Bitcoin Is Up 120%, Here Are 4 Other Cryptos To Buy, HODL Or Sell

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Nina Bambysheva Senior Reporter, Forbes Money & Markets
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Steven Ehrlich Director, Forbes Digital Assets
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For crypto markets, it is the best of times and the worst of times. On Tuesday, the world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance, pleaded guilty to criminal charges and will pay a record $4.3 billion fine to the U.S. Department of Justice and the CFTC. Its billionaire founder Changpeng Zhao agreed to step down as CEO. “Using new technology to break the law does not make you a disruptor. It makes you a criminal,” warned United States Attorney General Merrick Garland. At the same time, crypto’s flagship currency, bitcoin, is up 120% in 2023 and the entire crypto market capitalization has recovered more than $800 billion since the collapse of the FTX crypto exchange and the arrest of its now-convicted founder Sam Bankman-Fried.

Investors brave enough to speculate in crypto markets are understandably concerned over its future. Is the sector’s long winter finally over? Or are more dark days ahead as the regulatory crackdown continues? Rather than attempt to make a broad crypto market call, Forbes decided to weigh in on five bellwether cryptos.

Buy Bitcoin (BTC)

The original crypto asset has been waiting more than ten years for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to allow it to trade under an ETF wrapper. More than 30 applications have been filed and then either rejected or withdrawn, with the SEC arguing each time that the underlying market for bitcoin is too prone to fraud and manipulation. Bitcoin futures ETFs like ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF, which are regulated by the CFTC, have been around since October 2021. The good news is that SEC approval for a spot bitcoin ETF may finally be coming as soon as January. More than a dozen asset managers, including industry leader BlackRock, have applications pending for spot bitcoin funds, effectively putting their reputations behind the asset. The introduction of bitcoin ETFs to the market will likely generate a wave of bitcoin demand from mainstream investors.

“Major developments for bitcoin in the past like the bitcoin futures launch in 2021, or the Coinbase direct listing were ‘buy the rumor, sell the news’ events,” says Cosmo Jiang, portfolio manager at Pantera Capital, a blockchain investment firm in Menlo Park, California. “But this time could be meaningfully different. A spot ETF would be a demand driver. It's going to be very powerful.”

The anticipation of bitcoin’s fourth halving in April is adding to the bullish momentum. The halving is an automated event hardcoded into the bitcoin network. It occurs about every four years (specifically, every time 210,000 blocks are added to the bitcoin chain). It halves the reward rate for adding blocks, now equal to 6.25 bitcoin. That means the per block reward will fall to approximately $117,000 from $234,000, based on current bitcoin prices. These reductions are set to happen every four years until the final bitcoin is mined in 2140, setting the final outstanding supply to 21 million. Combine the automated supply slowdown from the upcoming halving with a potential surge in demand from spot ETF issuance and you have a very bullish environment for bitcoin.

For recommendations on four other top cryptos, ether, solana, bnb and blur, please click here.