Crypto Markets 2023: A Game Changer For These Three Tokens, Experts Highlight A Strong Case For 2024

The year 2023 has been a game changer for the broader crypto community with Bitcoin BTC/USD riding the wave with significant gains.

Digital assets managed to be in the limelight this year for a stronger regulatory framework across the globe thereby leading to more crypto adoption across sectors and investors. The Spot Bitcoin ETF approval remains a high point of interest for the crypto investor community.

Among the top 20 cryptocurrencies, based on CoinMarketCap data, Benzinga picked three tokens that have witnessed significant growth in the past one-year trade. A closer look at the following table highlighted that the surge for the tokens happened mostly in the last three months of trade.

Solana SOL/USD leads the list with 419% gains followed by Avalanche AVAX/USD with a 201% surge and Cardano ADA/USD with a 105% increase. Solana and Avalanche were launched to the crypto markets in 2020 while Cardano traces back to the 2017 launch.

Price Action: In the last week when crypto majors, Bitcoin and Ethereum traded under pressure, Solana, Avalanche and Cardano managed to put up 11.8%, 52%, and 42%, respectively, gains on the board. Bitcoin and Ethereum ETH/USD both faced losses of 3% and 0.02% respectively for the same timeframe.

Let’s look back at the year for the major developments of these three tokens.

Avalanche: The year began with Avalanche users having the option to connect the network to MetaMask and avail the benefits of Web3 and DeFi applications.

Unlike Polygon and Solana, Avalanche witnessed a rise in its number of developers (as of September 2023) reflected in its blockchain’s development activity and development rising activity contributors’ count.

Also, the network underwent a Cortina upgrade in April 2023 which makes it easier for exchanges to support Avalanche’s X-Chain, which the protocol uses to send and receive funds.

Based on Messari data, active addresses saw a drop sequentially by 56% due to the impact of LayerZero-related activity. However, from the prior year, it reflected an increase.

Seasoned Web3 expert and director at Avalanche Foundation, Ömer Demirel took to X today to highlight Avalanche peaking to its all-time high of 1,632 validators. On Dec.6, he stated, “Avalanche is strategically positioning itself to be the premier blockchain platform for on-chain FX transactions in 2024 and beyond.”

Avalanche now has 1632 validators - a new ATH. pic.twitter.com/gzYwRb7J58

— :omer (@demirelo) December 13, 2023

Solana: In October 2023, Solana witnessed an upgrade to its validator client known as the Solana v1.16 which provides effective implementation of Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge (ZK-SNARKS). The ZK features are linked with Ethereum scaling solutions.

Solana was also upbeat after Visa announced it would introduce settlement of the USDC stablecoin over the Solana network thereby enabling higher speed of cross-border settlement.

The Solana network also boasted of suffering only one outage in in February 2023 compared to eight outages in 2022. This marks the network’s major improvements in uptime, and better transaction speeds leading to faster average block times.

The Messari State of Solana third quarter report highlighted around 45 million (+316% quarter-over-quarter) compressed NFTs minted in the third quarter. Solana’s DeFi TVL increased 32% to $368 million. While Solana's market cap expanded by 17%, revenue in the third quarter witnessed a 19% rally.

Cardano: Cardano’s ongoing projects in Africa (mainly Ethiopia) have been the highlight of the year. Founder Charles Hoskinson said that emerging markets are a significant opportunity for blockchain technology.

In its most recent weekly development report, Essential Cardano highlighted 79.7 million in transactions, 152 projects launched, and 1,307 projects building.

Based on Messari data, Cardano’s stablecoin value was higher by 16% from the previous quarter and 461% on a year-to-date basis. Its TVL remained flat compared to the previous quarter however year-to-date it was up 198%. Average daily active addresses surged 28.9% while daily transactions expanded by 12%.

Cardano trader, Sssebi went on X and stated: "The biggest crypto opportunities right now are in Cardano Native Tokens. It's insane when you look at the gains in USD and DeFi projects haven't even mooned yet. We will probably see a 2-3x on everything in this picture in the coming weeks." pic.twitter.com/cq1YqotU3U

— Sssebi🦁 (@Av_Sebastian) December 13, 2023

Photos: Shutterstock