Top 5 NFTs to buy in February

New NFTs are being minted virtually every day thanks to the ERC-721 standard that made it possible. However, of the numerous NFTs, here are the top five picks to buy before February runs out and they are on OpenSea.

To buy any of these NFTs, simply purchase some Ethereum (ETH) from our recommended partner and send it over to your MetaMask wallet. You can then use that ETH to buy the NFTs on OpenSea.

1. CryptoPunks

CryptoPunks started the NFT movement with a collection of 10,000 unique punk arts. It is the brainchild of Larva Labs and was developed on the Ethereum platform. The collection consists of apes, humans, aliens, and zombies, including 3840 females and 6039 males. They were initially available for free but are now one of the most expensive NFTs.

Its average price for the last 7 days is 110.3746 ethers and over 829,000 ethers have been traded for it since its creation. Only about 3,400 have been bought out of the 10,000. So, you can still buy into the collection and be a proud CryptoPunk owner.

Check out the CryptoPunks available to buy on OpenSea now.

2. Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC)

Bored Ape Yacht Club was created by Yuga Labs and it comprises 10,000 different Bored Apes. These apes have over 170 different characters, varying from clothing to headwear, expression, colour, and so on. At launch, it cost 0.08 ether. However, its floor price is 91 ether right now with over 6,000 owners.

It has traded a total volume of over 389,000 ethers. Owning a Bored Ape gives you access to the club, enjoying perks and areas in the club. It will give you access to a collaborative room for graffiti- the bathroom. All you need to do to be a part of this is buy a Bored Ape.

3. Doodle

Doodle is a community-driven collection that features the work of Burnt Toast. It is made up of 10,000 different Doodles with varying sizes, backgrounds, faces, colours, hairs, and hats. Initially, a Doodle cost 0.123 ether, however, it is worth 13.6 ethers now. As of today, about 78,000 ethers have been exchanged for Doodles.

Owning a Doodle allows you to determine the activations and experiences the Doodle Community Treasury can be used for. Its followership is growing with only 4,000 items left to be bought. Get yourself a Doodle now, don’t wait any further.

4. Cool Cats

Unlike most NFTs, Cool Cats is made up of 9,999 items. These unique items possess about 300 varying features from the body to face, outfit, and hat. There are 4,599 cool cats, 3000 wild cats, 1750 classy cats, and 650 exotic cats with varying coolness. Cool Cats with matching sets of features are always rare and expensive.

As of today, the floor price is 10.4 ethers and over 83,000 ethers have been traded. Over 5,000 items already have owners. You can buy one or two Cool Cats to have access to exclusive events in the community, including raffles, airdrops, NFT claims, and future perks.

5. Alien Frens

Alien Frens is a community-driven project created by Mason Crowe. It features 10,000 unique items, including 4,000 common, 3,000 semi-rare, 2,000 rare, and 1,000 ultra-rare. Each avatar contains both human and alien traits. It has a floor price of 1.7 ether with over 18,000 ethers in trading volume.

Getting an alien frens is tough now as more than 6,000 items already have owners. Owning it gives you access to comic books, events, exclusive merch, and invasions among others. You can buy an alien frens now to join the exploration of Planet Frens.

The post Top 5 NFTs to buy in February appeared first on Coin Journal.

Shiba Inu (SHIB) vs Baby Dogecoin (BABYDOGE): The profitable meme coin

 Meme tokens are cryptocurrencies created as a form of a joke or a meme’s digital representative. Most meme tokens are known for their outrageous supply. This movement was led by Dogecoin; the pioneer meme token that most copy. Two of the meme tokens that credit their inspiration to Dogecoin are Shiba Inu and Baby Dogecoin.

 Baby Dogecoin is based on Dogecoin and was launched in June 2021. Unlike Dogecoin, it has 420 quadrillions total supply, which has been pre-mined to serve as incentives for holders. It was created independently to implement things, not in Dogecoin, and to serve pet charity purposes. It boasts as a hyper-deflationary token, having implemented coin burning to introduce scarcity, reflection, and liquidity pair acquisition.

