The season of cheer and merriment plus 2021 is almost over. This signals a new episode for traders and investors alike who are always looking for the hottest cryptocurrencies to adopt. It’s exciting that the market always has something cooking up for crypto investors and traders out there.

Although October saw meme coins lead the rally, the month of November saw notable price increases in play-to-earn and metaverse tokens. Sandbox’s SAND token, Decentraland’s MANA token, and Axie Infinity’s AXS token hit an all-time high following Facebook’s name change to Meta, representing the company’s change in focus at the end of October.

A significant factor affecting the cryptocurrency market and all markets is the news of a COVID-19 strain that has proven to be vaccine-resistant. The World Health Organization has given the virus the name ‘Omicron,’ first detected in South Africa, Botswana, and Hong Kong. However, there have been reported cases in Belgium, the United Kingdom, Israel, and Canada since then.

Although the cryptocurrency market was on a downtrend before the new variant was found, the growth and spread may prove well to hamper economic recovery in both developed and developing economies.

With many coins in the cryptocurrency market trading at a discount, here is a look at the top 5 cryptocurrencies that investors and traders should look out for before the year ends:

BTC (Bitcoin)

Bitcoin isn’t the king for nothing. Bitcoin broke all-time highs at the beginning of November and saw its market capitalization soar. However, it has dropped to 7th place, as Elon Musk’s Tesla overtook due to market sell-off. As a result of the Omicron virus, Bitcoin’s exchange flow turned positive, indicating that investors are selling their holdings.

However, many believe that this is  the last phase of the bull market. Moreover, the market is now in a state of bull market distribution. Long-term holders would usually buy BTC into weakness and sell into strength. So at the rate it’s going, it’s safe to assume that we are entering the main phase of the bull market.

DOT (Polkadot)

Polkadot is an open-source sharding multichain protocol that facilitates the cross-chain transfer of any data or asset types, not just tokens, thereby making a wide range of blockchains interoperable with each other.

Polkadot started its parachain slot auction and Acala, a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol operating on the Polkadot network, won the first auction with $1.3 billion worth of DOT tokens staked. The second auction was also concluded with Moonbeam winning with 35.8 million DOT tokens contributed.

DOT hit an all-time high of $55 at the start of November but has quickly retraced due to price action from Bitcoin’s market dominance. The third auction ends on the 2nd of December, and Astar, a DApp hub on Polkadot that aims to be a multichain smart contract platform that will support multiple blockchains and virtual machines, is favored to win its leads, having received 9.4 million DOT to date.

SAND (Sandbox)

Sandbox is a blockchain-based virtual world allowing users to create, build, buy, and sell digital assets in the form of a game using its native token called the SAND token.

Sandbox was launched in 2011 by Pixowl and is built on the Ethereum ecosystem. It combines the powers of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to create a unique decentralized platform for a thriving gaming community.

On the 29th of November, the platform opened up part of its metaverse after four years of development to 5,000 players for the first time via a multi-week, play-to-earn (P2E) Alpha event called The Sandbox Alpha.

Even with Bitcoin’s price action, it did not stop the SAND token from hitting an all-time high of $8.51 on the 25th of November. Although the token has retraced in price, there is still more room for growth as more investors try to get their hands on the metaverse ecosystem following Facebook’s name change announcement.

Polkadot’s native token, DOT, is currently trading $42.90, up 3% as of the time of writing this report.

AVAX (Avalanche)

Avalanche is a layer one blockchain that functions for decentralized applications (DApps) and custom blockchain networks. Its network consists of three blockchains: the X-Chain, C-Chain, and P-Chain.

Each chain has a distinct purpose, which is radically different from the approach Bitcoin and Ethereum use, namely having all nodes validate all transactions. Avalanche blockchains even use other consensus mechanisms based on their use cases.

At the beginning of the month, the Avalanche Foundation launched “Blizzard,” a fund offering more than $200 million to developers as an incentive to build on the Avalanche network. According to the announcement, the fund will provide liquidity to those early-stage projects that innovate decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and other products on Avalanche.

Also, the AVAX token made its way into the top 10 by market capitalization in November, flipping Dogecoin and Shiba Inu. This was because of a partnership announcement with Deloitte, one of the ‘Big Four’ accounting firms. Deloitte has decided to build its disaster relief platforms atop the Avalanche blockchain platform.

CRO (Crypto)

Crypto.com is one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges. The platform touts selling over 200 cryptocurrencies at ‘true cost.’

Recently they launched their blockchain called Cronos. The CRO blockchain serves primarily as a vehicle that powers the Crypto.com Pay mobile payments app.

Cronos is the EVM chain running in parallel to the Crypto.org Chain. It aims to massively scale the DeFi ecosystem by providing developers with the ability to instantly port DApps from Ethereum and EVM-compatible chains, with funding from Particle B’s $100m EVM fund and access to the 10M+ user base of the Crypto.com ecosystem.

The interest in cryptocurrencies has been growing over the years. Bitcoin alone has a stock valuation much higher than Mastercard and Disney’s combination. However, it’s not just Bitcoin that gives traditional stocks a run for their money.  So, if you are looking for hot cryptocurrencies to invest in today, then this is your cue to jump in. It’s now or never.