly, Lido has emerged as the top DeFi coin with a market dominance of 28.5% in ETH staking. Out of the 34.5 million ETH staked so far, Lido has an astonishing contribution of over 9.77 million ETH.
This is far greater than the second most staked pool, Rocketpool, which is 4x smaller than Lido.
Further, its own coin LidoDAO is popular because it grants a access to control Lido's operations in a very democratic way.
In the future, when the dust in the liquid restaking market settles, Lido could emerge as the top coin in that space.
Solana is soon emerging as an Ethereum killer and might soon take over BNB as the third-largest L-1 chain.
Solana is technically, fundamentally, and logically in a very sweet growth phase.
On technical charts, its price is highly bullish and seldom corrects more than the markets. Further, Solana has strongly maintained its price above its mull market support level of $125 which itself is a great feat.
On a fundamental level, Solana has a high quality blockchain which unlike the last year, seldom fails or halts. The blockchain has a theoretical speed of 65000 transactions per second (TPS) but usually does around 4000 TPS. Further, the presence of a large memecoin market on Solana's chain helps it accrue over $6 million in monthly revenue (Sept 2024).
Logically, it is a easy to use blockchain, with a $5.8 billion memecoin market and $4.7 billion TVL.
All of these make Solana, the favorite choice among layer-1 chains.
Polygon might emerge as the dark horse in the crypto markets. Besides top institutional interest, the Polygon blockchain is based on Ethereum that could help dapps and defi protocols move on its chain with relative ease.
Further, the blockchain processes an impressive 2.5 million transactions per day, compared to other chains like Arbitrum, which processes 1.2 million per day, and Optimism, which processes around 500k per day. The only threat it might have from a competitor is from Base, which processes 4.5 million daily transactions, noted at press time.
The blockchain also earns around 1.3 million POL in monthly revenue, just from blockchain fees.
Finally, since Polygon is highly undervalued, we believe it could be one of the top gainers during an altcoin rally.
Disclaimer: Voice of Crypto aims to deliver accurate and up-to-date information but will not be responsible for any missing facts or inaccurate information. Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile financial assets, so research and make your own financial decisions.