https://ift.tt/33KQ2gk, MATIC and SOL are altcoins to watch in 2022

• Bitcoin and Ethereum are “base investments”, with BTC the OG of crypto, says the Real Vision CEO.

• Terra and Solana are currently top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap, while Avalanche and Polygon make up the top 15.

Terra (LUNA) is currently the 9th largest cryptocurrency by market cap at $29 billion, thanks to a monstrous price rally over the past year.

While the decentralised financial payments blockchain has seen its native coin struggle this past two weeks, it’s up 23% since mid-December. But that’s not all; LUNA’s price is up a mouthwatering 10,579% higher since January 2020.

This coin, together with Avalanche (AVAX), Solana (SOL), and Polygon (MATIC), are likely to see even more gains in 2022, according to Real Vision CEO Raoul Pal.

The investment strategist said in an interview published on Friday.

He said he personally has added to his Ethereum position and is looking at “some of the beaten-down” tokens in decentralised finance (DeFi) as well as layer 1 altcoins.

The investor was responding to Jessica Walker’s question on what he thought an experienced trader would look at in the crypto market going into 2022 proper. And Pal noted that Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) are likely to remain on top of the list for many traders, before going on to explain why.

According to him, ETH and BTC are “base investments.” He said Bitcoin is “the OG” of crypto, while Ethereum is the most robust network in the crypto industry. It has the most developers and investors, he added.

However, other than these two, one would look at “network effects” for guidance when seeking an investment opportunity. The most attractive, in his opinion, are those altcoins whose networks show growth potential within the crypto space.

He thus singled out layer 1 coins as probable outperformers in 2022, with interoperability tokens also on his list.

“We’re seeing these layer-1s, stuff like Terra, Avalanche, and probably Solana,” he said.

Solana is currently the 7th largest cryptocurrency with a market cap of $44 billion while Avalanche is down in the 12th spot with a market cap of $21 billion. Both coins are trading lower on the day, with SOL down 3.8% and AVAX losing by 4.3%.

Pal also thinks Polygon and Quant- a blockchain network aimed at connecting other blockchains via its Overledger technology- will also experience further growth.

The Real Vision CEO said that this could be “the year of interoperability”, the reason Polygon, Quant could be big opportunities.

Last week, crypto strategist Michael van de Poppe expressed a bullish outlook for Polygon, adding that other tokens like Fantom (FTM) and Enjin Coin (ENJ) will also do well in the market.