12 Best DeFi Coins to Buy in 2024

Over the past couple of years, the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector has absolutely exploded, leaving many earlier investors very happy. While finding the best DeFi cryptos can be a difficult task, it doesn’t have to be.

Throughout this guide, we’ll be reviewing some of the best DeFi coins to buy, explaining whether or not DeFi cryptocurrencies make for good investments, and taking an in-depth look at perhaps the top exchange to buy the best DeFi coins in 2024. Let’s get started.

12 Best DeFi Coins to Invest in 2024

We’ve included a brief summary of the best DeFi cryptos to invest in right now, with more detailed reviews of each project located slightly further down the page. 

1. Smog – Overall best DeFi coin to invest in that offers a staking APY of 42% and massive airdrop rewards.
2. Sponge V2 – Upgraded $SPONGE with a stake-to-bridge mechanism for V2 tokens, promising high staking rewards.
3. Bitcoin Minetrix – Stake-to-mine project offering Bitcoin mining power and staking yields, raised over $10 million in presale.
4. Scorpion Casino – Online casino featuring top game providers, raised over $3.5 million.
5. Chainlink – Leading oracle solutions provider, vital for smart contract accuracy.
6. XRP – Platform offering a fast and cost-effective international payment network.
7. Tezos – Smart contract platform for building decentralized applications with governance features.
8. Avalanche – A highly efficient blockchain network that hosts a range of Web3.0 projects and P2E ecosystems.
9. Maker – Governance token $DAI stabilizes value, users decide on DAO’s future.
10. Loopring – A layer-2 blockchain network that utilizes Ethereum’s high levels of security but offers higher throughput. 
11. Uniswap – A top decentralized exchange that allows users to leverage the $UNI token to access discounts when trading.

Analyzing the Best DeFi Tokens & Projects 

We’ve included a broad range of the best DeFi investments in order to provide budding investors with ample choice. Each of the projects we’re taking a look at shows plenty of promise and boasts strong fundamentals to support their inclusion on our list. 

1. Smog – Overall Best DeFi Coin To Invest In That Offers A Staking APY of 42% And Massive Airdrop Rewards

Smog ($SMOG) is currently the best DeFi coin on Solana that has quickly caught investor interest with its fair launch in February 2024.

Initially listed on the Jupiter DEX and later on the Ethereum network via Portalbridge, Smog achieved a market cap of $100 million at its peak in just over a week, which is currently around $60 million. This shows Smog’s potential in the competitive meme coin space, while many are drawing comparisons with top coins like Dogecoin and Shiba Inu.

The platform has attractive staking options, with up to 42% annual yields. Such a high APY has attracted many investors looking for the best DeFi coin. Over 10.4 million tokens have been staked, showing strong investor confidence. 

The project’s “Greatest SOL Airdrop” campaign also greatly rewards early investors. This airdrop is facilitated via the Zealy platform which saw over 270,000 challenges completed until now, showing massive investor traction.

With 490 million tokens allocated for airdrop rewards and half of its 1.4 billion total supply dedicated to marketing, Smog is well-positioned for viral growth and widespread adoption.

Investors can check out the Smog whitepaper to learn more about the platform. Also, users can enter the Smog Telegram group and follow it on X (Twitter) for the latest updates and developments.

Visit Smog

2. Sponge V2 – Upgraded Version of a Popular Meme Coin Offers High Staking Yields and P2E Gaming Opportunities 

One of the best DeFi coins to buy right now is Sponge V2 ($SPONGEV2). Sponge V2 is an upgraded version of Sponge – a popular meme token launched in 2023. 

The new token version will allow V1 token holders to access V2 tokens through the stake-to-bridge model. $SPONGE token holders can stake their holdings on the V2 smart contract and earn an equal amount of $SPONGEV2 tokens as a reward. Currently, the stake-to-bridge model is the only way to access $SPONGEV2. 

The Sponge V2 whitepaper states that the new token will be listed on crypto exchanges in the coming months. As your V1 tokens are locked in the V2 smart contract, they cannot be unstaked. However, users can access V2 tokens and earn a minimum of 246% APYs. 

Sponge will also launch a play-to-earn environment through which community members can increase their earnings. In this upcoming game, players will compete in challenges to climb up an online leaderboard. The top performers will be rewarded with $SPONGEV2 tokens. 

With the launch of this new utility token version, Sponge V2 can become one of the top performing cryptos in the long term. Stay tuned for more project updates by joining the Sponge V2 Telegram channel and the Discord. 

