Even though the cryptocurrency markets are highly volatile, many crypto investors prefer to HODL their coins for extended periods of time and ignore short-term price movements. For many, this has turned out to be a profitable strategy. However, the difficult part is to choose which is the best crypto to hold long term.
In this article, we’ll be highlighting more than 10 cryptocurrencies that have strong long-term potential.
The best long term cryptocurrency projects
We chose 12 crypto assets that have either already demonstrated a lot of longevity, or are positioned well to take advantage of future cryptocurrency bull markets. Our list covers payments-focused cryptocurrencies, smart contracts platforms, DeFi protocols and much more.
Without further ado, here is our list of the best long term crypto projects:
- Bitcoin — The first and most valuable cryptocurrency
- Ethereum — The leading decentralized smart contract platform
- BNB — BNB Chain’s native asset and key part of the Binance ecosystem
- Monero — The most popular privacy coin
- Polygon — An Ethereum-compatible platform with improved scalability
- Filecoin — A decentralized storage platform that incentivizes participants with crypto
- Cardano — A decentralized smart contracts platform
- Chainlink — Decentralized oracle network
- Tezos — A decentralized smart contracts platform with on-chain governance
- Polkadot — An ecosystem of connected blockchains
- Maker — The DeFi protocol behind the Dai stablecoin
- Solana — A high-performance decentralized smart contracts platform
1. Bitcoin
Bitcoin (BTC) is the first cryptocurrency ever invented, and it has remained the world’s most valuable cryptocurrency ever since its launch in early 2009. Bitcoin was created by someone using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, whose real identity remains a mystery to this day.
The big innovation of Bitcoin is that it is a peer-to-peer digital currency which is extremely secure and censorship-resistant. This is possible thanks to its decentralized design, which allows anyone in the world to help secure the network by running a Bitcoin node. Users can also choose to mine Bitcoin to earn a reward in the form of newly issued BTC coins. The mining process ensures that it’s extremely difficult for anyone to edit the ledger of transaction or double spend their coins.
Bitcoin was initially an obscure project that mostly appealed to cryptography enthusiasts and “cypherpunks”. However, it didn’t take long for a broader audience to catch on to the unique properties of Bitcoin, and a vibrant global market for BTC emerged by 2012 and 2013. BTC continued to grow in the following years, and hit a market capitalization of $1 trillion for the first time ever in 2021.
Why is Bitcoin a good crypto to buy for the long term?
If you think that cryptocurrency has long-term potential, it’s very difficult to argue that Bitcoin won’t continue to be one of the leaders in the space. Bitcoin is stil easily the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, and while it’s feasible that it will be overtaken at some point, it will most likely continue to play an important role.
Bitcoin is an attractive asset to hold long-term thanks to its predictable monetary policy. There is a hard cap on the Bitcoin supply—only 21 million BTC will ever be created. In addition, the amount of new BTC flowing onto the market can be estimated very accurately thanks to mining difficulty adjustments and Bitcoin halvings. As a result, many investors view Bitcoin as sound money, which is likely to provide steady demand and help BTC recover from its bear market lows.
Of course, the Bitcoin protocol has also demonstrated a lot of resilience, and has been securing large amounts of wealth for well over a decade. BTC has delivered substantial profits to long-term holders. With each passing year, confidence in Bitcoin will increase if the protocol continues to perform as expected. This makes BTC one of the best long term crypto investments for 2023 and beyond.
2. Ethereum
Ethereum (ETH) is a cryptocurrency that was released in 2014 and revolutionized the crypto space by introducing smart contract functionality, allowing developers to create decentralized applications on top of the network.
Ethereum goes beyond the simple transaction functionality offered by Bitcoin. It serves as a platform for cryptocurrency trading platforms, financial services, non-fungible token marketplaces, decentralized autonomous organizations and other types of DApps that run in a completely trustless manner. All operations are automated through the use of smart contracts.
One of the reasons why Ethereum initially got popular is that it allows users to create custom tokens that are transacted on the Ethereum blockchain similarly to ETH. Projects quickly realized that this could be used to raise capital and we saw a wave of Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) that reached fever pitch in 2017. While ICOs mostly went out of style in the following years, there’s still many projects on Ethereum that are issuing their own tokens and building fascinating applications.
Since September 2022, Ethereum is using a Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism, which makes it a lot more environmentally-friendly than Bitcoin.
Why is Ethereum a good crypto to buy for the long term?
