• Aritzia CEO Jennifer Wong laid out some ambitious goals last year for a US expansion.
• Now, the women's wear retailer appears to be beating expectations for store count and sales.
• BI took a closer look at the 41-year-old company that is seeing a new chapter of success.

Watch out, Lululemon: Another Vancouver-based apparel maker is making a play for US shoppers.

Aritzia, the everyday luxury womenswear retailer, has steadily gained ground and grown sales over the past several years with its assortment of stylish activewear and comfortable office wear.

The company said in July that it grew its retail footprint by 25% over the last year, including opening 13 stores and redesigning three existing ones. The expansion helped drive retail sales up 34% year over year last quarter.

"We've done a lot of work over the past 1 1/2 years, two years to refine our playbook and ensure that our inventory is productive and efficient. And I think we're in a fantastic place right now, very well-positioned," CEO Jennifer Wong said in an earnings call.

The results appear to be delivering on some ambitious goals Wong laid out last year as Aritzia's US expansion was heating up.

Wong was not immediately available for an interview with Business Insider, but she detailed her strategy in several interviews with other outlets.

"We're tackling all the major cities where we know our brand and product resonates with the customer," she told Vogue Business last November. "The next step is to fill in the rest of the country."

Founded in 1984 in Vancouver, Aritzia saw steady growth in Canada before entering the US in 2007. The company saw a bumper year in 2020, followed by some pandemic-era challenges, and has since tripled sales to more than CAD$2.7 billion last year.

Wong has been with the company since its early days, rising through the ranks to eventually take over the helm from founder Brian Hill in 2022. She soon doubled the rate of store openings, helping to extend the momentum of the return-to-office era.

"We experienced some explosive growth coming out of Covid," she said. "There was pent-up demand and a whole new energy. That really accelerated our business in the US, and we became more well known than ever. We've been really riding that momentum since."

There are 68 locations in Canada and 63 in the US, and the company says it could see the US figure grow to more than 150 over the next few years, not to mention its growing e-commerce operation.

Four of those locations will open in the next few months in the Boston area, Miami, Salt Lake City, and Raleigh, North Carolina.

While Aritzia's stores have drawn some derision on TikTok for their mirrorless (and sometimes crowded) dressing rooms, its high-touch "style advisor" sales approach harkens back to the kind of personalized shopping experience offered at luxury department stores like Bergdorf Goodman.

Of course, it's the clothing that ultimately makes or breaks the sale for fashion brands, and Aritzia appears to be delivering good value for its customers.

In terms of style and substance, BI's reviews team called Aritzia's apparel "as timeless and elegant as it is trendy and modern" and said the quality is "undisputed."

Price-wise, analysts at Jefferies looked at comparable products from nine peer retailers and found Aritzia to be a cut above the mid-tier but a step below the highest-priced brands. In other words, it is more expensive than Lululemon and J. Crew but less pricey than Anthropologie and Madewell. In addition, Aritiza's prices are less frequently marked down than some competitors.

The Jefferies analysts suggested that the relative pricing and demand for Aritzia products give the company more room to grow in sales and profits, propelling its expansion.

From its merchandise to stores to tech, it appears Aritzia is getting a lot of retail fundamentals right — and reaping the rewards.

"It's not any one of those things, but it's all of these things that come together and how we've been able to execute well over the years on all of it," Wong told the Business of Fashion in January. "When I say we want to be excellent at everything, that's really what's in our minds."

Key Points

• Solana could draw in more developers with the speed of its transactions.

• Cardano's recent ecosystem upgrades could make it a lot more useful.

• XRP could gain momentum as a bridge currency for cross-border transfers.

• 10 stocks we like better than Solana ›

Many investors flocked back to cryptocurrencies during the past year as lower interest rates made speculative investments more attractive again. Earlier this month, I said the two big blue-chip cryptocurrencies -- Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) and Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) -- were still great places to park $1,000 for a few decades.

But today, I'll take a look at three riskier cryptocurrencies -- Solana (CRYPTO: SOL), Cardano (CRYPTO: ADA), and XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) -- that could also have a bright future. While they might be a bit riskier than Bitcoin or Etherereum, they might be worth a more modest $500 investment.

Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Continue »

Image source: Getty Images.

Solana

Solana's blockchain blends together the energy-efficient proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism used by Ethereum with its own proof-of-history (PoH) mechanism. That combination gives it a theoretical top speed of 65,000 transactions per second (TPS), compared to Ethereum's theoretical maximum speed of just 30 TPS. In real world transactions, which are limited by network congestion and other factors, Solana has a daily average speed of over 1,400 TPS -- compared to Ethereum's average speed of 19 TPS.

As a PoS blockchain, Solana supports the development of decentralized apps (dApps) and other crypto assets through its smart contracts. Since it's faster than Ethereum and other PoS blockchains, it's becoming a popular platform for building decentralized finance (DeFi) apps and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Visa, Shopify, and other companies have also integrated Solana Pay (its peer-to-peer payment protocol for accepting stablecoins, Solana, and other Solana-based tokens) into their own digital ecosystems.

Solana is an inflationary token with no maximum supply, so it can't be valued by its scarcity like Bitcoin. But the growth of its ecosystem could gradually boost its value. Artemis Analytics estimates that Solana only serves about 1.5 million daily active users (DAUs) today, but VanEck thinks it could eventually rise to more than 100 million DAUs in the next five years in a bull case scenario. We should take that rosy outlook with a grain of salt, but Solana could still have plenty of room to grow.

