Four Cryptocurrencies Worth Watching in May

In early April, the volatile cryptocurrency market made a small recovery, which gave some measure of hope to investors for the longer term. As subsequent price action has shown, however, the cryptocurrency market has continued its downward trend. Key factors driving the downward trend include persistent inflation, the conflict in Ukraine, and the economic tightening with raising of interest rates by the US Federal Reserve. In broad brush terms this continued volatility and uncertainty mean investors should stick with established cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin for the foreseeable future. Indeed, many analysts predict that Bitcoin and Ethereum will eventually make new all-time highs. While we’re not sure when and if that price growth will happen, in the interim BigONE believes there are still cryptocurrency opportunities worth considering.

The Graph (GRT)

The Graph is a crypto project that makes it easier for people to search for information on the blockchain. Some call it the infrastructure in the blockchain, others call it the Google of the blockchain. It appeared on the daily gainer lists of different cryptocurrency exchanges several times in April, and as a result, it began to attract investors’ attention. The Graph was originally only available for the Ethereum network, but as the technology has developed it now also supports blockchain networks such as NEAR Protocol (NEAR), Polygon (MATIC), Binance Smart Chain, and Fantom (FTM). “The Graph is an indexing protocol for querying data for networks like Ethereum and IPFS, powering many applications in both DeFi and the broader Web3 ecosystem,” confirms CoinMarketCap (CMC). “By making it easier for developers to interact with blockchains, The Graph is making it easier to build new applications and track valuable data. Using The Graph, developers can focus on having great user experience UX/UI, as opposed to building custom back-end infrastructure for each application,” CMC added.

Word has it that The Graph is currently gearing up for a big event on June 2 called Graph Day, which will be followed by a three-day hackathon “to shape the future of web3.” In addition, The Graph will also continue to allocate financial support aimed at promoting the development and use of its ecosystem, making it one of the cryptocurrencies that BigONE considers to be worth watching in May as a cryptocurrency with real utility to support its value.

NEAR Protocol (NEAR)

After several months of volatility, the NEAR ecosystem finally launched a new USN stablecoin product, and the news of the successful new round of financing has also pushed up its token price. But as the hype waned, NEAR’s price dropped again, so some long-term investors might want to add NEAR to their watch list to see how it fared before committing funds.

“NEAR Protocol is a layer-one blockchain that was designed as a community-run cloud computing platform and that eliminates some of the limitations that have been bogging competing blockchains, such as low transaction speeds, low throughput and poor interoperability,” according to CMC. NEAR Foundation CEO Marieke Flament opened the recent April Town Hall with details on NEAR’s latest initiatives, including a recent partnership with Sweatcoin, announced at Paris Blockchain Week Summit, which will power the “movement economy”. As a result, in little under a month, Sweatcoin has added one million wallets to the NEAR ecosystem.

Elrond (EGLD)

Elrond is a smart contract cryptocurrency with a market cap of just $2.8 billion that has not grown as fast as rival ‘Ethereum-killer’ Solana. It’s chief claim to fame is as a blockchain protocol offers extremely fast transaction speeds by using sharding, holding its own against the likes of Cardano and Avalanche. According to CMC, “Its smart contracts execution platform is reportedly capable of 15,000 transactions per second, six-second latency and a $0.001 transaction cost.”

However, it recently announced some interesting acquisitions, including a crypto payments company. In addition, it launched a $40 million fund to support the development of the company’s crypto payment system, which means Elrond is officially entering the crypto payments space. According to sources, Binance will list Elrond tokens in the near future. This means that all tokens built on the Elrond ecosystem will gain more exposure providing a huge boost, which is why we’ve put it on the worth-watching list.

THORChain (RUNE)

THORChain is a decentralized protocol designed to provide liquidity for crypto transactions without the need for a centralized crypto exchange system. It also powers decentralized exchanges where users can exchange cryptocurrencies. THORChain recently launched a trading product for synthetic assets, which is essentially a way to tokenize and trade non-crypto assets. THORChain was funded through an initial DEX offering (IDO) launched on the Binance DEX in July 2019, according to CMC.

THORChain also has a long-awaited mainnet release, and while the developers have yet to set an exact release date, we expect to see it launched in the next few months. It also plans to launch a lending product through something called THORFi. It is worth noting that THORChain has many development plans in the pipeline, some of which may sometimes push the price of its even token higher.

Some investors see the current downturn as a good time to buy cryptocurrencies at reduced prices, but at an individual level much depends on an investor’s financial situation and what they see as the future market trend for cryptocurrencies. Buying cryptocurrencies will make sense if you only invest money you can afford to lose and by making cryptocurrency investments part of your long term investment plan.

The four cryptocurrencies above are those that BigONE believes are worth paying attention to in the month of May but are not intended as investment advice for investors. Also, with the current crypto market conditions, don’t rush to buy any cryptocurrencies just because the price looks low, as they may continue to go lower. It’s important to take the time to carefully research the crypto project you want to invest in, evaluate what is its true utility, and to retain a long-term view.