AVAX, NEAR, FTM. These 3 crypto’s saw astronomical gains from humble beginnings. Regardless of their current position, anyone who bought before these were known, had the opportunity to make a ton of profit.

Bear markets are a great time to accumulate your favorite coins, but I sometimes like to buy coins I’ve been keeping an eye on if I think the entry price is good. I only buy coins I am willing to DCA in, so if it goes down 60% the next day after my first purchase, I am ok with it. Of course you need to pay attention as to why something dropped in case it is crumbling before your eyes like LUNA and CEL.

Keep in mind that some of these coins haven’t collapsed as hard as other coins in the top 100-200, sometimes a coin with a lower market cap takes a while to catch up. Tokenomics are important to look into since any unlocks during a bear market might contribute to more selling pressure. I would also look into how developers are funded and how much runway projects actually have.

**Telos** (TLOS): It has and or exceeds the speeds of other popular L1s that got hype. It was developed using EOSIO, which regardless of what you think of EOS, it still is a very good blockchain. 10k TPS and 0.5 blocktimes. EVM compatibility and fees are very negligent. Market cap of 50 million currently. This one seems the closest to other L1s that have pumped.

**Hydra** (HYDRA): Anyone can become a validator with regardless of how many tokens you own, of course the more you own the more likely you are chosen to validate a block and get the rewards. The blockchain was designed by the team who created Locktrip, which is a hotel booking website. They have other companies already using their blockchain. It does not have a max supply, but depending on the transactional economy, it can switch between inflationary and deflationary. Market cap of 30 million currently. Staking APY is 40%. I can see a meme hail hydra train if it gets listed on some bigger exchanges.

**Illuvium** (ILV): ILV is the governance token for the game that is being developed, Illuvium. It is like a pokemon autobattler developed using the Unreal Engine. The private beta is currently out which you can search on youtube to see gameplay. 100% of money generated in the game goes back to people staking ILV. The game has been delayed several times, and a lot of the supply is going to unlock at the end of this month which will be huge downward pressure. As we saw with AXS when BTC was tanking last year, it managed to pump despite the market. That being said, AXS had a mobile platform which ILV won’t upon game release and will develop that after. You can currently get 20% staking for ILV if you lock it in for a year, or 200% APY if you LP farm ILV\\ETH.

**Ergo** (ERG: This has been shilled on here before, and I myself have bought some a couple months ago in the 2$ range. It survived the crypto bear market of 2018 and surged again in 2021. It seems to have a lot of development and tons of features on the blockchain. Market cap of 63 million. It is a proof of work coin but you can have your ergo earn on some of the various defi apps on it.

**Crypterium** (CRPT): If you look at the chart of this it is almost cyclical with the pumps and dumps. A recent coinbase listing sent it up really high. They are trying to be a mobile app that is a wallet for every coin with the ability to trade\\purchase on the app. This one is more of a gamble hoping to ride the wave if some whale keeps manipulating it. Market cap 11 million.

**API3** (API3): Decentralized oracle. It had 50% staking last time I looked into it. Another coin that seems to have had cyclical patterns. Market cap 45 million.

There are a couple DEFI coins that I like in the low market cap range. **Quick** and **BIFI**. If you look at price history for ALL DEFI coins, it is pretty bad. It seems to be quick pumps followed by a slow bleed as people who got in very early just sell their rewards and purchase something else. Beefy finance has actually held up pretty well and is a cross chain defi app with 90% of the supply in circulation.

Quick is one of the bigger defi app for polygon network. I typically don’t buy DEFI coins, especially if liquidity is going to dry up in a bear market. But BIFI seems to be designed really well and if you are long term polygon, Quick might see some injection into it again if things start to go up again.

If you have any other coins in the low market cap you are looking at, please feel free to share. Happy hunting!