Cardano

Cardano, which was created by Ethereum co-founder Charles Hoskinson, is another PoS blockchain that supports the development of decentralized apps. Like Solana, Cardano is faster than Ethereum with a daily average speed of about 250 TPS. By deploying its new "hydra heads," which process some of its transactions off-chain to alleviate the congestion on its main blockchain, it aims to achieve average speeds more than 1,000 TPS.

The deployment of those heads could make Cardano a more popular platform for the development of DeFi, gaming, and enterprise apps. Its new Mithril protocol, which aggregates all of the data across its blockchain into a single compressed index -- should further improve its accessibility for users and developers. It also recently enabled the transfer of Bitcoin assets on its own blockchain, and that upgrade could draw more Bitcoin-backed stablecoins to its ecosystem and support the growth of its DeFi apps.

Cardano is an inflationary token, but its speed and recent upgrades could make it a more attractive platform for developers. Assuming that happens, its price might stabilize and rise over the next few decades as it catches up to blue-chip cryptos like Bitcoin and Ethereum.

XRP

XRP is a cryptocurrency created by the founders of the fintech company Ripple Labs. Its entire supply of 100 billion tokens was mined before its launch in 2012, and Ripple sold those tokens to fund its own expansion. Those sales caught the attention of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which sued Ripple for allegedly selling unregistered securities. Those lawsuits dragged on until last year, when a court slapped Ripple with a lighter-than-expected fine and ruled that XRP wasn't an unlicensed security when sold to individual investors.

That mostly favorable ruling drew back a stampede of bulls. XRP was relisted on the major crypto exchanges, Grayscale relaunched its XRP Trust as a closed-end fund (CEF), and several crypto firms submitted their applications for XRP exchange-traded funds (ETFs). But looking beyond that near-term boost, XRP still has other irons in the fire.

Ripple is promoting the usage of XRP as a bridge currency to speed up foreign currency transactions (by temporarily converting both currencies into XRP) at lower fees. It also launched pilot programs with several central banks to use XRP to bridge the liquidity between their national central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), and it recently applied for a U.S. banking license, which would enable it to integrate XRP into more cross-border transfers. To make it more relevant with developers, it's been adding support for lightweight smart contracts (mainly used for payments instead of apps) to its blockchain. The rapid expansion of that ecosystem could drive XRP's price higher during the next few decades.

Should you invest $1,000 in Solana right now?

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Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $652,133!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,056,790!*

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Leo Sun has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin, Ethereum, Shopify, Solana, Visa, and XRP. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

• I'm an American who sampled three Canadian fast-food chains in Vancouver, British Columbia.
• Pizza Pizza, Mary Brown's Chicken, and Triple O's are Canada-based chains that don't serve the US.
• I ranked my meals at each establishment from worst to best.

As an American, fast food is a guilty pleasure of mine. Some nights, nothing beats scarfing down a cheeseburger combo meal I paid less than $20 for.

So, when I traveled to Vancouver, British Columbia, for the first time in May, I sampled three Canadian fast-food chains that don't operate in the US. Here's how I'd rank them from worst to best.

My least favorite chain was Pizza Pizza.

Pizza Pizza is a quick-service pizza joint that has been around since 1967. According to the company's website, there are more than 750 locations across Canada.

I stopped by a location in Vancouver's West Point Grey neighborhood on a sunny early evening. Inside, the store was decorated with orange accents, from ceiling beams to strip lighting.

I didn't see any other customers during my visit.

I ordered a plain slice and a soda for $5.

I live in New York City, so I wasn't expecting to be blown away by a slice from a fast-food chain.

The mozzarella on the slice, sourced from Canadian farmers, tasted fresh. However, the sauce was a bit too sweet for me, the crust was thicker and chewier than I like, and I thought it lacked crispiness and flavor.

I ate about 75% of this slice before tossing the rest on my way out. Although it was a good deal, I wouldn't eat at Pizza Pizza again.

I had a better meal at Mary Brown's Chicken.

Mary Brown's Chicken was established in 1969 and has more than 270 locations in Canada, according to the company's website.

I had lunch at the fried chicken chain's East Vancouver location and spotted 50-pound sacks of locally sourced potatoes, which are hand-cut and fried in-store.

Some customers stopped in to pick up orders, while others ordered at the counter and dined in, like I did.

I got a three-piece chicken meal for about $14.

My meal included three pieces of bone-in chicken breaded with an over-50-year-old recipe, a side of "taters" (potato wedges), and a small coleslaw.

The chicken was everything I hoped it would be — moist and flavorful with a crispy outer shell. I liked the seasoning on the taters, but they tasted a bit dry to me. I'm not a fan of coleslaw, so I skipped it.

Although the sides didn't satisfy me, the chicken was so good that I would definitely return. So Mary Brown's Chicken takes the middle slot in my ranking.

Triple O's not only tops this list — it may be my favorite fast-food chain of all time.

Owned by White Spot Hospitality, Triple O's opened in Vancouver in 1997, according to the company's website. Today, the fast-food chain — which serves burgers, breakfast, sandwiches, and shakes — has 70 locations across British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario.

I had an early lunch at the Triple O's in Vancouver's Kitsilano neighborhood, where many customers shuffled in and out throughout my visit.

I ordered a cheeseburger meal for $16.

My meal included a cheeseburger with iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, and a secret sauce. It also came with a long pickle slice that I stuffed inside the sandwich, fries with a side of gravy, and a soda.

