With bitcoin holding less than $50,000, two traders share their favorite alternative cryptocurrency plays

December 17, 2021: -Cryptocurrencies were on watch as the Federal Reserve kicked off its two-day meeting Tuesday.

In recent months, the potential end to stimulative monetary policy has cast a pall over the space.

Bitcoin rallied Tuesday but remains less than the psychologically important $50,000 mark and well off its highs closer to $70,000 set in November.

CNBC asked its traders how they’re positioning their portfolio to best gain exposure to the crypto space heading to the coming year.

“I would be buying right now,” Mark Tepper, president of Strategic Wealth Partners, said on Tuesday. “I’m a big believer in crypto, I own a few, but I’m also a realist. And I think if you want to own or trade crypto successfully, you own it in a percentage that allows you to sleep at night,” he added.

For Tepper, that equals almost 10% of his liquid net worth, an amount that allows him to feel comfortable if he loses it all but “elated” if it rallies tenfold.

“I think you need to understand that crypto skyrocketed from the depth of Covid because of all that liquidity that flooded the system, all the checks. That’s no longer a catalyst, so the future gains are going to be much, much slower,” Tepper said.

Todd Gordon, the founder of Inside Edge Capital Management, says recent weakness in cryptocurrencies is tied to a tech sell-off and less liquidity in the system. Therefore, he sees crypto adoption in the older and establishment investors as a positive that should offset those kinds of downswings.

Such as Tepper, Gordon is bullish in the space and has 3% exposure to cryptocurrencies in his portfolio, which includes 56% bitcoin, 35% ether, 5% Solana, and 3% Cardano.

“If you want to find a good way to look at perhaps the difference between ethereum and bitcoin, you look at the cross rates, you look at ethereum versus bitcoin, you take the dollar out of it,” Gordon said in the same interview.

Ethereum relative to bitcoin has weakened but recently found support at current levels. If it can hold that support level, Gordon sees the potential to add to his position in ethereum.