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.

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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?

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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 $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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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.

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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.