The burger was juicy and flavorful, complemented by the tangy sauce, crispy lettuce, and fresh-tasting tomatoes. Unlike many fast-food burgers, the bread didn't feel like an afterthought. The thick bun was chewy inside, and the toasted exterior protected it from sogginess.

I thought the fries, made from locally sourced potatoes, were the best in the fast-food game. They were thick and soft inside with a crispy outer layer, and the gravy made them taste like Thanksgiving dinner.

I savored every bit of this meal. By the end, I was fairly certain it was the best fast-food meal I'd ever had. I'll return to Triple O's whenever I visit the Canadian provinces it serves.

Key Points

• Cardano is considering a new plan to add Bitcoin to its treasury.

• The idea is to stimulate its decentralized finance ecosystem.

• The chain's prospects for growth are still a bit dim at the moment.

Turning a modest stake into a life-changing fortune is every crypto investor's favorite daydream, and it's a daydream for a reason. Cardano (CRYPTO: ADA) has long been marketed as a research-driven "third-generation" blockchain that might one day join the industry's elite. For anyone holding $10,000 worth of ADA today, the question is whether a decade is enough time for that bet to blossom into $1 million.

But hope is not a strategy. Cardano's current fundamentals, its slow pace of execution, and the scale of its competition all stand between today's price and a 100x return. Let's investigate the odds here, and determine what would need to change for those odds to improve.

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Cardano's 100x dream meets basic math

For a $10,000 position to become $1 million, Cardano's price must rise 100-fold, from roughly $0.60 to about $60.

That implies a market cap of roughly $2.1 trillion, which would put it neck-and-neck with the value of Bitcoin, whose own market cap is near $2.2 trillion today. Simply put, Cardano would need to leapfrog every other Layer-1 chain and match the entire value of the market's monarch. That is a breathtaking hurdle for a network that currently ranks outside the top 10 by total chain fees and decentralized finance (DeFi) activity.

But just how far behind is it?

Cardano's total value locked (TVL) in DeFi sits around $251 million, or barely 3% of archrival Solana, which boasts nearly $8.6 billion in TVL. Cardano also hosts only about $31 million in on-chain stablecoins, a vital lubricant for lending platforms and payment apps on any chain. With such thin liquidity, ambitious builders gravitate elsewhere, starving Cardano of the network effects that power exponential growth.

Image source: Getty Images.

To make matters thornier, the project's "peer-review first, iterate later" ethos, while appealing in an academic sense, means upgrades arrive slowly.

While that rigor appeals to computer science purists, it leaves Cardano reacting very late to trends like real world asset tokenization, artificial-intelligence agents, and decentralized physical infrastructure networks, rather than defining them.

Investors looking for a fast follower, much less a first mover, will not find one here.

Could new tactics change Cardano's trajectory?

Enter the recent headline-grabbing plan to convert 5% to 10% of Cardano's $1.2 billion treasury, or roughly $100 million worth of ADA, into Bitcoin and Cardano-native stablecoins.

Proponents argue the swap could generate yield, fund Cardano buybacks, and improve liquidity for its DeFi protocols. Critics counter that parking treasury assets in someone else's token is an admission that Cardano lacks the native demand to put its own coin to productive work -- and that argument is largely correct given the chain's current context of minimal DeFi activity.

Even if the move ends up being implemented and stabilizes prices at the margin, it does nothing to address Cardano's scarcity of high-traffic applications.

The chain still needs a thriving stablecoin ecosystem, consumer-friendly wallets, and deep integration with the regulated financial sector if it hopes to claim a slice of the trillion-dollar real-world-asset tokenization pie, nevermind other areas where institutional investors might be interested in allocating capital to its chain. Right now, its share of that segment is effectively zero, while bigger rivals are sprinting ahead.

Assuming Cardano could quadruple its DeFi TVL annually -- which would be a heroic pace that it almost certainly cannot do even for one year -- it would still trail today's leaders in 2030. It would not justify a multitrillion-dollar valuation. So it would not be able to grow by 100x.

The more realistic route would be a tightly focused pivot, wherein it specialized in one breakout niche and became indispensable there. Barring such a strategic victory, which is currently nowhere even close to being envisioned, the probability of a 100x price move by 2035 remains vanishingly small.

Therefore, investors hoping for millionaire status from a $10,000 Cardano stake are betting on an improbable combination of perfect execution, surging adoption, and very favorable macro conditions. Keep dreaming, because becoming a millionaire from investing in this coin will not happen.

Should you invest $1,000 in Cardano right now?

Before you buy stock in Cardano, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Cardano wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $699,558!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $976,677!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 1,060% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 180% for the S&P 500. Don’t miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor.

See the 10 stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of June 30, 2025

Alex Carchidi has positions in Bitcoin and Solana. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin and Solana. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Key Points

• The crypto market is heating up again.

• Bitcoin remains the best "blue chip" token to buy.

• Ethereum should continue to lead the developer-oriented market.

Many cryptocurrencies skyrocketed during the buying frenzy for speculative investments in 2020 and 2021. That rally was fueled by near-zero interest rates, stimulus checks, social media buzz, and commission-free trading platforms. But in 2022 and 2023, many of those tokens crashed as interest rates rose and a new crypto winter began.

Over the past year and a half, investors have gradually pivoted back toward cryptocurrencies as interest rates declined and President Donald Trump's crypto-friendly administration took the helm. So if you're still bullish on cryptocurrencies, it might be a great time to go shopping again.

Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Learn More »

Image source: Getty Images.

