The majority of 2020 was very kind to the cryptocurrency sector, unlike the years before, when considerable gains were rarely seen and prices typically kept dropping. The global pandemic, lockdowns, and the fear of a global recession caused more and more institutional investors to flee towards cryptocurrencies as a possible alternative to traditional financial assets or a hedge against the major economic threats.

Bitcoin
As 2020 came to an end, the Bitcoin rally hit a new all-time high of over $20k. Analysts share collectively strong views on the Bitcoin future within the next 12 months and beyond, predicting unbelievable $100k, $170k, and even $318k price points for BTC.

Among the major Bitcoin price drivers in 2021, we can define the growing institutional demand, rising inflation, and increasingly negative perception of contemporary monetary policy.

All these force individual investors and institutions to look for alternative options to protect the value of their capital. Cryptocurrencies, led by Bitcoin, seem to be a perfect solution.

Ethereum
According to CoinMarketCap, at the time of writing, the largest Altcoin, Ethereum has a market capitalization of $191,429bn.

Ethereum started 2020 the year trading at around $125 and climbed up to around $600, which is a 380 percent surge within 12 months.

Why is Ethereum on this list?
Ethereum's open-source blockchain network has always served as a preferred network for decentralized applications (dApps). The ether platform also supports other crypto platforms such as Uniswap and Maker which are active in the Decentralised Finance sector.

DeFi is considered one of the fastest-growing crypto trends, which can transform insurance, loans, and savings programs, making them independent from banks and other centralized financial institutions. An explosive 2020 market influx of participants & capital to the DeFi contributed to Ethereum's strong position as the leading altcoin.

Ripple
Ripple was created as an alternative financial payments system to transform and facilitate cross-border payments, making them 100 percent safe, almost free, and instant.

Back in its early days in 2013, the platform got attention from many financial institutions. Years later it was adopted by more than 100 financial institutions. In 2020 The Ripple blockchain has expanded to more than 300 providers across 40 countries.

According to the report by the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF), Ripple, with its distributed ledger technology (DLT), could “position itself as an alternative to SWIFT”, solving five major issues: security, speed, traceability, cost, transparency and risk management.
With growing support from the European Commission, encouraging the transition to digital finance, and sharing plans to build a new legal framework enabling the use of DLT technology and crypto assets in the financial sector, Ripple’s prospects seem more favorable than ever before.

Litecoin
At the moment of writing Litecoin is fluctuating around $188.92, which makes it pretty affordable. The LTC market capitalization is $12,283bn. This cryptocurrency boasts of the lowest times required for mining and a high block reward of 25 LTC.

The launch of the first decentralized Litecoin-based RPG fantasy game LiteBringer, where each players’ move is a transaction, brought benefit for the entire blockchain.

Some analysts also believe that the Litecoin price will grow in the coming years following its halving. According to the optimistic LTC cryptocurrency forecast by Cryptoground.com, Litecoin will climb up to $347 by the end of 2024.

Stellar
Stellar has also crushed Bitcoin over the trailing three-month period. Its 588% return is triple that of the largest cryptocurrency in the world.

The most exciting aspect of Stellar is its incredible payment network speed. Usually, traditional banking networks take between a few days to a week to approve and settle a cross-border payment, Stellar can do so in a matter of seconds.

The only requirement is that the Lumens (XLM) coin must be supported on that network. In other words, Stellar speeds up supply chains by making payments more efficient.