16 Promising Cryptocurrencies for Investment in Iran + Choosing the Best Cryptocurrency for Beginners

Below is a list of the best cryptocurrencies for investment that you should keep an eye on. Additionally, this article addresses the best cryptocurrencies for novice investors, as well as long-term investment strategies and methods for identifying the most promising digital currencies for investment. To build a diversified portfolio, it's essential to read this article in its entirety.

However, please note that the content of this article should not be considered as investment advice. Before investing, you need to analyze the conditions of a cryptocurrency yourself and then decide to invest. The prices of cryptocurrencies are highly volatile, and accurately predicting the future is essentially impossible.

Best Cryptocurrencies for Investment
The wide variety of projects makes investing in cryptocurrencies challenging for beginners. Below, the top cryptocurrencies are introduced based on their total market value or the total value of circulating tokens. These projects are part of the top rankings on CoinMarketCap, and they have established a good track record. Let's explore these projects.

Bitcoin (BTC)
Bitcoin (BTC) with a market value of $851.8 billion is the flagship cryptocurrency. A group or individual under the name Satoshi Nakamoto introduced Bitcoin in 2009 as the first cryptocurrency to the market. Like most fundamental cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin operates on its own blockchain, running on a network of thousands of computers or miners. The halving process has reduced the reward for mining each Bitcoin block every four years. The fourth halving event will take place in late April (early May), and analysts believe that with the reduction in Bitcoin's supply rate, demand for purchasing it will increase. The adoption of Bitcoin ETFs and the upcoming halving have led analysts to pay special attention to this cryptocurrency.

If you had bought one Bitcoin for around $500 in May 2016, it would have been worth approximately $43,379 by January 30, 2024. This means Bitcoin experienced a 8,576% growth during this period; however, it is important to note that the price of Bitcoin experienced significant fluctuations during this time.

Ethereum (ETH)
Ethereum (ETH), with a market value of approximately $284 billion, is both a cryptocurrency and a blockchain platform. Ethereum's functional features, such as the registration and automatic execution of smart contracts and the issuance of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), have made it the blockchain of choice for decentralized application (DApp) developers.

Ethereum, which holds the second position in the market, has experienced a 20,900% increase from April 2016 to the end of January 2024, meaning its price has risen from around $11 to about $2,313.

Ton Coin (TON)
Ton Coin is the native cryptocurrency of the Ton blockchain, launched by the popular messaging app Telegram. In 2020, Telegram withdrew from this project due to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) order, and development was transferred to the non-profit Ton Foundation in Switzerland. Since then, Ton Coin has experienced significant growth and is now considered one of the top 10 cryptocurrencies globally in terms of market cap.

Despite Telegram’s withdrawal from the project, Ton Coin continued under an independent team, and now it has extensive usage in financial transactions on Telegram. Due to the growing capabilities of Telegram and increasing user adoption, Ton Coin holds great potential for further growth.

Binance Coin (BNB)
Binance Coin (BNB) has a market value of $47.2 billion. This cryptocurrency, now known as BNB, has become one of the relatively stable investment options due to its performance over time. Binance Coin was launched in 2017 by Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. It is the native token of the BNB Chain, which is similar to Ethereum but offers significantly lower transaction fees and enables developers to easily deploy Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible decentralized applications.

One of the advantages of BNB is that Binance burns or destroys a certain amount of BNB tokens every three months. The most recent token burn occurred on October 16, removing 2.14 million tokens worth approximately $480.39 million from circulation. While this action didn’t immediately affect the price, the management of token supply and the reduction in the number of tokens available could have a positive long-term impact.

After the events involving the former Binance CEO and Changpeng Zhao's admission of violating anti-money laundering requirements, the price of BNB lost about 7.3% of its value. However, as a stable cryptocurrency, it’s advisable to keep track of its developments.

Solana (SOL)
Solana (SOL), with a market value of $41.4 billion, was developed to support decentralized finance (DeFi), decentralized applications, and smart contracts. Solana’s blockchain uses a combination of proof-of-stake (PoS) and proof-of-history (PoH) mechanisms to process transactions quickly and securely.

When Solana was launched in 2020, its initial price was about $0.77. By the end of January 2024, it had reached approximately $105.42, experiencing a 13,590% increase during this time. Some updates to the Solana blockchain in February 2024 caused a brief outage, impacting the price slightly, but this cryptocurrency remains one of the top market performers.