You shouldn't stake your life savings in cryptocurrencies, but it might be smart to set aside a modest $1,000 in a few tokens that could soar over the next few decades. I'd personally stick with the two largest cryptocurrencies -- Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) and Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) -- instead of the smaller and more speculative meme coins.

Bitcoin

Bitcoin, the world's most valuable cryptocurrency, still has plenty of upside potential for a few simple reasons. First, it's still mined with an energy-intensive proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism, which becomes more costly every four years with each "halving" that cuts its mining rewards in half. Its maximum supply is also capped at 21 million tokens. Nearly 19.9 million of those Bitcoins have already been mined, and the final token is expected to be mined in 2140. There isn't much room for long-term inflation in this model.

Bitcoin's increasingly difficult mining process, scarcity, and deflationary nature make it more comparable to gold, silver, and other physical assets than many other cryptocurrencies. That makes it a potential hedge against inflation and the devaluation of fiat currencies.

Bitcoin's first spot price exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which were approved in January 2024, made it easier for retail and institutional investors to invest in the coin without a crypto wallet. Big companies like MicroStrategy (NASDAQ: MSTR) continued to accumulate Bitcoin, the Trump administration recently established a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, and inflation-wracked countries like El Salvador and Central African Republic even adopted Bitcoin as a national currency for a while. All of those developments supported the notion that Bitcoin was becoming "digital gold."

So even though Bitcoin might seem pricey right now at roughly $110,000, it could have even more upside potential. Standard Chartered's analysts expect its price to climb to $500,000 by 2028, while Ark Invest's Cathie Wood sees it flying as high as $1.5 million by 2030. You should take those bullish estimates with a grain of salt, but Bitcoin could remain the best "blue chip" cryptocurrency to buy and hold for the next few decades.

Ethereum

Ether, the native token of the Ethereum blockchain, is the world's second most valuable cryptocurrency. It was originally a PoW token that was mined like Bitcoin, but it transitioned to the more energy-efficient proof-of-stake (PoS) mechanism in "The Merge" in 2022.

As a PoS token, Ether can no longer be mined. Instead, its investors "stake" their tokens on the blockchain to earn interest-like rewards. Ethereum's PoS blockchain also supports smart contracts, which can be used to develop decentralized apps (dApps) and other crypto assets. Its declining or rising network activity can either make it inflationary or deflationary, respectively, and it currently has a circulating supply of roughly 120.7 million tokens.

Ether is usually valued by the growth of its developer ecosystem and its transaction speeds instead of the scarcity of its tokens. Its core Level-1 blockchain is slower than PoS blockchains like Cardano, but it's assisted by faster Level-2 protocols that process the transactions off-chain before returning them to the Level-1 layer.

Ether's first spot price ETFs were also approved last year, but they only held the tokens in cold storage without passing on the staking rewards (about 3% to 5% annually) to their investors. That made the ETFs less appealing than Ether itself, but the next batch of ETFs might add those rewards.

Ethereum's next upgrade, "The Verge," will further improve its security features and lower its hardware requirements so it can run on smaller devices like smartphones. It's also expected to reduce its Layer-2 fees with "danksharding" upgrades to clear more space for fresh data.

At about $2,600, Ethereum still trades well below its all-time highs. But Cathie Wood predicts it could climb as high as $166,000 by 2032, and big institutional investors like BlackRock are still accumulating the token. Therefore, this developer-oriented token could still be a great investment for the next few decades.

Should you invest $1,000 in Bitcoin right now?

Before you buy stock in Bitcoin, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Bitcoin wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $699,558!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $976,677!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 1,060% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 180% for the S&P 500. Don’t miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor.

See the 10 stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of June 30, 2025

Leo Sun has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin and Ethereum. The Motley Fool recommends Standard Chartered Plc. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Few investments age gracefully when the world around them speeds up. The same pressure applies in crypto. Builders, investors, and users do not wait politely for laggards to catch up; they migrate to speed, liquidity, and, most of all, excitement.

That reality now confronts Cardano (CRYPTO: ADA), which was once celebrated for its emphasis on peer-reviewed research to advance its underlying technology, as well as for its deliberate pace of technical progress. Three red flags, in particular, suggest that the project risks permanent middle-of-the-pack status unless something changes quickly. Let's check out each of these warning signs in detail.

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1. Rivals are racing ahead in every dimension

In the crypto world, developers are the lifeblood of a blockchain.

They build decentralized apps (dApps), protocols, and tools that generate utility, liquidity, and real-world adoption. A thriving developer ecosystem attracts users, capital, and other partners, creating a virtuous cycle that drives a chain's value and growth. Without them, even the most technically sound chain can remain a ghost town.

In terms of developer activity in Cardano's ecosystem, it doesn't hold up very well against its chief competitors, Ethereum and Solana. Per Cryptometheus, a cryptocurrency data provider, Solana had 499 active developers, and Cardano had just 175 developers pushing updates for the week, down 33% from three months ago.

Image source: Getty Images.

Furthermore, developers flow toward concentrations of capital, and that capital is pooling elsewhere. Fidelity, a major asset manager, filed in March to list a Solana exchange-traded fund (ETF). Bloomberg now pegs the approval odds of that ETF at 90% for 2025, which would be an institutional seal of approval that no Cardano product enjoys.

Meanwhile, Solana's total value locked (TVL) on its chain was nearly $12 billion in January and currently rests at around $8.6 billion. Cardano's TVL is just $331.6 million, down from $680.8 million in early December 2024. That means there's less real money parked on its chain.

And when builders, money, and regulators all prefer the other options, it's a big problem.

