Which Crypto to Buy Today for the Long Term?

Some factors to guide you when deciding which crypto to buy today for long-term investments:

• Do you have non-critical funds to lock up in an investment for years that you can afford to lose?

• Does the token to invest in represent the market's future in terms of its potential?

• Does the token have sound fundamentals, with a token listed on exchanges, and which commands good volume?

If these are in place, you can consider a long-term crypto investment. The recent crypto winter commenced in November 2021 with the discovery of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus. Before this time, the cryptocurrency market had enjoyed an unbelievable run which took it beyond the highs of December 2017.

Bitcoin exceeded its $19,800 high and surged to $60,000. The move took nearly the entire market with it. There was hardly any altcoin that did not enjoy the boom. Even coins that looked dead and buried between 2018 and 2020 rose from the ashes and exhibited the Lazarus effect.

I had a token bought in a 2017 ICO for $100. The coin had crashed and lost value, only worth $20 at one time. By July 2021, my holdings in this token were worth $1,200. It had taken four years, but the investment was recovered and added to.

This experience showed that there is potential in holding cryptos for the long term. However, when deciding which cryptos to hold long-term, you must consider certain factors.

Why buy crypto and hold for the long term?

When investing in the crypto market, you have to know why you are doing it. What should motivate you to buy and hold for the long term in the first place?

Reduces the risk of loss over time

Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile. Indeed, they are the most volatile asset class in the market today. This volatility makes it difficult to trade them profitably on a short-term basis. You would also need significant capital to profit from the relatively small range of moves in the short term. These all add to the risk profile of cryptos.

When you invest in crypto for the long term, you spread this risk and reduce it over time. Pick up a chart of Bitcoin, Ethereum, or any crypto. In the short term, you will see wild price moves, which can easily take out a trader's position. But when you open the long-term charts, you will find a better definition to the asset direction.

Less stressful style of market participation

Given the high volatility of the crypto market, any short-term trades require maximum concentration and oversight. You should monitor your positions all the time. But a long-term investment is basically a "set and forget" style of investment that eliminates the need to monitor your screens constantly.

Those new to trading can tell you that the emotional rollercoaster of watching up-down movements that spike in the short term can be a bit too much.

History favours the long-term outlook for crypto tokens

There is a historical basis for supporting the recovery of the crypto market. The current crypto winter is not the first. The market has seen extended downturns at several points. There was the collapse of Mt. Gox in 2014, followed by a recovery after the advent of Ethereum opened the door for new tokens based on networks that supported decentralized applications.

We also had a slump in September 2017 after China's widespread ban on the usage and trading of Bitcoin. This event led to Bitcoin shaving off nearly 50% of its value after almost hitting an $8,000 price. The market eventually recovered, and BTC went from less than $5,000 per coin to $19,800, nearly four times its value. A three-year downturn followed before the market took an unprecedented leap toward the $60,000 price mark.

Since then, many altcoins have plunged in value. However, Aptos was able to stage a remarkable run in late January/February 2023, outperforming most of the top 100 tokens in the market.

Opportunities to scale in your investments

The long-term investment style also allows you to perform what is known as dollar-cost-averaging (DCA). This is a technique where the investor adds to the portfolio by purchasing more units of the asset whenever prices drop, which ultimately allows the investor to reduce the overall purchase price.

To illustrate this, imagine purchasing 100,000 units of a crypto token at $0.02. This is a $2,000 cost. Assuming the price of this token drops to $0.0002 and the investor decides to buy 1,000,000 units, it will cost $200 for the new round of purchase. The investor would now have 1,100,000 units of the token, purchased at a $2,200 cost. The price for each token becomes 2,200/1,100,000, or $0.002. The purchase cost would therefore have dropped ten times from the original purchase cost while also allowing the trader to increase the amount of the token in the portfolio.

Now imagine that the token recovers over three to five years to a price of $0.2. This would make the trader's portfolio worth 1,100,000 X 0.2 = $220,000.

This secret is what many traders have used to become overnight success stories in a crypto market bust-boom cycle.

A closer look at which crypto to buy today for the long term

In answering this question, we must understand that the cryptocurrency market is undergoing a quiet revolution. Every downturn we have seen in the market has led to market evolution.

