Cryptocurrencies are having a bullish week. The price of many crypto assets recently set all time highs, and experts believe even more upside could be on the way.
Whether you're an experienced crypto investor or just starting out, here are two billionaire-backed cryptocurrencies worth digging into this week.
This classic cryptocurrency could still have 5,300% in upside left
When it comes to cryptocurrencies, nothing has ever been able to topple Bitcoin (BTC -0.87%). More than 15 years after its creation, Bitcoin remains the undisputed leader, with a market cap of $1.4 trillion -- bigger than any other cryptocurrency and making up 58% of the crypto market's total value. Investing $100 in Bitcoin the year it launched would have transformed you into a multimillionaire today. But one investor (perhaps not quite a billionaire, but still pretty wealthy) believes there could be another 5,300% in potential upside to go.
Earlier this year, iconic growth investor Cathie Wood unveiled her long-term price prediction for Bitcoin: $1.5 million. That price target implies enormous upside potential for Bitcoin, which currently trades at about $68,000. But Wood believes that the future could actually exceed her wildly optimistic predictions. "If institutional investors were to allocate a little more than 5% of their portfolios to Bitcoin," she explained in March, "that alone would add $2.3 million to the projection I just gave you." That means that, in total, Wood believes Bitcoin's long term price could exceed $3.5 million. Just for perspective, she's more conservative than billionaire MicroStrategy Executive Chairman Michael Saylor, who not long ago said he think Bitcoin could rise as high as $13 million by 2024.
It's important to note that Wood didn't give a specific date for her long-term price prediction. She's merely pointing out that, should adoption trend in a certain direction, Bitcoin's value will almost certainly continue to rise. Even a simple comparison to gold -- another popular store-of-value asset -- provides a compelling investment case. Right now, gold has a market cap of roughly $18 trillion -- 13 times higher than Bitcoin's. Of course, Bitcoin also has upside value related to its application as a currency and development platform. But no matter how you slice it, it's easy to understand why Cathie Wood remains invested for the long term -- whether Bitcoin has a good week of performance or not.
Bet on the entire crypto universe with this exciting project
If you're looking to invest in the next Bitcoin, Ethereum (ETH -1.68%) is a great place to start. Due to its structure, Ethereum could conceivably be much bigger than Bitcoin over the long term. It shouldn't be surprising, then, that several billionaires -- including Tim Draper, Vitalik Buterin, and the Winklevoss twins -- are betting big on this next-gen cryptocurrency.
Why does Ethereum have more long-term upside potential than Bitcoin? Although Bitcoin was designed primarily to be a stateless cryptocurrency with no centralized control, Ethereum was built to take crypto to another level. That is, Ethereum is designed specifically to be built upon -- a crypto-native platform for the entire crypto ecosystem. Today, hundreds of projects are built on Ethereum, which primarily means that it uses Ethereum's compute back end to power their decentralized services and networks.
Already, everything from decentralized exchanges to entire gaming universes run on top of Ethereum -- a scale of development that Bitcoin can't match. If you not only believe in cryptocurrencies as a currency, but also as a way to build a decentralized technological future, Ethereum should be at the top of your buy list. It's almost akin to being able to buy shares of the internet during its infancy, owning a slice of the network that the entire global economy will eventually run on.
Of course, as with Bitcoin, Ethereum's biggest promise is long-term. Note that nearly 25 years elapsed between the invention of the internet and the introduction of the iPhone, plus another 15 years to get us to today. It was a great week for crypto in general, but the biggest gains will be experienced by those who buy and hold for the long term.