2. New upgrades aren't getting used

Blockchains tend to have technical constraints. Sometimes, those constraints are troublesome enough for users that the main engineers of the chain create big new modules or other solutions in an attempt to prevent the flight of disaffected investors, users, or ecosystem developers. The success or failure of those solutions is, thus, often a major factor in determining whether to invest in the chain's native token.

And in Cardano's case, the record with successfully developing workarounds to the chain's issues isn't great, at least not in recent times.

Cardano's Layer-2 (L2) system, Hydra, dazzled testers with a 1 million transactions-per-second (TPS) demo last December, implicitly promising to solve the issue of lethargic transaction times during periods of peak load. L2s like Hydra are designed to handle transactions off the main blockchain, reducing congestion and perhaps also fees while maintaining security and interoperability. But they only matter if users adopt them and volume grows. Otherwise, they're tech demos, not adoption drivers.

Five months after launch, no major exchange, payment processor, or other project has committed to using Hydra beyond a pilot.

Another solution, called Midnight, is a side chain, which means it's a parallel network intended for specialized features such as privacy, among others. Side chains can extend a blockchain's functionality by providing specialized services that don't burden the main chain. Midnight aims to attract institutional users who want confidential holding of assets on the chain, but so far, no major financial players have signed on, and no real user base exists.

These technical marvels might eventually matter. But until developers, institutions, or users adopt them, they remain tantalizing but empty promises. And that's a big warning sign that Cardano is failing to match its development of capabilities to the features that are actually in demand.

3. Cardano's mindshare is eroding, not expanding

Crypto is a popularity contest masquerading as a set of technologies.

On June 4, Cardano counted around 23,273 daily active addresses, whereas Solana cleared nearly 5 million in the same day. That gap widens whenever meme coin mania or non-fungible token (NFT) drops spark traffic spikes. Those are segments where Cardano barely registers, as its ecosystem is very sparse in both areas.

Social chatter mirrors the numbers. Per data from Santiment, a crypto data aggregator, Cardano ranks far below Ethereum and Solana in terms of social media post volume, hinting that investor excitement has simply remained elsewhere. If users, developers, and institutions are not talking about Cardano now, why would they flock to it later?

In other words, Cardano's investment thesis -- that academic rigor in the tech development process will eventually lead to late-bloomer dominance -- faces mounting counter-evidence. Unless Hydra suddenly wins real traffic or Midnight lands marquee clients, the token's upside may remain capped while the opportunity cost mounts. And there's just not much evidence to suggest that's happening, nor is there any reason to believe it will soon.

Should you invest $1,000 in Cardano right now?

Before you buy stock in Cardano, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Cardano wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $669,517!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $868,615!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 792% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 171% for the S&P 500. Don’t miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor.

See the 10 stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of June 2, 2025

Alex Carchidi has positions in Ethereum and Solana. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Ethereum and Solana. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

It's starting to feel a lot like 2021 again, at least for cryptocurrency investors. The broad-based market rally in digital assets is continuing, with Solana (CRYPTO: SOL), Avalanche (CRYPTO: AVAX), and Cardano (CRYPTO: ADA) among today's biggest winners. As of 2:45 p.m. ET, these three tokens have surged 5%, 11.3%, and 5.7% respectively since 4 p.m. ET yesterday.

These moves come as the world's largest cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, continues to march higher, recently breaking through the $110,000 level. Thus, this market rally can certainly be perceived as one that's not only top-down (Solana, Avalanche, and Cardano are all top-15 tokens by market capitalization), but it's pervasive as well, with tokens of varying sizes also outperforming equities and other risk assets right now.

Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Learn More »

With that said, let's dive into some of the token-specific catalysts taking these three cryptos higher today.

Key partnerships and network development

For investors in these top-tier crypto networks, fundamentals matter. Not in the conventional sense, as is the case with stocks -- crypto networks like Solana, Avalanche, and Cardano don't necessarily have revenue, earnings, and cash flow for valuation purposes. But there are key growth metrics for investors looking to place a value on the ecosystems they're interested in, from daily active users, to wallets holding these tokens, to overall transaction activity.

Image source: Getty Images.

Solana, Avalanche, and Cardano have seen strong growth over the years on these key metrics, driven in part by the willingness of the developer teams behind the scenes to work with outside companies and industries to grow their reach. Solana's recent partnership with R3, a U.K. developer of blockchain technology for a range of traditional financial institutions, is a great example of such a growth strategy. This partnership, announced today, could provide a meaningful growth engine for Solana investors over the long term.

Avalance and Cardano have seen their own similar catalysts form in recent days as well. For Avalanche, a move from FIFA to team up with the leading decentralized blockchain ecosystem does appear to have spurred additional investor interest in the highly scalable network. The overarching goal with this partnership appears to be to build on top of FIFA's previous moves into the non-fungible token (NFT) market, targeting Avalanche as a key partner in this endeavor.

And for Cardano, investors appear to be bracing for some news around partnerships and network development from the team's upcoming representation at the GITEX Europe 2025 conference in Berlin this week. We'll have to see what sort of major announcements come out of this event, but I wouldn't be surprised to see some material updates over the next day or two on partnerships/development work that's ongoing.

Can this rally continue?

It's been quite a few weeks for crypto investors, with many seeing their portfolios push back into the green. This rally is certainly enticing for investors who believe that risk-on sentiment will continue, though we are seeing some macro deterioration in the bond and equity markets investors will certainly be watching closely.