Even though there are countless “Ethereum killers” looking to take Ethereum’s crown, Ethereum remains the undisputed king of the smart contracts space. With several improvements in the pipeline, it’s likely that Ethereum will remain the leader in this sector. While Ethereum is currently expensive to use because of its high transaction fees, future upgrades such as sharding will make it much cheaper (and faster) to use.
A common criticism of ETH as an investment has been that it doesn’t have a hard cap on its supply. The shift to Proof-of-Stake, combined with EIP-1559, have contributed to making ETH a much more attractive asset to hold for the long term.
This is because the Ethereum protocol needs to issue fewer ETH tokens to reward staking validators compared to the amount it had to issue to reward miners. On top of that, EIP-1559 is burning the base transaction fees for all transactions, so the growth of the ETH supply has slowed down a lot and could even become deflationary. With this in mind, it’s not hard to see why ETH could be the best crypto for long term investors.
3. BNB
BNB (BNB) is a cryptocurrency that was initially issued in 2017 by the Binance cryptocurrency exchange on the Ethereum network. In 2019, BNB was migrated over to its own blockchain called Binance Chain, where it serves as the native asset—similar to the role ETH plays on Ethereum. BNB is used widely in the Binance ecosystem, providing discounted transaction fees for traders on Binance and allowing them to access special features like Binance Launchpad token sales.
In 2020, Binance launched Binance Smart Chain, an EVM-compatible blockchain platform that extended the functionality of Binance Chain by adding smart contracts with basically the same functionality as Ethereum. A simple way of describing the platform is that it’s a more centralized version of Ethereum that offers better performance (faster and cheaper transactions).
Thanks to its low transaction costs, Binance Smart Chain gained huge traction in the 2021 cryptocurrency bull market. In February 2022, Binance rebranded BNB and its associated blockchain platforms to better reflect the fact that an independent ecosystem has grown around BNB:
- Binance Coin (BNB) => BNB (BNB)
- Binance Chain => BNB Beacon Chain
- Binance Smart Chain => BNB Smart Chain
Why is BNB a good crypto to buy for the long term?
Simply put, BNB is the biggest crypto asset at the moment that isn’t Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Tether. The BNB Chain ecosystem is seeing impressive amounts of usage, and there’s also a lot of demand for BNB coming from users of the Binance cryptocurrency exchange.
In the 2022 cryptocurrency bear market, Binance has solidified its position at the top of the crypto exchange industry. Its position became even stronger after FTX, one of Binance’s biggest rivals, collapsed in dramatic fashion.
Even though Binance has made an effort to create some distance between the business and the BNB cryptocurrency, there’s still a lot of correlation between the two. Holders of the BNB cryptocurrency should be aware that if there’s any issues with Binance as a business, the value of BNB will also likely take a hit as well.
4. Monero
Monero (XMR) is a privacy-focused cryptocurrency that launched in 2014. It was originally a fork of the Bytecoin cryptocurrency, but was enhanced over the years with new features that make it a unique contender in the crypto market.
Monero utilizes technologies such as RingCT, Stealth Addresses and Ring Signatures to make it virtually impossible to trace the amounts and addresses involved in any given transaction, while still making it possible to demonstrate that nobody is cheating the protocol by spending coins they don’t have.
Monero is secured through a Proof-of-Work consensus algorithm that’s optimized for widespread participation. For example, while Bitcoin can only be profitably mined with specialized ASIC hardware, Monero can be mined with consumer-grade CPUs and GPUs. This ensures that the network of Monero miners is large and diverse in terms of geographic distribution, making the network difficult to compromise.
Monero’s strong privacy features have resulted in some controversy, as XMR has gained considerable traction for illicit uses such as darknet markets. However, there are certainly also a lot of legitimate reasons why users would want to protect their privacy and Monero can be a powerful tool for enhancing freedom.
Why is Monero a good crypto to buy for the long term?
Monero is dominating the privacy coin sector, and has a very active community of dedicated users. The project has been going strong since 2014, and Monero is regularly updated with new features that improve its privacy and security.
XMR’s track record suggests that it’s going to be around for a long time—it has a straightforward use-case of facilitating private and secure transactions, at which it excels. It’s likely that Monero will stay relevant in the future regardless of cryptocurrency industry trends.
One of the biggest risks to watch out for when it comes to Monero is regulatory risk. In some jurisdictions such as Japan, regulators have been pressuring cryptocurrency exchanges to delist privacy-focused cryptocurrencies such as Monero and Zcash.
5. Polygon
Polygon (MATIC) is a Proof-of-Stake blockchain platform that’s compatible with Ethereum. It has emerged as one of the most popular Ethereum alternatives after Ethereum started suffering from high transaction fees. Polygon’s native asset is called MATIC, and it is used for key operations on the network like staking and paying transaction fees. Polygon is one of the first Ethereum scaling platforms to gain significant adoption, which helped the team launch a number of initiatives to further accelerate growth.
