Now that crypto is becoming more mainstream, is it possible that you missed the boat? Are you wondering if the markets will still grow? Is it even worthwhile to start investing?

These questions may have crossed your mind over the last year. You might feel like you are stuck between a rock (believing it’s too late because crypto has become too expensive) and a hard place (seeing the rise and wishing you had invested in the crypto space earlier).

To get a deeper perspective on the future of crypto investing, we need to look back before we can look forward.

The Crypto Market Since the Pandemic

In the past two years, Bitcoin has seen a +562% increase. In January 2020, it was trading just below $7 350, and now it’s looking at a $38 684 price tag. Even that is still below the all-time high Bitcoin was heading towards last year, nearly crossing the $70 000 mark.

Bitcoin is not an outlier. Ethereum, cryptocurrency’s leading alternative coin, has risen by a whopping +1 962% over the past two years. At the beginning of 2020, it was trading around $135. Now, over the course of the past two years (most notably in 2021), it has risen to nearly $2 784.

Even the slightly newer Solana, which launched in 2017, has been making significant waves in the market. In early 2020, a person could have bought one Solana token for just under a dollar ($0.95). Now, Solana is valued at $111 per token. That’s a monumental +11 684% gain.

Like Bitcoin and Ethereum, 2021 played a major role in Solana’s increased value.

The “volatile” crypto space, which has garnered criticism from moguls like Warren Buffett, has also picked up support from big-name financial and tech figures. Rich Dad, Poor Dad author Robert Kiyosaki took to touting cryptocurrencies in 2020 as the pandemic rattled the national economy in the US. Now, even major institutions and financial firms have jumped on board the crypto scene. We’ve seen names like Morgan Stanley Investment, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs embracing cryptocurrencies and allowing their customers to invest in the space. Even Elon Musk’s Tesla added $1.5 billion of Bitcoin to its balance sheet towards the end of 2020.

Since the pandemic, there has been a flood of attention towards cryptocurrencies. There are more possibilities for crypto and its investors than ever before. Bitcoin has gone from a strange concept that only some tech guys know about to a global asset that has brought in billions.

But Is It Too Late to Start Your Crypto Journey?

With each rise and rally in any market, there comes a point where it might feel like you have missed the opportunity and it’s “too late” for it to be worthwhile to invest in. One way to get a different take, rather than only considering the increasing value of one asset, is to look at where value is currently accumulating and whether there is an opportunity to take away from those.

When you look at the market cap of different assets across the world, you can see the vast opportunity Bitcoin has to challenge traditional assets. 

Comparing gold to Bitcoin: At the beginning of 2020, gold was trading at $1 520 per ounce. Now, one ounce will set you back $1 825. This gives valuable insight into the market:

1. The value of gold is increasing, and investors are still buying the precious metal to hedge against inflation (despite the fact that it’s wearing an “expensive” price tag).
2. Gold has risen by just over +20% over the last two years. While this, in isolation, is impressive, it pales in comparison to Bitcoin’s +470% gain.
3. Crypto’s entire market cap is around $2.2 trillion. We can compare this to gold’s $11.52 trillion and the global stock market’s $121 trillion.

From the numbers, we can establish that the crypto market still represents only a fraction of the world’s asset base and that the growth rate is unparalleled. While cryptocurrencies might be expensive compared to where they were two years ago, there’s still an enormous growth potential that the crypto market hasn’t yet charted.

Taking Advantage of the Still-Emerging Opportunities

We’ve looked back at crypto over the past years, and we’ve looked across the state of current assets and their market caps. It’s time to look to the future and see the possible investment opportunities in cryptocurrency. 

By now, you probably have new questions.

How and where do I start? What crypto do I buy? How much should I invest, and what if the crypto I buy doesn’t do well?

Luckily, there are ways to make sure you are buying the best cryptocurrencies at the time without worrying about whether it was the right choice. The best way to do that is to make sure you are building a diverse portfolio — making sure you’re investing in the top-performing crypto assets rather than putting all your eggs in one basket.

Building a Diverse Crypto Portfolio (With Ease)

Cape Town-based crypto investment platform Altify, which is backed by JSE-listed Sabvest, offers access to Polkadot, Uniswap, Solana, Cardano, Ethereum and more.

On their platform, you can easily and seamlessly invest in Bitcoin or take the guesswork out of investing with their ready-made Crypto Bundles. Their crypto Bundles enable you to effortlessly own an equally weighted basket of the world’s largest and, by default, most successful crypto-currencies without having to build and manage a crypto portfolio yourself. Altify currently offers three Bundles: the Top 10 Bundle, Payment Bundle and Smart Contract Bundle.

The Top 10 Equal Crypto Bundle is like the JSE Top 40 or S&P 500 for crypto and provides equally weighted exposure to the top 10 crypto-currencies making up more than 85% of the crypto market.

The Payments Crypto Bundle provides equally weighted exposure to the top five payment-focused crypto-currencies looking to make payments cheaper, faster and more global.

The Ecosystem Crypto Bundle provides equally weighted exposure to the top five smart contract-focused crypto-currencies like Ethereum, Solana and Polkadot that enable developers to build applications on top of their blockchains, similar to how Apple builds apps on top of its OS operating system.