That said, these three projects are among the best large-scale options for investors looking for blockchain exposure. For those bullish on this sector, these are three tokens I'd think about holding, particularly if new highs are in order across the board.

Should you invest $1,000 in Solana right now?

Before you buy stock in Solana, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Solana wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $644,254!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $807,814!*

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See the 10 stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of May 19, 2025

Chris MacDonald has positions in Solana. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Avalanche, Bitcoin, Cardano, and Solana. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Let's be perfectly clear: Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) is having a very bad year. It's now down 47% in 2025, making it the worst-performing top cryptocurrency. At a time when rival cryptocurrencies are finally starting to regain momentum, Ethereum is down another 10% over the past 30 days.

So is it time to give up on Ethereum? Or is there still hope that it can somehow turn things around? Let's take a closer look.

Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Continue »

Ethereum's competitors

Of foremost concern, Ethereum no longer looks as formidable as it did even 12 months ago. Upstart rivals continue to proliferate, and there are now four direct competitors -- Solana (CRYPTO: SOL), Cardano (CRYPTO: ADA), Avalanche (CRYPTO: AVAX), and Sui (CRYPTO: SUI) -- that are taking market share away from Ethereum.

All five of these competitors boast market caps of $9 billion or higher, all of them now rank among the top 20 cryptocurrencies in the world, and all of them are performing better than Ethereum this year. Moreover, if you look outside the Top 20, there are plenty more smaller competitors, many of them focusing on a specialized niche of the blockchain world that Ethereum once had the potential to dominate.

Ethereum's existential crisis

So this rapidly changing competitive landscape is one obvious reason why Ethereum's crypto price continues to tank. It's no longer enough for Ethereum to roll out a new blockchain upgrade every year and expect investors to be impressed.

Moreover, Ethereum appears to be experiencing an existential crisis right now. At the beginning of the year, there were even signs that Vitalik Buterin, the legendary co-founder of Ethereum, might actually quit and hand over the reins to someone new.

Image source: Getty Images.

At the same time, developers within the Ethereum blockchain ecosystem are squabbling over its future direction. And there has already been a big leadership shakeup this year at the Ethereum Foundation, the nonprofit organization responsible for guiding the future direction of Ethereum.

Adding insult to injury, some blockchain competitors are now raising the question of whether Ethereum will even exist a decade from now. Charles Hoskinson, one of the co-founders of Ethereum who went on to launch rival Cardano, recently suggested that Ethereum is running out of time and is in imminent danger of becoming the next MySpace or BlackBerry.

There's too much competition, Hoskinson says, and Ethereum is at real risk of losing its foothold in decentralized finance (DeFi), the one area where it has been historically dominant. Moreover, economic value is rapidly flowing away from Ethereum (the Layer 1 blockchain) to new blockchain scaling solutions (the Layer 2 blockchains) that are designed to help Ethereum run faster and more efficiently. Investors are waking up to this reality and significantly marking down their price forecasts for Ethereum.

The Trump factor

All of this, of course, is the reason for doom and gloom about Ethereum. However, there is one silver lining: the Trump White House still thinks Ethereum is core to the growth of the blockchain and crypto sector and is devoting considerable resources to propping it up. For example, it made Ethereum a centerpiece of the new U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile, and World Liberty Financial, the crypto company affiliated with the Trump family, has been buying Ethereum for its own portfolio.

It's up to you to decide, of course, whether these efforts are going to help. For example, take the U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile. Yes, it commits the U.S. Treasury to consolidate the government's holdings of Ethereum. But it does not commit the U.S. Treasury to buy new Ethereum, which is what investors were hoping for. Any large-scale buying of Ethereum by the U.S. government, of course, could send its price soaring.

Only buy Ethereum if this one thing happens

At the end of the day, it's almost impossible to recommend Ethereum these days. And that's really a shame because Ethereum has been a star performer for nearly a decade. It remains the second-largest cryptocurrency in the world and is one of the few cryptocurrencies widely held by both large institutional investors and small retail investors.

But here's the thing: Digital assets need to be valued based on their future growth projections and not on past accolades or past performance. There are simply too many competitors these days, and Ethereum is starting to lag its biggest rivals. Unless the Trump White House commits to a full-scale buying of Ethereum as a national strategic asset, there are better investment targets elsewhere.

Should you invest $1,000 in Ethereum right now?

Before you buy stock in Ethereum, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Ethereum wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $594,046!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $680,390!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 872% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 160% for the S&P 500. Don’t miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor.

See the 10 stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of April 28, 2025

Dominic Basulto has positions in Cardano, Ethereum, Solana, and Sui. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Avalanche, Cardano, Ethereum, Solana, and Sui. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Only a handful of cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) and XRP (CRYPTO: XRP), have been able to avoid the worst of the declines in response to President Donald Trump's new tariffs.

Most top cryptocurrencies are down at least 20% for the year, with two major categories of cryptocurrencies -- Layer 1 blockchain networks and meme coins -- getting slammed especially hard. Let's take a closer look to see whether any of these beaten-down cryptos might be worth buying right now.

Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Continue »

Layer 1 blockchain networks

Layer 1 blockchain networks, such as Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH), Solana (CRYPTO: SOL), Cardano (CRYPTO: ADA), Sui (CRYPTO: SUI), and Avalanche (CRYPTO: AVAX), have declined significantly. All of them still boast market caps of $9 billion or higher and still rank among the top 15 cryptocurrencies in the world. However, it has become obvious that many investors won't touch them.