Developers on Polygon can build any type of decentralized application that would also be possible to build on Ethereum, and they can also benefit from the suite of development tools that are available to Ethereum developers. This has made Polygon a very popular option for projects that want to build within the Ethereum framework, but require improved scalability. Polygon has reached around 2.7 million monthly active users, showin impressive product-market fit.
Why is Polygon a good crypto to buy for the long term?
The Polygon team has been very successful in securing partnerships with mainstream brands including the likes of Reddit, Starbucks, DraftKings and Robinhood. With these partnerships, Polygon could be a big winner if blockchain-based applications become popular in the mainstream. Reddit’s Collectible Avatars product, which uses NFTs on the Polygon blockchain, has already achieved impressive success.
Polygon’s high activity in the bear market is encouraging, as it suggests the project has a long-term vision that doesn’t depend on current market conditions.
There is a risk Polygon could become redundant in the future if Ethereum can achieve major scalability gains through upgrades like sharding. To be fair, the Polygon team has plenty of other aces up its sleeve in addition to the Polygon PoS blockchain platform.
6. Filecoin
Filecoin (FIL) is a decentralized storage project that conducted an ICO in 2017 and launched their mainnet in October 2020. Filecoin had one of the biggest ICOs of all time, as the team raised around $200 million in funding.
Filecoin is a decentralized network that allows users to securely store data at competitive prices. It utilizes cryptographic proofs to ensure the availability and immutability of data stored on the network. The FIL cryptocurrency is implemented as an incentive mechanism for Filecoin miners, who are rewarded with FIL. Meanwhile, FIL is also used to pay for the storage and retrieval of data. As of December 2022, the Filecoin network stores 420 PiB (pebibytes) of data.
Filecoin is built on top of the IPFS (InterPlanetary File Storage) decentralized file storage protocol, and provides an incentive mechanism for users to store data for others.
Why is Filecoin a good crypto to buy for the long term?
The Filecoin network provides an unique storage option that eliminates reliance on centralized cloud storage providers. It also provides an extremely competitive marketplace for storage, which ultimately results in better prices for consumers.
As people become more comfortable with using crypto assets and decentralized protocols, solutions like Filecoin could see increased adoption as well and become a crucial part of web3 infrastructure. For example, the Filecoin network can be used to store media associated with NFTs, ensuring that it remains available and unchanged for a long period of time.
If demand for decentralized storage grows in the future, Filecoin could certainly be one of the next cryptocurrencies to explode.
7. Cardano
Cardano (ADA) is a blockchain project that launched in 2017 following an initial coin offering. It operates through a Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism, and is integrating smart contracts functionality to support decentralized applications like DEXes. The Cardano blockchain also supports custom tokens, which use the same architecture as the network’s native asset ADA.
The Cardano project consists of three main organizations: IOHK, which leads the project’s technical development, the Cardano Foundation, which promotes the adoption of Cardano, and Emurgo, which is focused on working with businesses.
Cardano uses the EUTXO (Extended Unspent Transaction Output) model, in contrast to the account model used by Ethereum. According to Cardano developers, this allows Cardano to offer improved scalability and privacy, as well as simpler transaction logic that makes it easier to verify transactions.
Why is Cardano a good crypto to buy for the long term?
Cardano is one of the strongest contenders in the smart contracts space. The Cardano blockchain is steadily receiving upgrades improving its scalability and smart contracts capabilities, which is contributing to the the formation of a decentralized application system on Cardano.
Even though ADA is one of the most valuable crypto assets on the market today, the adoption of the Cardano blockchain has progressed slowly. However, as the platform’s smart contract functionality evolves further, we will likely see a growing number of interesting decentralized applications launching on the platform.
The project is known for its methodical approach to development, which helps Cardano avoid the pitfalls encountered by more rushed projects. However, it also means that the Cardano ecosystem has been slow to capitalize on important trends such as DeFi and NFTs.
8. Chainlink
Chainlink (LINK) is a decentralized oracle network that allows blockchains to access reliable data outside of the blockchain. The project aims to address the “oracle problem” faced by blockchains—by reliably connecting blockchains to the “outside world”, Chainlink unlocks a wide range of use cases that wouldn’t be possible with on-chain data alone.