Ripple (XRP)
Ripple (XRP) has a market value of $27.2 billion. It was introduced in 2012 by a digital technology and payment processing company of the same name. XRP is used within the Ripple network to facilitate the exchange of various currencies, including fiat currencies.

In early 2017, the price of XRP was $0.006. By January 30, 2024, its price had risen to $0.53, representing an 8,670% increase during this period.

Cardano (ADA)
Cardano (ADA), with a market value of $27.3 billion, is usually among the top 10 cryptocurrencies in the market. The project is known for its proof-of-stake mechanism. Through this consensus mechanism, Cardano managed to accelerate transaction times and reduce energy consumption and negative environmental impacts. Like Ethereum, Cardano is a suitable platform for the development of smart contracts and decentralized applications.

Compared to other major cryptocurrencies, Cardano's ADA token has had relatively moderate growth. In 2017, ADA was priced at $0.02. By January 30, 2024, its price had reached $0.52, marking a 2,500% increase during this period. It is expected that its development trend will continue to improve.

Avalanche (AVAX)
Avalanche (AVAX), with a market value of $12.9 billion, is one of the leading layer-one blockchains, offering two significant features: high transaction speed and low transaction fees. Avalanche also has a high Total Value Locked (TVL), meaning that a lot of money is invested in decentralized finance (DeFi) on this platform. In simple terms, Avalanche is a fast and affordable blockchain platform with many users involved in decentralized finance activities like staking, lending, or participating in liquidity pools, with significant capital locked on the platform, indicating trust and activity in the network.

Dogecoin (DOGE)
Dogecoin (DOGE), with a market value of $11.4 billion, is a popular meme coin. Although it started as a joke in 2013, it quickly became a prominent cryptocurrency thanks to its active community. Unlike many other cryptocurrencies, there is no limit to the supply of Dogecoin.

The increase in supply can lead to a decrease in the value of an asset over time, which is considered a negative aspect of this meme coin. The price of Dogecoin in 2017 was $0.0002. By January 2024, its price had reached $0.08, which represents a 40,368% increase.

Tron (TRX)
Tron (TRX), with a market value of $10.7 billion, was founded in 2017 by the Tron Foundation in Singapore. Until December 2021, it operated as a decentralized blockchain, but after that, it transitioned into a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO). Currently, there are over 167 million wallets on the Tron network.

The price of Tron, which was only $0.0025 at launch, reached $0.082 in mid-2023, marking a 3,180% increase. This significant growth has made Tron one of the fastest-growing cryptocurrencies in the world.

Chainlink (LINK)
Chainlink (LINK), with a market value of $11.03 billion, has established itself as one of the influential projects in the market. Chainlink uses a decentralized oracle network to facilitate secure interactions between blockchains and external data, events, and payment methods.

Chainlink's strategic partnerships with Google and data companies have become one of its strengths. Its value increased from $0.4 in 2018 to nearly $50 in 2021, but it is currently trading at $18.7. Due to price fluctuations, it is recommended to keep an eye on its trend.

Polkadot (DOT)
Polkadot (DOT), with a market value of $8.8 billion, is one of the essential infrastructure blockchains. Developers on this platform can design blockchains with specific applications and operate them as subchains connected to the main blockchain.

James Wo, CEO of Digital Finance Group (a blockchain and cryptocurrency investment company), states that this altcoin offers excellent security and is leading in developer activity and many projects.

Polkadot's progress has been slow, and it lacks applications that could help strengthen its ecosystem. These issues need to be addressed for it to experience overall growth.

Polygon (MATIC)
Polygon (MATIC), with a market value of $8.44 billion, is a scalable platform based on Ethereum that has turned it into a complete multi-chain system (known as the blockchain internet). Polygon allows developers to create dApps with low transaction fees.

Some believe that Polygon has improved efficiency and significantly reduced transaction fee costs. The transaction fees on Polygon are cheaper than on Ethereum. This multi-chain system benefits from Ethereum's security, dynamic ecosystem, and open-source nature. Its initial release price in 2019 was $0.0026, and today its price has reached $0.83, representing a 31,422% growth.

Shiba Inu (SHIB)
Shiba Inu (SHIB), a meme coin, was launched in 2020 by an individual using the pseudonym Ryoshi. Shiba Inu has a market value of $5.4 billion. This project is heavily influenced by Dogecoin, even using a dog logo for its symbol.

Shiba Inu is designed as an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum blockchain. When the SHIB token was launched, half of the supply was sent to Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum (who was not involved in this project). This project referred to the action as burning tokens.