 Shiba Inu is the meme token of the Japanese Shiba Inu dog, which was launched anonymously by Ryoshi in August 2020. Unlike many meme tokens, it has an ecosystem that supports its tokens- SHIB, BONE, and LEASH. It was launched on the Ethereum blockchain, and the principal token was issued on the Uniswap exchange. There is a total supply of 1 quadrillion which is used on the ecosystem.

 As of today, the number of people holding BABYDOGE is more than that of SHIB. This can be attributed to the hidden part Elon Musk has been playing in driving the adoption of most meme coins. However, BABYDOGE has no noteworthy use-cases, and as such SHIB is a profitable meme in the long run. Shiba Coffee Shop, Newegg, NOWPayments, and Bigger Entertainment are some of the supporters of the Shiba Inu community burns.

 There are also plans to launch a blockchain and a DEX platform. Likewise, it is close to launching an NFT gaming platform with its partner Playside. Businesses, including AMC Theaters and Newegg, are accepting it as payment. SHIB is worth $0.00003258 right now with a market cap of $17.9 billion, while BABYDOGE costs $0.000000003926 with a market cap of $627.9 million.

 Of the two, SHIB would make a long-term profitable investment. However, it should be noted that meme tokens are far more volatile than most cryptocurrencies. Before you invest, research as deep as you can and deal wisely.

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Filecoin (FIL) vs Storj (STORJ): Decentralizing cloud storage

 Although cloud storage was a great innovation, it lacked backup protection and was controlled by a central authority. However, with blockchain technology, secure, cost-effective, and decentralized storage platforms have been launched. Storj and Filecoin belong to this category of platforms.

 Filecoin was founded in 2017 by Protocol Labs but the mainnet was launched in 2020 to serve as a platform for data storage and retrieval. It uses a proof-of-storage consensus mechanism which is made up of proof of replication and proof of spacetime to validate operations on the network. It occupies the second layer of the Interplanetary File System (IPFS). FIL is used to settle transactions.

 Storj was founded in 2017 by Storj Labs on the Ethereum network as an easy-to-use and affordable cloud storage platform. It makes use of farmers and renters; farmers provide storage space, and renters buy this space from them. Data are stored on the network using a sharding mechanism. STORJ serves utility purposes for payment and rewards.

 While Filecoin can store and distribute data, Storj can only store them. Storj was developed majorly for developers, but Filecoin supports a market for trading raw data. Moreover, Storj promises durable data storage. Of the two, Filecoin is more decentralised; Storj is both centralised and decentralised.

 Both support transactions between their service providers and users. Filecoin is made of a free match market where clients and data providers can freely interact. Whereas, Storj uses a market maker model where clients pay the platform to get their data services. Both don’t charge migration costs; Storj accepts payment directly from users, while Filecoin uses its blockchain to solve service and settlement matters.

 Filecoin uses an EC algorithm, whereas Storj depends on the Ethereum blockchain. In a world continually embracing decentralisation, Filecoin provides decentralised storage services. FIL is worth $23.69 right now with a market cap higher than STORJ with over $3.5 billion, showing that it’s experiencing mainstream adoption.

 While it would make a great investment, you should do proper research before investing. Deal wisely and only invest spare cash.

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PancakeSwap (CAKE) vs Sushiswap (SUSHI): The better DEX token

 Decentralised exchanges are platforms where users can conduct trades in a permissionless way without any intermediary. DEX tokens are used as governance tokens and for staking. They can be as a store of value. DEXs support the operations of DeFi platforms.

 PancakeSwap and Sushiswap are two of the most popular DEX platforms. They are both forks of Uniswap and are also automated market makers (AMMs). In essence, users provide liquidity pools by using the platform, thereby earning rewards.

 PancakeSwap was developed on Binance Smart Chain by anonymous developers and launched in September 2020. It uses smart contracts to aid the swapping of tokens. Users can swap or exchange their LP tokens for another token. Also, it supports yield farming and staking of tokens. PancakeSwap can be accessed from Metamask, Trust Wallet, Ethereum Wallet, Binance Chain Wallet, and Math Wallet.

 Sushiswap was released on the Ethereum network by Chef Nomi and 0xMaki in August 2020. However, ownership of the platform has been transferred to Sam Bankman-Fried. It can be accessed through Lattice, Coinbase Wallet, WalletConnect, and Metamask. Asides from yield farming and staking of tokens, users can also borrow and lend tokens. It uses the Minimal Initial Sushiswap Offering (MISO) to support the launching of new projects in its ecosystem.

