A rare global interruption in the Starlink satellite Internet network knocked subscribers offline for more than two hours on Thursday, the longest widespread outage since SpaceX opened the service to consumers nearly five years ago.

The outage affected civilian and military users, creating an inconvenience for many but cutting off a critical lifeline for those who rely on Starlink for military operations, health care, and other applications.

Michael Nicolls, SpaceX's vice president of Starlink engineering, wrote on X that the network outage lasted approximately 2.5 hours.

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Key Points

• Chainlink just initiated a new and fully automated regulatory compliance engine.

• One of XRP's big appeals to institutional capital holders is its compliance tooling.

• Chainlink isn't about to eat XRP's lunch.

• 10 stocks we like better than XRP ›

When the U.S. railroads finally agreed on a common track gauge, freight stopped piling up at state borders, and rail commerce exploded. In tokenized cryptofinance, compliance tooling is the gauge. If an asset can roll from a private crypto wallet and onto a public blockchain without getting derailed by compliance problems, big volumes of capital will subsequently flow.

Enter Chainlink, (CRYPTO: LINK) the data oracle heavyweight that's now launching a suite of fresh compliance tools that could end up setting the standard for the industry for applications of its type. Given XRP's (CRYPTO: XRP) focus on being compliant for institutional investors, it's natural for some investors to suspect that Chainlink's new feature set poses a threat to XRP's market share.

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 »

But this worry is misplaced. Here's why.

What Chainlink actually does

Chainlink is middleware. As a data oracle, its node operators send price quotes, logs of corporate actions, and proof-of-reserve confirmations into smart contracts on dozens of blockchains. The idea is for users and applications on those blockchains to use Chainlink's oracle for their own purposes, like automated trading or dynamic alteration of smart contracts. Roughly $45.1 billion in on-chain value depends on those feeds every day, which is more than any other oracle provider.

Because it sits between data producers and blockchains, Chainlink can bolt on new services without rewriting any ledger. Its newly launched Automated Compliance Engine (ACE) is just another module, which is to say it's optional code that token issuers can call to screen their counterparts or flag suspicious flows.

Image source: Getty Images.

Chainlink doesn't settle transactions or hold custody of assets. It does not mint tokens, finalize ownership, or warehouse balances. Think of it as the Bloomberg terminal of crypto, rather than as a trading clearinghouse.

That design means it can enhance almost any ledger, including the XRP Ledger (XRPL), without competing for the same transaction volume or capital. In theory, an issuer could rely on Chainlink data and its new automated compliance logic, yet still move money across XRP's chain, paying XRP fees along the way.

Oracle and settlement layers are complementary, not substitute goods.

So, while there probably won't be a significant effect on XRP's price today, Chainlink's new compliance tooling could actually be helpful rather than harmful. Institutional investors on the XRPL now have access to a compliant-by-default data oracle, as XRPL doesn't provide one natively.

This issue is foundational to the future of crypto

Chainlink's launch of ACE is bullish for the crypto sector as a whole, as compliance is one of its most frequent stumbling blocks to broader institutional adoption.

Regulators from Singapore to Brussels spent the past year tightening crypto disclosure and identity rules, warning that tokenization cannot scale without bulletproof know your customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) capabilities. That makes compliance architecture the single biggest gating factor between the $25.3 billion of tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) on public chains today and the trillions of assets that consultants expect to be managed on the blockchain within a decade. Many estimates call for the total value of tokenized real-world assets to reach trillions of dollars in the next five years, so it's a key segment for chains to compete in.

XRP tackles the problem at protocol level. The company that issues XRP, Ripple, is intent on making the chain the preferred solution for banks and institutional investors to transfer their money, process payments, settle trades, and track their tokenized assets.

As a result, on XRPL, tokenized asset issuers can exclude wallets, freeze rogue balances, and even halt an entire asset class if regulators demand it. Those controls are native, which means that no smart contracts are required, and Ripple's enterprise sales force markets them hard to banks that loathe stitching together third-party widgets.

There is plenty of runway for XRP to gain in value as a result of its leadership in compliance for real assets. Many of the same tailwinds it's experiencing will likely benefit Chainlink too.

XRP hosts about $160.2 million in tokenized assets today, up 37% in the past month but still just 0.6% of the public total. Chainlink's oracles, meanwhile, secure assets worth more than 300 times that amount, yet don't hold a single token themselves.