 

3. Bitcoin Minetrix – New Stake-to-Mine Crypto is Decentralizing Cloud Mining, Over $10M Raised on Presale

Bitcoin Minetrix ($BTCMTX) is a new project leverages DeFi mechanisms such as token staking to decentralize cloud mining operations. 

While mining Bitcoin and other cryptos can be rewarding in the long term, it requires huge investments and fixed costs to get started. Therefore, mining presents a huge entry barrier to everyday individuals. Bitcoin Minetrix will connect with third-party operations to offer rented mining times to investors. 

While there are many third-party renting corporations, Bitcoin Minetrix is the first to decentralize this process. Investors will be awarded with cloud mining credits – ERC-20 tokens that are stored on a digital ledger. This offers more transparency and autonomy to the token holders, as there is less chance of committing fraud or stealing tokens. 

To reap the benefits of this stake-to-mine cryptocurrency, investors must purchase $BTCMTX tokens. At the time of writing, $BTCMTX is priced at $0.0132 during its ongoing presale round. 

After buying $BTCMTX, token holders can stake their holdings on an Ethereum-powered smart contract. This mechanism will generate ERC-20 cloud mining credits. Your credits can then be burned to acquire Bitcoin mining power and earn allocated mining times. This will allow investors to earn a percentage of Bitcoin and crypto mining revenues. 

This new DeFi coin is off to a great start during the presale – having raised more than $10 million in a few months. The presale is distributing 2.8 billion tokens across 39 presale rounds and hopes to raise over $33 million. 

Read the Bitcoin Minetrix whitepaper and join the Telegram channel to stay updated with this new crypto project. 

Presale Started	26 Sept 2023
Purchase Methods	ETH, USDT, BNB
Chain	Ethereum
Min Investment	$10
Max Investment	None

 

4. Scorpion Casino –  Regulated and Licensed Social Gambling Platform with Daily Rewards

SCORP is a utility-rich DeFi crypto with excellent use cases in the fast-growing online gambling and betting market. It is the native cryptocurrency of Scorpion Casino.

Scorpion Casino sets itself apart from competitors with a strong blockchain foundation, which makes it provably fair and transparent. Something that the gambling industry has long been missing. And therein lies the large growth potential of SCORP.

As the governance and reward token of Scorpion Casino, SCORP fuels two of its components primarily.

The first is a licensed crypto sports betting and casino platform that gives you access to more than 30,000 bet opportunities monthly. The 200+ casino games listed on the platform include slots, blackjack, roulette, poker, and 160 live games. The sports-betting section, on the other hand, covers a wide range of football, tennis, American football, horse racing, basketball, golf, boxing, and MMA events.  

The second is a reward & referral affiliate system. If you’re holding SCORP, you won’t just benefit from its long-term value appreciation. You can earn up to $10,000 as daily passive income too. The re-distribution system integrated into the smart contract rewards you based on the casino’s performance. A deflationary token-burning mechanism helps maintain a healthy value for the token in the open market.

Scorpion Casino has taken diverse measures to feature a safe and secure gambling experience for users. This is clear from its choice of providers, which is limited to highly reputed platforms like Evolution, NetEnt, Play N Go, Novomatic, EGT, and AMATIC. To provide the best user experience, Scorpion Casino has partnered with leading platforms like CoinsPaid and BitRadar as well.

As one of the top emerging players in the online gambling and betting markets, Scorpion Casino has already secured a listing with a top-tier centralized exchange. Follow the platform on Telegram and Twitter to get the latest updates about upcoming listings and roadmap milestones. 

The best way into Scorpion Casino is the ongoing SCORP presale, which has now raised more than $3.5 million.

Token Symbol	SCORP
Presale Supply	200,000,000 SCORP
Token Type	BEP-20
Payment Method	ETH, USD, BNB
Listing Price	$0.05

 

6. Chainlink – Leading Provider of Oracle Solutions

Chainlink (LINK) is a DeFi cryptocurrency dedicated to bringing off-chain data sources onto the blockchain to be used by other web3 projects, massively expanding the use cases of new crypto projects.

With Chainlink being one of the first projects to offer such a service, it has been picked up by key players and become the go-to platform for a number of the best DeFi crypto projects including Aave, Hedera, and Compound. 

As Chainlink’s services are in such high demand, it’s of little surprise that LINK has remained one of the strongest assets on the market, even during the recent crypto downturn. 

With many investors touting LINK as one of the best long-term crypto projects available, and the asset showing huge amounts of strength whenever the market enjoys a slight run-up, we’ll be watching closely to see how it performs once the next bull run begins. 

