Bitcoin has already been pushing its price — $67,000 per coin, which is just astronomical for an average investor. I started looking to see if there are affordable cryptocurrencies that make sense to buy. It turns out there are plenty of options, and not all of them are outright lotteries.

Starting with the classics. XRP (Ripple) — this is actually a payment network trying to overhaul international transfers. It once cost $3.65, now it's $1.34. Market cap is over $133 billion, so it’s not some micro-project. Cardano is also on this list — a blockchain from Charles Hoskinson claiming scalability. Currently, ADA is trading at $0.25, although it was more expensive before. Over the year, the price has dropped 62%, which is a bit discouraging, but the project is still alive.

The Graph (GRT) — this is an indexer for blockchain data, often called the Google of blockchains. The current price is tiny — $0.02, with a market cap of $258 million. Tron (TRX) from Justin Sun is also an affordable cryptocurrency with a market cap of $30 billion. Price is $0.32, and over the year, it has grown 38%, which is not bad.

XLM (Stellar) has been handling cross-border transfers since 2014. Now it’s $0.17 per coin, with a market cap of $5.6 billion. GALA and ANKR are even cheaper — literally pennies — but these are more risky assets for speculation.

An important point — a low price doesn’t mean the coin is cheap for investment. You need to look at market cap, trading volumes, and real use cases. Many projects with penny prices simply die or are outright pump-and-dump schemes. Before throwing money in, it’s worth understanding what the project actually does and why it exists. Cheap cryptocurrencies can be a good entry point, but that doesn’t guarantee growth.