The worst performer by a wide margin has been Ethereum. While Solana and Cardano are down a disappointing 20% on the year, Ethereum is down an eye-popping 46%. The investor sentiment around Ethereum is deeply negative, and the gap between Ethereum and its closest rivals appears to be narrowing.

Quite frankly, this shouldn't be happening. After all, Ethereum is the world's second-largest cryptocurrency, with a market value of almost $220 billion. It is one of only two cryptos (Bitcoin being the other) with a spot exchange-traded fund (ETF). During the past decade, it has had an impeccable track record of delivering outsized returns to investors.

Despite its current slide, Ethereum still appears to have the support of the Trump administration, which made it a cornerstone of its new U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile back in March. Members of the Trump family, including President Trump himself, have publicly vouched for Ethereum on social media. And World Liberty Financial, the crypto company affiliated with the Trump family, has made Ethereum a high-profile holding.

Meme coins

If there's any category of crypto that's performing worse than Layer 1 blockchains right now, it's meme coins. The current tariff environment has led to a stark risk-off mentality among investors, and there hasn't been a good reason to invest in meme coins for months now.

Image source: Getty Images.

Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE), the top meme coin by market cap, is down 45% this year. Shiba Inu (CRYPTO: SHIB), the second-largest meme coin, is down 37%. Pepe (CRYPTO: PEPE), the third-largest meme coin, is down 53%. And the Official Trump meme coin (which trades under the ticker TRUMP), the fourth-largest meme coin, is down a face-melting 84% since its debut back in January.

The message from investors could not be clearer: Stay away from meme coins. Even before tariffs, meme coins were risky, speculative investments. Now, they are complete dumpster fires, with Cathie Wood of Ark Invest recently suggesting that nearly all of them will soon be worthless.

That's not to say that some meme coins won't pop every now and then, but that's likely to be a dead cat bounce. (Or in the case of Dogecoin and Shiba Inu, a dead dog bounce.) Sorry, pet lovers, but I can't think of a worse place to invest your money right now. If you're buying animal-themed meme coins now, you're providing the exit liquidity for investors sitting on big losses right now.

Are any of these beaten-down cryptos worth buying now?

It might be tempting to sift through the crypto discount bin to see whether there are any bargains to be found. After all, we're talking about multibillion-dollar digital assets that have seen their value slashed anywhere from 20% to 50% in a matter of months. Surely, there's a good deal somewhere?

With that in mind, one crypto that might be worth exploring right now is Solana. Even amid tariff uncertainty, activity appears to be picking up on the Solana blockchain. And Solana has clearly emerged as the top challenger to Ethereum, which appears to be mired in an existential crisis these days. Best of all, we've seen how much Solana can pop. Back in 2023, Solana soared by more than 900%.

Just keep this in mind: Concerns about recession, inflation, and a potential trade war mean there is absolutely no appetite right now for many cryptocurrency investments. For now, Bitcoin remains the top crypto to target amid tariff uncertainty. Historically, Bitcoin has been more resilient than other cryptos in the face of economic and geopolitical uncertainty, and it could be your best option as a potential hedge against a global economic slowdown.

Should you invest $1,000 in Ethereum right now?

Before you buy stock in Ethereum, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Ethereum wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $594,046!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $680,390!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 872% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 160% for the S&P 500. Don’t miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor.

See the 10 stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of April 21, 2025

Dominic Basulto has positions in Bitcoin, Cardano, Ethereum, Solana, Sui, and XRP. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Avalanche, Bitcoin, Cardano, Ethereum, Solana, Sui, and XRP. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

There's one new paradigm in play that might make Cardano (CRYPTO: ADA) a better cryptocurrency to buy than Solana (CRYPTO: SOL). It doesn't have much to do with the technology underpinning either chain, but it is something that investors should probably know about today rather than when it might start making a price impact, which could take a few years.

Let's analyze what's going on and determine whether it makes Cardano worth considering, or whether it will continue lagging behind.

Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Continue »

The pace of ecosystem development matters

One of the most important factors supporting an investment thesis for buying a coin is whether there is a lot of activity on its chain. When projects on a chain are appealing to users because they offer an important decentralized finance (DeFi) service or other valuable capability, it attracts capital, boosting the price of the native token in the process. At the same time, if there's no compelling reason to park capital on a chain, money tends to flow elsewhere to find a return via investment, or to be used to pay for utility of some kind.

For investors, understanding the level of activity on a chain is not enough to make a sound decision. Instead, getting a sense of how much activity might increase in the future is key, as it's future usage that would drive prices up for those who invest today. There's no surefire way of determining whether a chain will be more in use in the future than it is today, but if there are a lot of interesting or valuable projects in development in the chain's ecosystem, it's a vote in favor of there being future demand.

Cardano is significantly smaller than Solana, with a market cap of $23.6 billion compared to the other coin's market cap of $74.3 billion. Therefore, with all else being equal, one would expect that the volume of ongoing software development for the projects hosted on each coin's ecosystem would be proportional to the chain's size, suggesting that Solana would have roughly 3 times as much development activity as Cardano.

It's difficult to measure how much software development activity is going on, but there are a few composite metrics that can approximately track how many times developers make substantive additions or changes to a chain's projects. One such composite metric, created by the crypto data provider Santiment, shows that Solana experienced around 464,000 ecosystem development events in the last 12 months, whereas Cardano experienced 389,900 events. So Cardano is seeing a huge amount of developer activity in its ecosystem for its size, and it isn't just a blip.