Chainlink is already the most widely used oracle service in the decentralized finance sector, and is also gaining traction in the NFT and crypto gaming sectors. For example, a decentralized finance protocol could leverage the Chainlink network to feed data about crypto prices on centralized exchanges (which function off-chain) to its smart contracts. NFT projects can utilize Chainlink for provable randomness, which establishes trust in the fairness of NFT minting and distribution.
Why is Chainlink a good crypto to buy for the long term?
Chainlink already plays a very important role in the crypto ecosystem, as it’s used by a host of decentralized applications on many different blockchains. This includes major projects such as Aave, Synthetic, Compound, Ethereum Name Service and Trader Joe.
The Chainlink network is currently transitioning towards its Economics 2.0 phase, which includes LINK staking, as well as the BUILD and SCALE programs that are designed to grow the Chainlink ecosystem and make the network more accessible for developers. With this in mind, it’s easy to see that Chainlink has some serious potential over the long term.
The Chainlink network can also be utilized for proof of reserves, which is becoming extremely relevant in the cryptocurrency industry after the FTX exchange was revealed to be secretly insolvent, losing billions of dollars worth of customer funds.
9. Tezos
Tezos (XTZ) is a Proof-of-Stake blockchain platform with smart contracts functionality. One of the defining features of Tezos is its on-chain governance process, which allows the community of validators to propose and approve upgrades to the Tezos blockchain. A very interesting aspect of Tezos is that the network does not need to undergo a hard fork in order to implement upgrades.
The Tezos blockchain supports a smart contracts language called Michelson. Developers can also access tools that enable Tezos smart contract development in the far more popular programming languages Python and Go.
The Tezos mainnet was launched in September 2018. The project conducted one of the most successful ICOs of all time, raising approximately $232 million. The project received some negative press in its early days due to a dispute between former Tezos Foundation president Johann Gevers on one side and Tezos founders Kathleen Breitman and Arthur Breitman on the other side. However, the dispute has since been settled in court and Tezos has established itself as a well-respected project in the crypto community.
Why is Tezos a good crypto to buy for the long term?
Tezos has found traction within the art community and established itself as a popular platform for NFTs. The blockchain of course also supports other cases such as decentralized finance, but adoption has been slower on that side.
We can also expect Tezos to be able to adopt new technologies rapidly thanks to its on-chain governance mechanism. As of December 2022, the Tezos blockchain has already received 12 upgrades, helping it stay up to date with cutting-edge developments.
Tezos will be interesting to follow in the long term as it’s a unique competitor in the smart contracts sector. While many projects are essentially copying Ethereum, Tezos offers an arguably better governance model and a smart contract integration with unique strengths. However, it remains to be seen if Tezos will be able achieve strong adoption outside of the NFT sector.
10. Polkadot
Polkadot (DOT) is a blockchain platform that’s specialized to offer interoperability between different blockchains. The Polkadot network consists of the Relay Chain and many different parachains that are interconnected through the Relay Chain and benefit from its security. Parachains are blockchains built using the Substrate framework, and they can be fine-tuned for specific use cases.
There is a limited number of parachain slots available, so projects that want to launch a parachain and connect it to the Relay Chain need to win a parachain slot auction. Some examples of parachains on Polkadot include Moonbeam, Acala, Astar, and Centrifuge.
Projects can take advantage of crowdloans, in which DOT holders can temporarily loan their DOT to their project of choice to help them win the auction. The loaned DOT is automatically released once the project’s parachain lease expires. Typically, projects will reward crowdloan participants with the native tokens of their own parachains.
The Polkadot project was founded by Gavin Wood, a computer scientist that was also one of the founders of Ethereum. The Polkadot mainnet launched in May 2020, and the parachain functionality was launched in December 2021.
Why is Polkadot a good crypto to buy for the long term?
Polkadot is another unique competitor in the smart contracts sector, and DOT has been able to maintain its spot as one of the 20 largest crypto assets by market capitalization. The platform’s parachain functionality provides a lot of room for growth, as it can accommodate a wide range of projects thanks to the customizability of parachains.
Essentially, this means that Polkadot could be positioned well to capitalize on any trends that emerge in the crypto and blockchain space.
The DOT token has dropped by around 90% since its all-time high, and is trading around its all-time lows as of December 2022, which could mean that there’s a solid opportunity to accumulate a DOT position if you believe in the long-term potential of Polkadot.
11. Maker
Maker (MKR) is a decentralized finance protocol on the Ethereum blockchain that issues and manages Dai, a decentralized stablecoin pegged to the US dollar. Users that hold assets which are supported as collateral (for example ETH) can lock their coins into Maker’s smart contracts in order to issue Dai.