 Due to being forks of Uniswap, they share various similarities. However, the cost of a transaction differs, with users paying 0.2% on PancakeSwap and 0.3% on Sushiswap. Moreover, Sushiswap is more flexible than PancakeSwap. Between the two, PancakeSwap has more traders with a market cap of $2.17 billion to $906.6 million of Sushiswap.

 Likewise, PancakeSwap supports NFTs and lottery in its ecosystem. It also has a separate token for unstaking CAKE. CAKE costs $8.15 right now, and SUSHi sells for $4.7. CAKE is the better DEX token of the two, and with the continuous adoption of the DEX, it will keep growing.

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Top 5 Cryptocurrencies to watch in February 2022

 A lot has happened since the year began in the crypto space, from the bearish run of January to the stance of the United States on cryptocurrencies. However, that shouldn’t stop you from watching out for some cryptocurrencies. They include:

1. Cardano (ADA)

 Cardano is the first open-source platform to use the Ouroboros- a novel proof of stake consensus algorithm. It is a flexible, scalable, secure, and energy-efficient blockchain. 

Due to using a peer-review mechanism, it is one of the most stable smart contract platforms, having over 1,200 smart contract scripts so far. There are plans to improve its scalability by launching the Hydra protocol.

A decentralised application, SundaeSwap, was released on the Cardano ecosystem; this might its price movement. ADA is the native token of the blockchain and there’s over 32 billion in circulation right now. Experts believe that ADA is currently undervalued. It costs $1.20 right now with a market cap of $38.4 billion.

2. Aave (AAVE)

Aave is one of the emerging decentralised finance (DeFi) platforms that aid borrowing and lending in the crypto space. The financial services are conducted in the absence of an intermediary at low fees and high-interest rates with increased security and transparency. 

It was released on the Ethereum blockchain and allows creating lending pools. Asides from this, it supports Aave clearing, Aave gaming, and Aave pay.

 Aave recently announced the release of a decentralised social media platform, Lens, on Polygon. As of today, its native token, AAVE, is worth $189.09 and can be staked or used to participate in governance. It has a max supply of 16 million, with 13.5 million in circulation right now. It reached an ATH of $661.67 in May 2021.

3. Ripple (XRP)

 Ripple is an open-source platform that supports payment and remittance among banks and financial middlemen. It supports the transaction of any form of currency at low cost and high speed. Although it is currently undergoing a lawsuit with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), experts believe winning the case would support its adoption and price.

The native token, XRP, is used to provide liquidity for transactions on the platform and can be traded on other platforms. It costs $0.89 as of today after rising by over 22% in the last few days. It is ranked 6th right now and has a market cap of $38.7 billion. 47.8 billion of the 100 billion max supply is in circulation now.

4. The Sandbox (SAND)

 The Sandbox is a metaverse created on the Ethereum blockchain that supports the creation and monetization of ASSETs and gaming experiences. It is powered by a decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO) and hosts non-fungible tokens (LAND and ASSET). It is in partnership with Snoop Dogg, UniX Gaming, Warner Music Group, and Ubisoft.

SAND is the native token of the metaverse. There is a max supply of 3 billion, and 1 billion is in circulation right now. It reached an ATH of $8.40 in December 2021 but is trading at $4.77 right now. It has a market cap of $4.9 billion.

5. Floki Inu (FLOKI)

 Floki Inu is a copy of the Shiba Inu based on Elon Musk’s Shiba Inu dog. It was created on the Ethereum blockchain. It plans to be more than a meme coin with some utilities to its name. This includes a play-to-earn game called Valhalla, a merchandise and NFT marketplace (FlokiPlace), and a content education platform (Floki university).

 FLOKI is the native token for accessing the applications on its ecosystem. It has dropped by 83.4% from its ATH ($0.0003365) in November 2021, and it’s currently trading at $0.00005569. It is believed to be the next big meme coin.

Closing thoughts

Cryptocurrency investment is extremely risky, do not dive in without doing proper research. Also, deal wisely and invest only what you can lose.

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