Eventually, Buterin burned a significant portion of his SHIB assets and sold the remaining tokens to fund donations. Shiba Inu gained significant popularity in 2021 and became the second-largest meme coin by market value.

The actions of the Shiba Inu development team to launch the Shiba Domain Name Service (shib.) and other updates in the future could influence its price, so it should be closely monitored.

Litecoin (LTC)
Litecoin (LTC), with a market value of $5.10 billion, is one of the earliest altcoins designed to improve some of Bitcoin's shortcomings, such as slow transaction processing and mining centralization.

LTC aims for use in everyday transactions, while Bitcoin is primarily used as a “store of value.” Besides processing speed, the supply caps of the two differ. Litecoin's supply cap is 84 million units, while Bitcoin's supply cap is only 21 million units.

In any case, Litecoin, as one of the oldest cryptocurrencies, increased from $4 in 2013 to $345 in 2021, and it is currently worth around $70 in 2024. Due to its efficiency, it is worth keeping an eye on.

Sui (SUI)
Sui (SUI) is a blockchain project that has created a highly scalable and efficient platform for smart contracts. One of the interesting features of Sui is its use of a smart contract language called "Sui Move," which is inspired by the Move smart contract language. Move gained attention because it was initially developed for Facebook's Libra stablecoin project. Today, Sui and Aptos are among the prominent projects using the Move language.

The Sui blockchain is capable of executing transactions in parallel, resulting in very low latency and more efficient use of CPU resources for validators. In tests, the Sui blockchain can process 120,000 transactions per second. Recently, the SUI DeFi ecosystem has performed very well, with the total value locked in DeFi protocols on the SUI blockchain more than doubling since the beginning of the year.

Most Promising Cryptocurrencies for Beginner Investors
Those who are new to the world of cryptocurrencies should consider investing in cryptocurrencies with a longer history, as their ecosystems and resources have evolved over time. This is because these cryptocurrencies have improved compatibility with various wallets, and if an issue arises, finding a solution is easier.

If you are a beginner, look for cryptocurrencies with the following features:

• Significant market capitalization (at least $1 billion)

• Listed on multiple cryptocurrency exchanges and easy to buy/sell with fiat currencies

• High liquidity (at least $100 million in daily trading volume)

• An efficient and practical product, not just promises for future implementation

By focusing on cryptocurrencies that meet these criteria, you can automatically filter out many low-quality projects, reducing the risk of loss and fraud. Additionally, if you decide to sell your cryptocurrencies and convert them into fiat currencies, you will be able to do so easily.

Typically, the top ten projects listed on CoinMarketCap meet these characteristics; however, it's recommended to enter with an amount of investment that won't cause significant issues if lost, and also to monitor the project's performance after purchasing the cryptocurrencies to withdraw your funds at the right time if issues arise.

Best Cryptocurrencies for Long-Term Investors
Many cryptocurrency investors prefer to hold their cryptocurrencies for an extended period instead of constantly buying and selling them. This approach is suitable for those who do not want to spend a lot of time and energy tracking events and news in the crypto world.

For long-term investment, it’s better to stick to buying Bitcoin and Ethereum, as they are technically independent and do not have significant dependencies on other projects. Another factor to consider when investing long-term is to store your assets using secure wallets, preferably hardware wallets. Ledger wallets are known as one of the best types of hardware wallets.

Bitcoin

How to Choose the Best Cryptocurrencies to Buy?
With thousands of different cryptocurrencies, selecting 16 can be challenging. Here are some key features to consider when choosing a suitable project:

Accessibility
It is important for a cryptocurrency to be easily accessible on a wide range of centralized and decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges for easy buying and selling.

Market Capitalization
A high market capitalization alone does not mean that a project is valuable, but it is a good indicator of the project's stability against market manipulation since price fluctuations require significant capital to move the asset.

Leading Projects and Market Leaders
The cryptocurrency market can be divided into several segments: base cryptocurrencies, decentralized finance (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), Layer 2 projects, and meme coins. It is better to choose projects from different sectors, with each project being a leader in its respective field.

Practical Use
The selected project should have a practical product, not just future promises. Coins that have launched their own blockchain networks, along with utility tokens used in those blockchains or governance tokens for decentralized protocols, are typically more reliable options compared to others.

Developer Team and Network Activity
Most high-quality crypto and blockchain projects are transparent about their teams and track records. It is advisable to select projects developed and managed by professional teams that are continuously improving and updating their projects.