The pie is expanding quickly, which means that the capital wielded by institutional investors will be hunting for the cleanest ways to get on-chain data to enable their tokenized asset investments and operations. The bottom line here is that compliance is mandatory, but it is not winner-take-all. There are many different and non-overlapping niches, as well as many different investment opportunities.

Chainlink funnels truth and rule checks into contracts, whereas XRP provides a settlement layer with regulator-friendly throttles. Both are providing needed services, and both coins are probably worth buying and holding if you're the kind of investor who can normally stomach investing in altcoins.

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

Before you buy stock in XRP, 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 XRP 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 $671,477!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,010,880!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 1,047% — 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.

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*Stock Advisor returns as of July 7, 2025

Alex Carchidi has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Chainlink and XRP. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

• Trilogies have been part of storytelling for decades; they have a clear beginning, middle, and end.
• While most make hundreds of millions of dollars, not all cinematic trilogies are created equal.
• The best film trilogies include "How to Train Your Dragon" and "The Naked Gun."

In 2025, sequels, prequels, remakes, reboots, and legacy sequels are ubiquitous. Trilogies, however, are a little more special.

Some of the trilogies on this list were perhaps turned into three movies because of the potential for billions at the box office — the "Guardians of the Galaxy" trilogy, for example, made $2.4 billion worldwide — but many of these stories simply couldn't be told in just one film.

Imagine "Lord of the Rings" ending after "Fellowship" or "Star Wars" with no "Empire Strikes Back" or "Return of the Jedi." It'd be a tragedy for any cinema buff.

More recently, the "How to Train Your Dragon" trilogy has proven so popular that an entire theme park land was created around it at Epic Universe, and a live-action remake of the first film is lighting up the box office.

Here are some of the best trilogies in Hollywood history, and where to stream them.

"How to Train Your Dragon"

The sole animated trilogy on this list, the "How to Train Your Dragon" trilogy, proved that Disney didn't have a monopoly on beautifully told stories from 2010 to 2019.

The series, released by DreamWorks Animation, focused on the story of Hiccup, an awkward teenager who discovers that dragons, long-feared by his entire community as raging beasts, aren't what they seem.

As Hiccup (spoiler) loses his leg at the climax of the film, he is seen using a prosthetic in the next two films, making him a landmark in disability and amputee representation, as reported by The Washington Post.

Additionally, the score for this trilogy is so awe-inspiring that it became a meme on TikTok.

However, the real draw of this series is the absolutely heartwarming bond between Hiccup and his downright adorable dragon, Toothless. They're best friends! It's beautiful!

It's so popular that one of the lands at Universal Studios' Epic Universe is the Isle of Berk, where you can meet all your favorite characters in real life — even Toothless.

All three "How to Train Your Dragon" movies are streaming on Peacock. The first one is also available on HBO Max.

"The Lord of the Rings"

The "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, released from 2001 to 2003, told a sprawling tale of good versus evil set in a fictional world called Middle Earth.

Based upon J. R. R. Tolkien's series of books, there hadn't (and still hasn't) been anything quite like director Peter Jackson's trilogy. All three were filmed back-to-back in New Zealand, letting the actors and the creative team fully immerse themselves in the fantasy world.

And what a world Middle Earth is. It contains beautiful landscapes, compelling heroes and villains in Frodo, Gandalf, Saruman, and Gollum, and an inspiring story of the little guy triumphing over the strongest evil force in the world.

Any trilogy with extended cuts that are 4 hours long and that people genuinely love watching deserves its place on this list. Plus, all three were nominated for best picture at the Oscars, with the third and final installment, "The Return of the King," winning the top prize in 2004.

The "Lord of the Rings" trilogy is available to stream on HBO Max, while the prequel series "Rings of Power" is streaming on Prime Video.

"Back to the Future"

The "Back to the Future" trilogy, which is celebrated every October 21 as the day Marty (an '80s teenager played by Michael J. Fox) travels in time, was a full-blown phenomenon in the '80s and '90s.

The films made an A-list movie star out of Fox, introduced Christopher Lloyd, who plays Marty's best friend and disgraced nuclear physicist Doc Brown, to a new generation, and made everyone long for flying skateboards and sneakers that tied themselves.

While we're still not at the level of technology we saw in "Back to the Future 2," the appeal of the story of Marty trying to simultaneously improve his parents' lives, save Doc from an untimely death, and ultimately return home from the Wild West, remains timeless.

So much so that a musical adaptation of the first film ran for two years on Broadway.