There's more than one factor that's relevant here

Experiencing more developer activity on its chain relative to Solana is not a slam dunk as far as making Cardano worth buying.

Cardano has a couple of substantial disadvantages that still make it a less appealing investment than Solana. First, it's more expensive and slower to transact on. Making a swap on Solana takes about a second and costs a fraction of a penny, whereas the same action on Cardano takes a few seconds at best and costs roughly $0.20 on average. That incentivizes more developers to develop applications on Solana over the long term.

Second, Cardano's ecosystem is nowhere near as diverse as Solana's, nor is it as vibrant today. It's nearly completely missing out on critical growth segments like artificial intelligence, as well as less-serious but still capital-attractive segments like meme coins. Other important categories, like stablecoins on the chain, are incredibly small for Cardano's size compared to the equivalent assets on Solana. So it has fewer opportunities for capital to flow in, and a weaker set of tools to accommodate users or investors interested in large transaction sizes.

Thus, while it's undeniably bullish for the chain to have a lot of development activity relative to a much larger chain, constituting a moderate-strength reason to consider making an investment, it's more than offset by the mediocre health of its ecosystem today. There isn't a strong reason to buy it over Solana.

It's possible that might change over the coming years, especially if its activity ramps up even more. But investors should be aware that such activity is only an investable factor if it's being directed toward producing real projects of value. And so far, Cardano simply isn't the home for the projects cryptocurrency investors are finding to be valuable today.

Should you invest $1,000 in Cardano right now?

Before you buy stock in Cardano, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Cardano wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $591,533!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $652,319!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 859% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 158% for the S&P 500. Don’t miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor.

See the 10 stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of April 21, 2025

Alex Carchidi has positions in Solana. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Cardano and Solana. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

The U.S. Federal Reserve is facing heavy pressure to cut interest rates. President Donald Trump recently warned that Fed Chairman Jerome Powell's job could be at risk if he doesn't cut rates fast.

But let's set aside all the political undertones and deal-making calculations, and focus on the overarching questions: What happens to cryptocurrency prices if there is a rate cut? And which cryptocurrencies would become most attractive in a lower-rate environment?

Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Learn More »

The relationship between interest rates and crypto prices

The general rule of thumb is that rising interest rates result in lower crypto prices, while declining interest rates result in higher crypto prices. That might sound simplistic, but when rates are lower, the cost of borrowing is lower. Moreover, risky assets suddenly appear more attractive on a relative basis. That generally leads to an infusion of new money pouring into crypto.

This is the scenario that Charles Hoskinson, the co-founder of both Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) and Cardano (CRYPTO: ADA), now sees happening with the crypto market. In a recent podcast interview with CNBC, he laid out a scenario where lower interest rates might lead to a new speculative frenzy in crypto, helping to push Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) to $250,000 by the end of the year. That's incredibly bullish but gives you an idea of the immediate impact a rate cut could have on crypto.

Historical evidence

Given that Bitcoin officially started trading in January 2009, three distinct time periods over the past 15 years could provide important clues about the link between crypto prices and interest rates.

There was the low interest-rate environment created in response to the 2008 global financial crisis; the Federal Reserve's policy of interest rate increases in 2017–2018; and the low interest-rate environment created in response to the pandemic.

If you look at these three periods, they all tell the same story: Lower interest rates help crypto, while higher interest rates hurt it.

The Federal Reserve Building in Washington. Image source: Getty Images.

For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, central banks around the world slashed interest rates nearly to zero and introduced all sorts of new stimulus measures, in the hopes of reviving economic growth.

And it worked! The period from 2020-2021 resulted in a huge bull market rally for Bitcoin, as it skyrocketed in value to a (then) all-time high of $69,000 in November 2021.

It's easy to see why President Trump is now pressing so hard for interest rate cuts. If new tariffs are going to curtail future economic growth, then there needs to be some sort of stimulus to keep the economy moving. And that stimulus is cheap money.

Just keep in mind: Crypto is still a relatively new asset class, and we still really don't know how it will perform after rate cuts. History may be a guide, but it's not a precise indicator of what happens next.

Which cryptos should you buy?

Based on the above, Bitcoin appears to be the obvious beneficiary of lower interest rates. After all, didn't it skyrocket to $69,000 as soon as rates were cut in 2020?

However, don't forget about altcoins. In an environment of lower interest rates, riskier assets such as beaten-down altcoins (some of them down as much as 50% for the year) could start to look a lot more attractive on a relative basis. And that might mean we finally get the arrival of "Altcoin Season" -- the time of the year when risky altcoins explode in value and outperform Bitcoin.

All of this should highlight the importance of portfolio diversification. It still makes sense to make Bitcoin the focus of any new crypto buying in the wake of rate cuts, but now might be the time to explore new coins to diversify your portfolio.

My personal pick right now would be coins with significant exposure to the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector. That's what World Liberty Financial, the crypto company affiliated with the Trump family, appears to be loading up on now. These coins also performed very well during the 2020-2021 crypto bull market cycle, highlighted by the speculative, frothy "DeFi Summer" of 2020.

As always, remember to do your due diligence. Crypto has always been risky and volatile, and the current economy is especially dicey, with unknown consequences ahead.

Should you invest $1,000 in Bitcoin right now?

Before you buy stock in Bitcoin, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Bitcoin wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $566,035!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $629,519!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 829% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 155% for the S&P 500. Don’t miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor.

See the 10 stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of April 21, 2025

Dominic Basulto has positions in Bitcoin, Cardano, and Ethereum. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin, Cardano, and Ethereum. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.