In 2018-2020, the era of the ICOs died off, and we started to see new, emergent areas such as decentralized finance (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and the Metaverse. Tokens that came from projects built around these sectors showed some heavy price appreciation and made many people rich.

We also started seeing the so-called meme coins. Some did well, but even among the meme coins, we have seen Shiba Inu's team make bold development moves to transit away from the meme coin status and into the Metaverse with its Shibarium network.

The immediate future of the crypto universe is that of the tokens compliant with the Web 3.0 concept. Therefore, if you are wondering which crypto to buy today for the long term, you need to consider one which matches the profile just painted.

In choosing Web 3.0 projects that align with your search for which crypto to buy today for long-term investment, you must understand that you can pick tokens that are Web 3.0 projects themselves or coins that support Web3 architecture. You can also choose tokens of projects that support the creation of Web 3.0 projects.

Enter Aptos, whose token is APT. Aptos fits the profile of a Web 3.0 project on which other projects based on the next-generation internet experience will thrive. We featured the Aptos token in a recent article. Aptos is a product of Aptos Labs. Aptos is a blockchain project that encapsulates the essence of Web 3.0, providing a fulcrum on which developers can build new products and applications for Web 3.0.

Aptos has three product lines:

• Aptos names.

• Aptos explorer.

• Petra wallet.

Aptos names is a Web 3.0 domain name service that allows users to grab an .apt domain. Developers can integrate the Aptos name service into any apps they build with a simple line of Rest API code. They can also convert an address to a name and vice versa.

Aptos explorer is the next-generation search engine for locating and validating transactions on the blockchain. The Aptos blockchain explorer features Apscan, allowing users to explore, search and monitor all crypto blocks, assets, and transactions.

With Apscan, you can also get a map that identifies the locations of all validators within its blockchain.

Petra wallet is a web application that acts as a pathway for communicating with the Aptos blockchain. It comes as a Google Chrome extension and transfers and stores digital and crypto assets. You can also integrate this wallet into your decentralized application.

Why Aptos?

First, here is a review of the price action of Aptos since Moni Talks published an article covering its vast potential.

Aptos was listed on Binance on 19 October, 2022, for $1. It spiked to $100 on the same day before closing at $7.32. It achieved its second-highest level on 26 January, 2023, clocking $20.40. When this token was covered in one of our articles, it traded at less than $4. This indicates that if you had invested $4,000 as of 21 November, 2022, your money would have grown by five times in two months.

The price of the APT-USDT pair has retracted since then as traders who got in early have booked profits. This is normal, as any trend, be it an uptrend or downtrend, never moves in a straight line. Given the distance between the all-time high of $100 and the current price, there is a long way for the price to go to recapture these highs. It also means that a move to recapture this high needs the current price to multiply at least eight times. A 700% gain would be the outcome if this were to occur.

The crypto market's recent advance, led by Bitcoin's push from $15K to $25K, has stalled, with experts calling for a rediscovery of the 2022 lows before an advance beyond $25K. It may get slightly worse for Aptos as well, but there is every indication that this is a token that is suitable for a long-term investment.

Aptos vs. traditional markets

Aptos gained 387% in January, making it the best-performing crypto for that month. This performance made it the top-performing asset in the Coindesk Market Index for January 2023, beating out Bitcoin and Ethereum to that spot.

In comparison, the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 index rose 9% in January, and the S&P 500 index only rose 5%. What makes these figures phenomenal is that stock indices and cryptocurrencies are regarded as risky assets that traditionally suffer when there is a rise in interest rates, as has been the case in the past eight months.

The upbeat performance follows the decision of the US Federal Reserve to slow down the pace of its rate hikes, and yet Aptos was able to put in a good shift in the same month.

Conclusion

While Aptos may fit the profile of which crypto to buy today for long-term investment, past performance does not mirror future results.

However, the assessment of this token, given its recent performance and the token's fundamentals, indicates a good upside potential on this token, and that its best days remain ahead.

As with all long-term investments, the waiting period usually runs into years, not weeks or months. The dormancy period for a token part of a long-term investment portfolio may be too long for many people. You should also consider if the funds put into a long-term investment would do more for you elsewhere than being left untouched in a long-term investment for years.