The "Back to the Future" trilogy is available to rent online.

"The Naked Gun"

After the mega-success of "Airplane!" in 1980, Leslie Nielsen once again spoofed a well-known profession with "The Naked Gun": a detective. Without "Naked Gun," we might not have gotten "Reno 911," "Brooklyn Nine-Nine," or even the "Austin Powers" movies.

"The Naked Gun" was such a huge success upon its 1988 release that two more sequels following the lovably dimwitted cop Sgt. Frank Drebin (Nielsen) were commissioned in 1991 and 1994.

Sgt. Drebin is so enduring that more than 30 years later, Liam Neeson was tapped to star in a "Naked Gun" reboot. It's set for release in August 2025.

The "Naked Gun" trilogy is available to stream on Paramount+.

"The Man with No Name"

Clint Eastwood starred in the "Man with No Name" trilogy, consisting of 1964's "A Fistful of Dollars," 1965's "For a Few Dollars More," and 1966's "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" — and a fun fact: This trilogy was actually crafted after the movies were released.

These Spaghetti Westerns were first released in Italy. Once United Artists picked up the distribution rights, the studio decided to package them together as one trilogy starring Eastwood as the titular man with no name (even though his characters do have different names in each).

However, these three movies changed Hollywood forever, as they introduced Eastwood to the movie-going masses, a move that affected the next 60 years (and counting) of cinema.

Director Sergio Leone's aesthetic has influenced countless movies and TV shows, including hits like "The Mandalorian." And, of course, Ennio Morricone's theme for "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" is still one of the most recognizable pieces of music of all time.

The "Man with No Name" trilogy is streaming on Tubi and Prime Video.

"The Dark Knight" trilogy

There's an argument to be made that Christopher Nolan's "Dark Knight" trilogy, released from 2005 to 2012, is the best superhero trilogy of all time.

But when Christian Bale took over as the Caped Crusader in 2005, it wasn't a given that the film would be a huge success, never mind that its sequel would become the first superhero to have an actor win an Academy Award (Heath Ledger, posthumously, for his performance as the Joker in "The Dark Knight").

Arguably, "The Dark Knight" (and the two films it's sandwiched between) changed the comic-book/superhero genre forever, paving the way for what it's become today — one of the most important genres at the box office — as well as the grittier and darker aesthetic many films adopted after.

Even if everyone isn't 100% satisfied with the trilogy's conclusion, "The Dark Knight Rises" was a huge box-office success and, 13 years later, is now one of the more impressive franchise-ending films.

"The Dark Knight" trilogy is available to stream on HBO Max.

Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man"

If "Batman Begins" and its two sequels were more a realistic, grittier adaptation of a comic book, 2002's "Spider-Man" and its two sequels were ripped directly from the pages of Stan Lee's and Steve Ditko's comics in the '60s. Tobey Maguire looked eerily like a classic drawing of Peter Parker.

Even if "Spider-Man 3" didn't live up to the hype of the first two, "Spider-Man" and "Spider-Man 2" are some of the best comic-book movies of all time.

The "Spider-Man" trilogy is available to stream on Disney+.

"Guardians of the Galaxy"

The lone MCU trilogy to make its way on this list is the "Guardians of the Galaxy" trilogy. Expectations were low when the first "Guardians" film was released in 2014. Star-Lord, Gamora, Rocket Raccoon, Drax, and Groot were by no means beloved characters, and director James Gunn had never helmed a production of this magnitude before.

Thankfully, it was a breath of fresh air. The soundtrack was amazing, the characters were lovable and hilarious, and the look was so different from the rest of the primarily grounded Marvel Cinematic Universe.

"Vol. 2" followed in 2017, adding the wonderful Mantis and officially welcoming Nebula to the team.

Gunn made it clear that "Vol. 3," which was released in 2023, would be his final outing with this iteration of the Guardians, and they all had fittingly bittersweet endings.

The "Guardians" trilogy is available to stream on Disney+.

The original "Star Wars" trilogy

Decades after its original release from 1977 to 1983, we're still getting new "Star Wars" content, between the multitude of Disney+ shows, multiple cartoons, and two more sequel trilogies (neither of which lived up to the hype of the original space opera).

But even though we're still living in a sprawling, extended "Star Wars" universe, George Lucas' first trilogy of "A New Hope," "The Empire Strikes Back," and "Return of the Jedi," tells a relatively simple story that anyone can relate to: A small-town boy pines to explore the world, only to find out that life is much more complicated (and wonderful) when you leave your bubble.

