After one of the worst years in the history of the cryptocurrency sector, during which its entire market capitalization plummeted by 65%, the market has since surged in 2023, adding over $255 billion to its value and bringing market capitalization back above $1 trillion for the first time since early November.

Given the strong performance of the majority of assets, Finbold has analyzed the industry thoroughly to determine which cryptocurrencies investors should keep an eye on in February.

Bitcoin (BTC)

Bitcoin (BTC) has climbed from $16,500 on January 1 to briefly above $23,000 in January.  At the time of publication, the flagship digital asset was trading at $22,882, up 9.78% across the last week. 

BTC YTD chart. Source: Finbold

Bitcoin, according to many leading crypto traders, still presents a good investment opportunity. In fact, BTC has surged 30% since crypto-skeptic Peter Schiff advised ‘HOLDers’ to sell on January 12; Schiff tweeted that with Bitcoin trading above $18,000 at the time, it was “an excellent opportunity for HOLDers to sell.” 

Several industry experts feel it will not remain this cheap for long, with the likelihood of a bullish run in H1, and that February may be one of the last opportunities to purchase it at a ‘good bargain,’ as some analysts have dubbed it.

Ethereum (ETH)

Ethereum (ETH), is now trading in the green above $1,600 after a solid start to 2023 after beginning the year at $1,197.

ETH YTD chart. Source: Finbold

The next anticipated Ethereum blockchain upgrade, the Shanghai Upgrade, will take place in March 2023, and many will be expecting Ethereum’s price to climb ahead of this, similar to a ‘buy the rumor, sell the news event’ that happened before the Ethereum Merge in September 2022.

In a report published on January 17, Alchemy, a blockchain software development business, detailed the progress of Web3 in the fourth quarter of 2022. In 2022, the research claims, there was a 300% increase in the number of smart contracts deployed on Ethereum’s mainnet.

Given the increase, additional decentralized applications (dApps) may soon hit the market, which could signal that the rise in smart contracts is a factor driving the price of ETH.

Shiba Inu (SHIB)

The dog meme crypto token Shiba Inu (SHIB) is another that has had a solid start to 2023. According to data by on January 20, Shiba Inu is among the most undervalued assets based on short and long-term returns.

Shiba Inu’s growth may have been aided by an optimistic crypto market and favorable developments in its ecosystem, such as the SHIB team unveiling key concepts of the long-awaited layer 2 blockchain Shibarium making it one of the tokens to watch in February. 

Currently, Shiba Inu is trading at $0.00001207, up 0.53% in the last 24 hours, and a further 16.86% across the previous week.

SHIB YTD chart. Source: Finbold

Solana (SOL)

Solana’s (SOL) value was one of the most affected by the collapse of FTX, with its market capitalization dropping by 70%; nevertheless, network health remained consistent. Solana DeFi is now undergoing non-FTX-related integrations to further strengthen it so that it can better support and meet rising demand.

What’s more, Solana’s NFT scene is still expanding rapidly, and innovations like GameFi are getting closer to fruition. Solana’s price has recovered from just under $10 at the start of January to trade above $24 as of January 23, up 7% in the last week.

SOL weekly chart. Source: Finbold

Polkadot (DOT)

There have been updates to Polkadot (DOT), the Web3 interoperability platform. Gavin Wood, Polkadot’s creator, made a Twitter statement that Polkadot XCM version 3 has been released after precisely 15 months of work.

Bridges, cross-chain locking, exchanges, NFTs, conditionals, and context-tracking are all made possible as a result of this. In addition to this, it intends to improve interoperability across different chains, smart contracts, and NFTs. 

In addition, according to a report, Polkadot was able to recruit full-time developers at a rate that was far higher than that of any other blockchain at a similar stage in its development. The number of full-time developers at Polkadot has skyrocketed since January 2018; the network now has more than 16 times as many as it had five years ago.

Currently, DOT is changing hands at $6.50, up 13.95% in the last week, and with increasing developments to the network, it makes it onto our list of cryptocurrencies to watch in February.

DOT weekly chart. Source: Finbold

The fact that the aforementioned cryptocurrencies have maintained their value despite the difficult market conditions qualifies them as some of the most promising digital assets to invest in during the month of January 2023.