7. XRP – Project Aiming to Decentralize Currency Conversion

XRP has been a favorite asset of crypto investors since its release as a fast settlement, low-fee, sustainable cryptocurrency alternative to Bitcoin. The asset has created by David Schwartz and Jeb McCaleb who then went on to launch Ripple Labs in order to create use cases for XRP.

As we touched on, the primary attraction to XRP is its extreme efficiency. Transactions can be settled in just seconds and cost only a fraction of a cent, making it one of the fastest and cheapest networks on the market. Furthermore, the  release of the XRP Ledger (XRPL) in 2021 has expanded the project’s use case by allowing other projects to be created on the network. 

The primary use of XRP is as a transactional cryptocurrency. It has already partnered with leading international currency transfer services like Swift and MoneyGram, leading many investors to consider the asset as one of the 10 best penny crypto projects currently available. 

8. Tezos – Easily Upgradable Ethereum Competitor 

Tezos (XTC) is a DeFi DeFi coin that is akin to a more efficient, easily upgradable Ethereum. The project was conceptualized in 2014 but it wasn’t until far later in 2018 that the Tezos mainnet was officially released. 

The project allows developers to build applications using the Tezos network through smart contracts. The project is consistently regarded as being a great alternative to Ethereum as the Tezos network can be easily upgraded with zero downtime, meaning the team can always ensure that the network boasts the latest technology. 

With the  Ethereum merge, the need for on-the-fly upgradable blockchains has become more apparent than ever before. With Tezos offering this functionality in an incredibly efficient package, many crypto fanatics regard it as being one of the best cryptos to buy in 2024. 

9. Avalanche – Low-Cost Layer-1 Blockchain 

Similar to Tezos, Avalanche (AVAX) is a new cryptocurrency and a highly-efficient layer-1 blockchain. The project exploded in 2021 at the height of the ‘Ethereum killer’ narrative, promoting a huge amount of P2E games and web3 projects to make the switch to the Avalanche network. 

While the hype surrounding the project has subsided over recent months, its technology remains powerful. One of the main reasons why Avalanche was able to pick up traction so quickly was its massively impressive throughput. 

Rather than treating every kind of transaction as one, Avalanche settles transactions on three different chains. The C-Chain is used to settle transactions that originate from the best DeFi coins and web3 projects, X-Chain is used for sending and receiving AVA, and P-Chain is for network validators. 

While AVAX has fallen a long way from its 2021 highs, the DeFi DeFi coinis trading at $17. While investor confidence has likely been shaken a bit following its dramatic fall, once the next bull run kicks off we could see impressive returns from AVAX.  

10. Maker – DAO Behind Leading Stablecoin

Maker (MKR) is a governance token that investors can use to make decisions in the Maker decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), that controls the popular stablecoin DAI. With the DAI stablecoin rapidly gaining market share falling the fall of algorithmic dollar-pegged stablecoin UST, MKR could be the best DeFi crypto to buy this year.

As, by design, stablecoins don’t have any room for growth (unless something goes seriously awry), the MKR token is used to provide value to investors and fans of the project. As anyone holding MKR can vote on the development of DAI, and the price of MKR is linked to DAI’s success, this system should, in theory, ensure that only the best decisions are made regarding the future of the stablecoin.

Out of all the best DeFi projects to invest in, Maker fits perfectly in the industry. MKR is currently priced at $665 per token, as of January 2023. With the need for a trusty stablecoin more apparent than ever, we could see big things from this DeFi cryptocurrency in the coming months. 

11. Loopring – Advanced Ethereum Layer-2 Scaling Solution

While there was a large demand for Ethereum alternatives, the focus has now shifted to Layer-2 scaling solutions like Loopring (LRC). These projects utilize the Ethereum network but commonly settle transactions in a different way. This means that Layer-2 solutions benefit from Ethereum’s security but aren’t held back but its lackluster throughput. 

In order to achieve higher throughput than its parent network, Loopring bundles multiple transactions together off-chain, before settling them together on-chain at a later date. This allows the project to validate transactions far more efficiently than Ethereum, reducing fees and network congestion. 

With its partnership with GameStop, Loopring has been brought into the limelight. While it’s yet to enjoy a meaningful move to the upside, there’s plenty of hype surrounding the project meaning it could end up being one of the best DeFi projects to invest in ahead of the market’s recovery. 

12. Uniswap – Decentralized Exchange and DeFi Platform

Created by former Ethereum developer Hayden Adams, Uniswap (UNI) is packed with pedigree. It is a decentralized exchange (DEX) that hosts some of the best DeFi projects to invest in right now. During the DeFi explosion, the platform enjoyed widespread notoriety and quickly become one of the most used DEXs on the planet. 