Just add in some of fiction's most charming characters (Han Solo, Princess Leia, Obi-Wan Kenobi) and an iconically terrifying villain (Darth Vader), and you have three of the most influential, beloved movies ever.

The "Star Wars" trilogy is available to stream on Disney+.

"Night of the Living Dead"

There were horror movies before this trilogy, but nothing had come along quite like "Night of the Living Dead" upon its release in 1968.

The first film, which focuses on a small group of strangers riding out a zombie apocalypse in an abandoned cabin, is not just considered the first modern zombie movie — you're welcome, "Walking Dead" fans — but also one of the best horror films and one of the most influential movies of all time.

The next two follow-ups, released in 1978 and 1985 and also directed by indie film legend George Romero, continued the series.

While there are more also directed by Romero, they came 20+ years after the third film, and aren't held in quite the same esteem.

"Night of the Living Dead" and "Day of the Living Dead" are streaming on Tubi, while "Dawn of the Dead" is available to rent.

"The Godfather"

Not many trilogies can boast a three-for-three best picture nomination statistic (perhaps the only other trilogy might be the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy). But only "The Godfather" trilogy can claim two best picture wins, for its first two films.

The Italian-American mafia story has one of the greatest casts ever assembled — Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Diane Keaton, James Caan, Robert Duvall, and Andy García, to name a few — and kick-started a mob/organized craze in pop culture that we're still living in today, including "Scarface," "Goodfellas," "The Sopranos," "Mob Wives," "Peaky Blinders," "MobLand," and more.

The "Godfather" trilogy is available to stream on Paramount+. Note that the third film is the newly recut version by Coppola re-titled "The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone."

"Indiana Jones"

After the success of "Star Wars," Harrison Ford again teamed up with its creator George Lucas and none other than Steven Spielberg to bring one of the most iconic heroes to the big screen: Indiana Jones, an archaeology professor who also has the combat skills of a super-soldier.

And the original "Indiana Jones" trilogy, 1981's "Raiders of the Lost Ark," 1984's "Temple of Doom," and 1989's "The Last Crusade," remain exciting adventure films decades later — but the less we speak of 2008's "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" the better and 2023's "Dial of Destiny" is good, but not entirely necessary.

The "Indiana Jones" trilogy and "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" are available to stream on Disney+ and Paramount+. "Dial of Destiny" is only on Disney+.

The "Before" trilogy

The story of Jesse and Céline begins in 1995 when two strangers meet on a train to Budapest and decide to roam around the city of Vienna to kill time. They bond over their shared love of music and their similar outlook on life.

Much of the film's dialogue was cowritten by the stars, making actors Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy's conversations all the more relatable and watchable.

In an interesting turn of events, the actors reunited nine years later for "Before Sunset" and nine years after that for "Before Midnight" to check in on the couple to see how love realistically evolves over two decades.

"Before Sunrise" and "Before Sunset" are available to rent online. "Before Midnight" is streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.

"The Evil Dead"

Director Sam Raimi has another trilogy on this list: the "Evil Dead" trilogy, consisting of "The Evil Dead" in 1981, "Evil Dead II" in 1987, and "Army of Darkness" in 1992.

The "Evil Dead" movies, or the "Ash Gets Punished Over Thousands of Years" trilogy, are cited as some of the most influential horror/comedy films of all time by outlets like Screen Rant. They were shepherded by director Raimi and star Bruce Campbell.

"Evil Dead" and its two sequels (well, one sequel and one remake/reboot) flawlessly balanced the black comedy and the horror staples of the zombie genre, paving the way for "Shaun of the Dead," "Ready or Not," "Scream," or even "Get Out."

"The Evil Dead" and "Army of Darkness" are available to rent, while "Evil Dead II" is streaming on The Roku Channel and Plex.

"The Vengeance Trilogy"

"The Vengeance Trilogy" isn't a trilogy with connecting characters, but rather is connected via themes of revenge and retribution.

South Korean director Park Chan-wook didn't initially consider 2002's "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance," 2003's "Oldboy," and 2005's "Lady Vengeance" a trilogy, but it's clear that each film deals with similar themes.

All are films focusing on a character who is hell-bent on getting revenge on those who have wronged them — although, in the case of "Oldboy," it's unclear who's actually getting revenge.

Be warned: These movies are not for the faint of heart. But they are thought-provoking, disturbing, and well-acted.

"Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance" and "Lady Vengeance" are available to stream on Tubi and AMC+, and "Oldboy" is on Paramount+.

Good old Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) is doing alright this year, trading 13% higher year-to-date on June 18. On the other hand, many altcoins are struggling. For example, the market-defining oracle coin Chainlink (CRYPTO: LINK) is down by 37% in 2025. Is Chainlink fading out for good, or could this be a great time to buy the falling coin?

Let's take a 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 »

Bitcoin is running away from Chainlink

Rising Bitcoin prices don't always translate into strong returns from other cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin's dominance of the total crypto market has been surging since November 2022, rising from 38% to 64% in that 30-month period.

Chainlink had a total market value of $3.8 billion on November 30, 2022. That was about 0.44% of the crypto market as a whole. The coin price is up by 78% since then, far behind Bitcoin's 537% price jump. Chainlink's footprint on the crypto market has shrunk to 0.26%.

Why Chainlink isn't just a weaker Bitcoin

So Chainlink has underperformed Bitcoin in recent years -- but why?

First and foremost, Bitcoin is becoming a fairly standard asset nowadays. It's a limited-inflation value carrier, comparable to gold in many ways. Its value is based on computing time and electric bills rather than physical gold bars, but the idea of a limited-supply accounting asset is easily understood. People are doing some very traditional things with Bitcoin now, like building corporate cash reserves and launching exchange-traded funds based on Bitcoin prices.

Chainlink is a different beast. It's harder to grasp how this coin creates value -- and value storage isn't its main purpose.

As an oracle coin, Chainlink's job is to collect and distribute data throughout the cryptocurrency ecosystem. You can use it to read the current market prices of various cryptocurrencies, stocks, and other assets. Chainlink can also track weather data, real estate prices, flight times, and more.

This data comes in handy for smart contracts, automating things in the blockchain-based cryptocurrency world. With Chainlink's real-world data feeds, you can set up Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) smart contracts to take action. Like, sell this non-fungible token when its price reaches $100, or transfer some Bitcoin to an emergency fund when the wind speed in Tampa hits 80 mph.

These are simple examples, and developers can take more sophisticated actions. The smart contracts can be written for Ethereum or Solana (CRYPTO: SOL) or Avalanche (CRYPTO: AVAX), just to name a few popular platforms. And the common denominator is Chainlink. Other oracles exist, but none come close to Chainlink's market reach.

So if you want to make a Web3 app, or a decentralized finance tool, or some other program that depends on smart contracts, you pretty much have to rely on Chainlink's data. And every data request generates a tiny fee, which is distributed to coin holders who support data security by staking their Chainlink coins.

Chainlink's value creation makes sense when you think about it, but it's not as simple or obvious as the Bitcoin model. That's why Chainlink's price chart has lagged behind Bitcoin's recently -- setting patient investors up for greater long-term gains. This oracle coin won't be misunderstood and underestimated forever.

Image source: Getty Images.

Where Chainlink goes from here

Long story short, a Chainlink investment is a bet on smart contracts and the apps you can build around them. From tokenized real-world assets to blockchain-based digital wallets, Chainlink will build plenty of usage-based value as these next-generation financial management ideas go mainstream.

As such, I see a bright long-term future for Chainlink and its early investors. None of the catalysts I listed above have gained much traction yet, and Chainlink is waiting for the first killer app. It will probably never be a trillion-dollar asset, like Bitcoin is today, but there's plenty of room for wealth-building growth with much lower market caps.

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

Before you buy stock in Chainlink, 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 Chainlink 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 $659,171!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $891,722!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 995% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 172% 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 9, 2025

Anders Bylund has positions in Bitcoin, Chainlink, Ethereum, and Solana. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Avalanche, Bitcoin, Chainlink, Ethereum, and Solana. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

The Polkadot (CRYPTO: DOT) cryptocurrency is going through some pretty exciting changes these days. The Web3 Foundation's official crypto coin is becoming a distributed supercomputer, ready to provide a wide variety of apps and services. Yet, the coin price keeps falling.

Should you pick up a few Polkadot coins while they're available for less than $5 apiece? I think that's a good idea, and here's why.

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 »

Polkadot's big internet ambitions

First things first. Polkadot was designed to support a Web3 future. The social networks and paywalls of the Web2 world were unstoppable over the last 20 years. These days, a lot of web users are getting tired of this aging structure, looking around for new ideas. The Web3 idea is one alternative, bringing more personal freedom and giving content creators more control over their creations. In this system, gigantic hubs of advertising and social media connections are replaced by decentralized services. And Polkadot's app-building ecosystem provides a handy platform to get all the Web3 ideas done in the real world.

