Dogecoin (DOGE)

What else could be the number one on our list of top altcoins for May 2021 but dogecoin (DOGE)? Its price surged 20% yesterday after Elon Musk referenced the coin and his upcoming appearance on Saturday Night Live.

Mark Cuban was also talking about dogecoin on the Ellen Show. He mentioned how he bought the coin with his son while it was still priced lower than a penny. This sparked a new wave of buying and at the time of recording it’s trading around $0.30.

All this activity could bring the meme-inspired cryptocurrency to a record high above $0.45 and has sparked fears of a potential bubble again. But the “Doge army” definitely doesn’t feel that way. Looking at the chart we see the broader uptrend still at work, but we also noticed the high of $0.45 wasn’t retested again.

This gives us two competing trendlines, which are setting up dogecoin for a breakout in the coming days. Depending on any new strong fundamentals, or if community enthusiasm is high enough, it could go either way.

Binance coin (BNB)

Next, we have Binance coin (BNB). The platform token has seen a solid rise recently. This was driven by a record BNB burn by Binance and the uptrend of Binance Smart Chain metrics. 

A few weeks ago, the token burn accounted for $600 million worth of BNB in the first quarter of 2021. This reduced the circulating supply and suggests the exchange generated roughly $750 million in quarterly profit. Adding to the token burn, BNB benefited from the daily number of transactions on Binance Smart Chain surpassed five million. 

And continuing the NFT trend, Binance just had its first on-chain NFT platform IDO which sold out in five minutes. This was based on an effort from Polkastarter, a Polkadot powered protocol that launched an NFT platform called Refinable. With it, users can create and manage NFTs on the Binance Smart Chain.

You can see all of these fundamentals reflected on the daily chart, where two areas have formed. 

A break above the $600 level could signal a stronger move, but we have to say that the fundamentals behind this uptrend seem quite strong. Should a break above the $600 dollar level happen, then most traders think we’re headed for $800.

1INCH

Number three on our list is the 1INCH token, which has been attracting a lot of attention recently. 1INCH is the native token of the 1inch exchange, a decentralized exchange aggregator. Instead of swapping tokens from a single liquidity pool of a DEX, 1inch aggregates across different pools and suggest the most efficient way to trade tokens.

The 1INCH chart shows a range that has trapped the price for the last two months or so.

But there could be some pent up pressure here, as interest in this decentralized exchange has been increasing.

Monero (XMR)

Monero has been making a bit of a comeback recently. After it climbed over 200% this year, we decided to check it out. This privacy-focused crypto is trading just below its all-time highs reached way back in 2017.

Momentum for XMR saw a noticeable uptick in early February. This was thanks to an effort by members of the monero community to get XMR added as a payment option on Tesla’s website.

The proposal was unsuccessful, but the effort attracted a lot of attention. The project also received a boost in momentum following the successful audit of Bulletproofs+. This is the network’s new zero-knowledge proving system that enables lighter, smaller monero transactions. 

The chart here doesn’t need too much of an analysis. What is surprising here is that no one seems to be talking about it!

Momentum is strong and the record of $477 is likely to be reached in the coming days and weeks. There has been very little profit taking or interest to sell during this run up and the momentum could continue for a while.

Solana (SOL)

Our final pick for altcoins in May is solana. It seems to be another beneficiary of the high gas fees on the Ethereum (ETH), network in recent months.  

As per their own words, Solana is “a fast, secure, and censorship-resistant blockchain providing the open infrastructure required for global adoption.” Thus, its price has skyrocketed to reflect the increased interest in this rising alternative for DeFi and NFTs. It currently stands at #13 in terms of market cap, sitting above well known stellar and the USDC stablecoin.

Solana’s price has gained over 3,000% since the beginning of the year when one SOL coin was worth $1.50. But unlike the similar 5,000% gains seen in dogecoin, the utility and development of solana seem to be the main drivers here. 

As you can see on the chart, it grew while the broader crypto market has also seen a surge, but unlike the more popular cryptocurrencies, it didn’t stop to catch its breath. The momentum here seems really solid, and the next target could be $60, should the run continue, so it’s definitely one to watch!