UNI was created as a governance token, allowing fans of the project to help forge its future. With Uniswap (alongside PancakeSwap) remaining one of the largest decentralized trading protocols on the market, clearly, this model worked.

Although Uniswap can no longer be considered a low-cap crypto with its multi-billion dollar market cap, the project remains a favorite of DeFi-centric investors worldwide. While the smaller DeFi projects that live on Uniswap have been hit hard by a downtrend, it’s likely that Uniswap will enjoy huge amounts of volume after these projects begin to draw attention once again. 

What are DeFi Coins?

DeFi is short for decentralized finance. This refers to any sort of financial application that does away with a central authority and instead allows users to act for themselves. For example, on the PancakeSwap platform users provide liquidity in order to earn interest, with the platform then using an algorithm to match a buyer and liquidity provider. 

With cryptocurrency having a heavy focus on both finance and decentralization, there are a huge number of projects that could be considered DeFi coins. We’ve already discussed some of the best DeFi crypto projects to watch but a few other notable examples include Aave, The Graph, and Fantom.

To summarize, any cryptocurrency that has a focus on finance or decentralization can be considered a DeFi coin. As decentralization requires that there is no central body controlling an application, it’s common for DeFi coins to be largely autonomous, hence the inclusion of a large number of DAO-based projects on our list. 

Are DeFi Coins a Good Investment?

With decentralized finance growing in popularity massively over the past couple of years, the best DeFi cryptos can make for solid investments. However, as with any sector, there will be projects that fail to perform as expected. 

With that said there are now DeFi 2.0 projects which is an umbrella term for a new era of decentralized finance ecosystems. Read our article on the best DeFi 2.0 projects for more details.

Multitude of Use Cases

As we briefly touched on, DeFi coins can comprise a huge variety of sectors and use cases. With such diversity, the future of DeFi holds near-endless possibilities. With what’s possible in cryptocurrency constantly changing, DeFi projects are set to evolve as blockchain technology improves, making the best DeFi investments great for getting exposure to a future-first market.

Future of Finance

Decentralized finance has already disrupted the traditional finance sector in a big way and with cryptocurrency adoption steadily rising, this is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. While it’s impossible to know for sure how things will progress as the DeFi market matures,  few sectors can compete with DeFi when it comes to future potential. 

Adheres to the Crypto Ethos

At the core of the cryptocurrency ethos is decentralization, the belief that no one individual or organization should have total control. With this concept being important to many die-hard crypto investors, projects that respect this, tend to generate more buzz from key players in the industry. 

Early Mover Advantage

While finance in the traditional sense has been around for centuries, the DeFi revolution is only just starting. The cryptocurrency market as a whole has existed for just over 10 years and DeFi far fewer. As such, the sector has seldom had time to mature. With this in mind, investing in DeFi can provide users early access to what could eventually become the new financial system. 

Conclusion

Decentralized finance is one of the hottest sectors in cryptocurrency right now. Throughout this article, we’ve looked at some of the best DeFi cryptos currently available, discussed the merit of DeFi as an investment, and reviewed the top DeFi exchange. One of the top cryptocurrencies we reviewed in this guide is Smog ($SMOG). Early buyers can stake $SMOG, the native token of the platform – and start earning rewards at 42% annually.

Visit Smog

FAQs

What crypto coins are DeFi?

DeFi simply means decentralized finance. As such, a huge number of crypto coins fall under the category. In the strictest sense, DeFi coins are the native tokens of DeFi protocols, such as Maker (MKR) which powers the Maker decentralized lending platform – a way for people to benefit from loans without the need of a centralized entity like a bank. Some people apply the term more loosely.

What is the best DeFi Coin to invest in?

Each of the projects we’ve reviewed has plenty of room for upwards growth. Many can be invested in as part of a DeFi portfolio on a regulated trading platform.

Are DeFi Coins worth it?

While it’s important to understand that every project is different, the best DeFi coins have historically yielded excellent results for early investors. So, while it’s crucial to perform ample due diligence, DeFi coins can make for solid investments.  

What are the best DeFi projects?

The best DeFi project will vary greatly based on a particular investor’s goals. Most DeFi projects specialize in different areas so it’s important to consider what one is looking for before investing. One of the top DeFi projects we reviewed is Smog. It offers a high staking APY of 42%.

Disclaimer: Crypto is a high-risk asset class. This article is provided for informational purposes and does not constitute investment advice. You could lose all of your capital.