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- Dogecoin can rise past $1 if it gains more utility, the crypto bull David Gokhshtein said.
- Altcoins have exploded in popularity, making bitcoin and ethereum seem boring by comparison.
- Here are five altcoins that are worth considering and one to avoid, according to Gokhshtein.
Prepare for the “doge” days of fall as dogecoin’s dog days of summer fade in the rearview mirror.
Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency created as a joke in 2013, has made serious gains in 2021. It’s up 20% in October and nearly 5,200% this year as momentum builds for digital tokens, despite the fact that not even its creator, Billy Markus, believes in the “meme coin.”
That hasn’t stopped an army of small-time retail investors from rallying behind the Shiba Inu-inspired token and knockoffs, including none other than the shiba inu coin. Their mission to send doge from $0.25 to $1 will succeed, David Gokhshtein, a longtime crypto bull and the CEO of PAC Global, said.
“I firmly believe it will go to a dollar,” Gokhshtein told Insider in a recent interview. “You have Vitalik, who’s on dogecoin’s foundation now. If ethereum helps out with building or correcting something within doge’s ecosystem, there’s no limit. It just doesn’t stay at a dollar – it goes further.”
Dogecoin can rise twelvefold to hit $3, Gokhshtein said, but only if it gains more real-world utility. The coin can facilitate online transactions, though most people who buy the token are speculators simply hoping to flip it for a quick buck.
Rival tokens have more promising use cases, powered by automated “smart contracts” that proponents say can execute a wide variety of tasks, from protecting medical data to limiting fraudulent insurance claims. Dogecoin can reach its potential if it follows suit, Gokhshtein said.
Alt season reaches feverish levels – but watch out for one
As the nascent cryptocurrency space develops, daredevils are steadily extending the digital asset risk curve. Bitcoin (BTC) and ethereum (ETH), the two largest cryptocurrencies, once epitomized volatile, high-risk assets – and while the two still see sizable price swings, they pale in comparison to smaller altcoins, which can multiply or crash far more easily.
A familiar pattern has emerged in the world of digital assets: Crypto newcomers first hear about bitcoin – the digital-asset gateway drug – and decide to dip their toe in the water before learning about ethereum, then about altcoins that some have labeled as “ethereum killers.”
Interest shifting away from bitcoin and toward riskier assets can serve to legitimize the original cryptocurrency, both by making it seem safer by comparison and by bringing cryptos into the mainstream as people make accounts on Coinbase and Robinhood, Gokhshtein said.
“People that want to make a quick buck, they’re searching for just meme tokens or NFTs because they’ve heard that, ‘Oh, my God, I can get into an NFT and I can go ahead and flip it,” Gokhshtein said. “They’re not going into ethereum. They’re not going into bitcoin to go ahead and get rich overnight. That’s not what their friends are telling them.”
With the “alt season” lifting small and large cryptocurrencies to astronomical heights, even Gokhshtein acknowledged that the bullish sentiment was a bit out of whack.
“I’m watching a few of these things that are going up. They have nothing behind it except hopes and dreams,” Gokhshtein said. “You stare at it – it’s baffling. … We have to be honest: If that digital asset does not have a real utility or a real any sort of use case to it, it’s not going to survive. It won’t be around in three years.”
Below are five altcoins that Gokhshtein believes will succeed in the long term, along with each coin’s symbol, market capitalization, use case, and analysis from Gokhshtein. He said he owned all five, plus bitcoin and ethereum.
CoinMarketCap
Symbol: ADA
Market cap: $73.5 billion
Use case: A proof-of-stake platform that looks to empower innovators to build decentralized apps on its blockchain.
Quote: “With the congestion on ethereum, the way I see cardano, it’s a complement,” Gokhshtein said in a recent interview. “I know that cardano is going after ethereum, but right now, it’s a complement to ethereum. I think that with the smart contracts coming out, and they’ve actually been delivering, I personally really do see it putting up really good numbers.”
2. Polkadot
CoinMarketCap
Symbol: DOT
Market cap: $34 billion
Use case: A multichain protocol designed to connect blockchains with different technical attributes and properties that could allow for the cross transfer of messages and assets.
Quote: “Gavin Wood, one of the founders of ethereum, he’s behind the project,” Gokhshtein told Insider in a previous interview. “That has me excited. When you look at the project, some die-hards will say it’s something that might take over for ethereum. To me, I see it as a complement to ethereum.”
3. Solana
CoinMarketCap
Symbol: SOL
Market cap: $46.6 billion
Use case: An open-source project intended to improve scalability with proof-of-history and proof-of-stake consensus mechanisms.
Quote: “If anyone wants Web 3.0, they’re looking at solana,” Gokhshtein told Insider in a previous interview. “I don’t even know why people are just getting to the point of talking about that project, highly underrated – and undervalued.”
4. Terra
CoinMarketCap
Symbol: LUNA
Market cap: $18.6 billion
Use case: A system that promises to peg stablecoins to fiat currencies to create a stable digital asset-payment infrastructure, while offering speed, affordability, and censorship resistance.
Quote: “Anything that Daniel or Do are in – basically, those are the founders – it’s kind of like Gavin,” Gokhshtein said in a recent interview, referring to Daniel Shin, Do Kwon, and Gavin Wood. “I believe that the platform that they’re building here it’s really going to perform well.”
5. Chainlink
CoinMarketCap
Symbol: LINK
Market cap: $12.4 billion
Use case: A decentralized oracle network that provides external data to blockchains.
Quote: “Chainlink is, like, the one that really bothers me because it shouldn’t be at this current price point,” Gokhshtein said in a recent interview. “They’ve built a phenomenal platform. They have a phenomenal use case. I see things in the market going up, which have, you know, promises where chainlink has the solution ready.”