The system is overcollateralized—in order to mint Dai, users need to provide collateral that exceeds the value of the minted Dai, and users are required to monitor the value of their collateral in order to avoid liquidation.
The MKR token is used as the governance token for the MakerDAO, a decentralized autonomous organization that oversees the Maker protocol.
MakerDAO was founded in 2014 by Rune Christensen, and the Dai stablecoin was launched in late 2017. Initially, the Maker protocol only supported ETH as collateral. With the launch of Multi-Collateral Dai in 2019, it also became possible to use other forms of collateral. Today, Dai is backed by a diverse range of assets, including ETH, (wrapped) BTC, USDC, USDP, and many others.
Why is Maker a good crypto to buy for the long term?
Maker is one of the earliest participants in the decentralized finance space, and the MakerDAO community has demonstrated an impressive ability to maintain the stability of Dai and the Maker protocol in the face of the highly volatile and upredictable cryptocurrency market.
Like most other crypto assets, the value of the MKR token dropped substantially during the 2022 crypto bear market. However, if you believe in the long-term potential of decentralized finance, MKR is definitely worth considering as the Dai stablecoin is one of the pillars of Ethereum’s DeFi ecosystem.
12. Solana
Solana is a high-performance blockchain platform with smart contract capabilities. After launching its mainnet in 2020, Solana has emerged as one of the most credible competitors to Ethereum in the smart contracts sector. Solana uses a Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism combined with innovations like Proof-of-History, which allow the blockchain to handle thousands of transactions per second while keeping costs low for users.
Solana is one of the most popular blockchains today and one of the most credible competitors to Ethereum. The high-performance platform is seeing adoption in practically all sectors, ranging from DeFi to NFTs and blockchain-powered gaming.
Why is Solana a good crypto to buy for the long term?
Solana is one of the strongest layer 1 blockchain projects in terms of technology. The project is also making a strong push into the mobile sector with the Solana Mobile Stack (SMS) and the upcoming launch of Saga, a flagship mobile phone with blockchain-friendly features. If blockchain technology is to reach widespread adoption, mobile devices are likely to play a very important role. It will also require strong scalability, which is definitely an area where Solana delivers.
However, users need to be aware of the concerns regarding Solana’s reliability, as the network has suffered multiple outages which made it temporarily unavailable. The Solana ecosystem’s reputation was also negatively impacted by the collapse of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, which was a very prominent backer of Solana.
The bottom line—the best long term crypto investments for 2023 and beyond
| Native asset | Launched in | Description | Market cap* | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bitcoin | BTC | 2009 | Decentralized peer-to-peer digital currency | $346.6 billion |
| Ethereum | ETH | 2014 | Decentralized platform for smart contracts | $162.5 billion |
| BNB | BNB | 2017 | Native asset of BNB Chain ecosystem, used prominently on the Binance crypto exchange | $43.4 billion |
| Monero | XMR | 2014 | Privacy-focused cryptocurrency | $2.7 billion |
| Polygon | MATIC | 2020 | Ethereum-compatible smart contracts platform with improved scalability | $7.4 billion |
| Filecoin | FIL | 2020 | Decentralized storage platform | $1.4 billion |
| Cardano | ADA | 2017 | Decentralized platform for smart contracts | $10.5 billion |
| Tezos | XTZ | 2018 | Decentralized smart contracts platform with on-chain governance | $890 million |
| Chainlink | LINK | 2019 | Decentralized oracle network | $3.5 billion |
| Polkadot | DOT | 2020 | Interoperability-focused decentralized platform for smart contracts | $5.2 billion |
| Maker | MKR | 2017 | Decentralized finance protocol that issues and manages the Dai stablecoins | $588 million |
| Solana | SOL | 2020 | High-performance decentralized platform for smart contracts | $5.1 billion |
Hopefully, this article helped you identify cryptocurrency projects with long-term potential, and gave you some ideas about which crypto assets are worthy of having a spot in your portfolio over the long term. The projects we featured are likely to display a lot of resilience and continue building regardless of what’s happening in the unpredictable cryptocurrency markets.
On the other side of the coin, we have high risk cryptocurrencies like meme coins, which can sometimes go on explosive rallies but don’t have much fundamental value behind them.
It’s important to keep in mind that cryptocurrencies are a highly speculative asset class, and there’s no guarantee that you will see gains even if you hold your crypto for a long period of time. Always carefully consider your financial situation before purchasing any cryptocurrency, and don’t invest more than you are willing to lose.
Disclaimer: The content of this article should not be considered as investment advice. Always do your own research before deciding to buy, sell or transfer any crypto assets.
