This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.
Sure, there are cryptocurrencies with bigger market caps than Shiba Inu (CRYPTO: SHIB). But no digital coin has been a bigger winner this year. Shiba Inu's remarkable gain of well over 66,000,000% puts it in a class of its own.
Past performance doesn't always translate to future success, though. Here are two cryptocurrencies that could trounce Shiba Inu in 2022.
1. Avalanche
It wasn't all that long ago that Shiba Inu ranked higher than Avalanche (CRYPTO: AVAX) based on market cap. However, Avalanche pushed Shiba Inu to the side in November and hasn't looked back since. It's now the 12th-biggest cryptocurrency on the market, while Shiba Inu is No. 13.
The key to Avalanche's momentum is its unique architecture. Avalanche has three interoperable blockchains that enable it to avoid scalability problems and high costs associated with some platforms (cough, Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH), cough).
Its platform can already process more than 4,500 transactions per second. Its costs are super-low. And no blockchain beats Avalanche's time to finality (how long it takes for a transaction to be irreversibly added) of less than two seconds.
Unsurprisingly, developers have flocked to Avalanche. There are now more than 150 projects in the Avalanche ecosystem, and the number continues to grow. We're not just talking about small organizations opting to use Avalanche. Global accounting and consulting firm Deloitte plans to build a cloud-based disaster recovery platform using the Avalanche blockchain.
Some even refer to Avalanche as an "Ethereum killer." I wouldn't go that far. My hunch is that Ethereum will be alive and kicking for a long time to come. However, Avalanche just might be a "Shiba Inu beater" in the new year.
2. Kadena
The most likely cryptocurrencies to fly out of nowhere as Shiba Inu did in 2021 are those that aren't already the most popular. But these less-known tokens still must have a lot going for them to stand out from the crowd. I think that Kadena (CRYPTO: KDA) stands as one of the most likely contenders to break out in 2022.
Kadena isn't exactly camping out in nowhere right now. It ranks No. 67 on CoinMarketCap's list of the top cryptocurrencies. But with a market cap of around $1.8 billion, Kadena could still have plenty of room to run even after soaring more than 7,800% this year.
This cryptocurrency platform has an impressive pedigree. Kadena was founded by Stuart Popejoy and Will Martino. The two men together developed JP Morgan's first blockchain. Popejoy previously led the firm's emerging blockchain group. Martino served as the tech lead for the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission's Cryptocurrency Steering Committee. Kadena's advisory team includes Stuart Haber, the co-inventor of blockchain.
Pedigrees aren't as important as performance, though. And Kadena shines on this front. It can process 480,000 transactions per second. It can scale to higher transaction speeds as more chains are added to its network. There is no ceiling on Kadena's throughput.
Kadena also excels with its real-world utility. It supports non-fungible tokens (NFTs), including fractional NFTs that aren't tied to a single exchange. Kadena's smart contracts are exceptionally safe. And its costs are super-low -- only marginal transaction fees for consumers and businesses can completely eliminate the transaction fees for their customers.
There's no guarantee that Kadena will be one of the top breakout cryptocurrencies of 2022, of course. However, it definitely checks off the right boxes needed to potentially trounce Shiba Inu.
This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.