It's still a futuristic ideology with just a handful of early success stories. But in the long run, Web3 apps could take over your online community connections, your day-to-day financial management processes, and your favorite channels for text, video, and audio infotainment. The tools won't even run in the centrally managed cloud you know and love today, but in a new global network of blockchain-based systems. When tweaked just right, the crypto world's smart contracts can run any kind of program and perform all sorts of services. And that's what Polkadot is doing, with the help of many other cryptocurrency systems.

Image source: Getty Images.

Meet JAM: The next big step in Polkadot's evolution

So far, Polkadot is mostly known for its ability to interact with other blockchain networks. This coin's smart contracts can tap into Bitcoin's (CRYPTO: BTC) monetary value storage, Ethereum's (CRYPTO: ETH) sophisticated contracts, and Chainlink's (CRYPTO: LINK) real-world data reports, just to name a few.

It's also known as a complicated and cumbersome system, but that's changing in 2025. Polkadot's central blockchain will soon be replaced by a more flexible and standards-based system known as JAM (the Joint-Accumulate Machine, if you're curious). This is actually a virtual machine in the blockchain universe. It can compile and run any code for bog-standard central processors, because it's a software-driven and full-featured RISC-V processor.

For example, Polkadot co-founder Gavin Wood has made it a habit to show off old-school computer games running on a test version of JAM. His personal laptop is good enough to make that work, but the full JAM upgrade will run on hundreds of server-class computers around the world. Imagine what this on-demand supercomputer can do for the Web3 vision.

Don't expect instant fireworks

JAM is coming up, probably in the second half of 2025. It won't cause an immediate frenzy in the Polkadot community, because it takes time for people to use new tools. Then the tools must create useful apps, which in turn need to find a target audience of actual users. So it's not a magic wand that will make Polkadot's developer community's dreams come true in a heartbeat, and it won't lift Polkadot's usage-based coin price right away.

But this is a much-needed step toward a true Web3 version of the online world. In the long run, I expect Web3 alternatives to disrupt the online experience as you know it today. Web2 leaders such as Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META), Spotify (NYSE: SPOT), and TikTok will either join the Web3 revolution or put up roadblocks instead. I can't wait to see how true innovators like Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) and Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) will find their place in the Web3 era.

Take it easy out there, Polkadot investors

I could be wrong, of course. Web2 may stick around for another decade or two, as the current leaders focus on protecting the old social media world. Other cryptocurrencies can also support Web3-worthy apps, though they'll need to overcome Polkadot's built-in advantages first.

So I'm not betting the proverbial farm on Polkadot coins. I simply recommend any investor who agrees with the Web3 project's ideas to pick up a few Polkadot coins while they're cheap.

This cryptocurrency is only worth $6.6 billion today, which is a far cry from the trillion-dollar titans you see ruling today's Web2 structure. The coin price could multiply by 10 or 100 and still look small next to Meta and Alphabet. In short, Polkadot can be a big long-term winner even if it never matches the Magnificent 7 group's trillion-dollar market caps. I think that's worth a modest position in your long-term crypto portfolio.

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

Before you buy stock in Polkadot, 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 Polkadot 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 $657,871!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $875,479!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 998% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 174% 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 9, 2025

Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Randi Zuckerberg, a former director of market development and spokeswoman for Facebook and sister to Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Anders Bylund has positions in Alphabet, Bitcoin, Chainlink, Ethereum, Netflix, and Polkadot. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Bitcoin, Chainlink, Ethereum, Meta Platforms, Netflix, and Spotify Technology. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

• I tried four different brands of buttery spread from the grocery store to see which I liked best.
• I didn't think Smart Balance or Earth Balance were very spreadable or particularly impressive.
• Country Crock was my favorite spread, and it was easy to work with.

I grew up on "buttery spreads," butter alternatives typically made with some blend of vegetable oils. We put them on everything from bread and mashed potatoes to corn on the cob.

As I've grown up, I've started using real butter for its rich flavor and creamy texture. I keep some in a covered dish on the counter for a spreadable option and some in the fridge for whenever I need it chilled.

I figured all buttery spreads tasted the same, but I decided to revisit my childhood and try four different brands to see if there are any standouts worth keeping in my fridge.

Since each container retails for just over $3 at Walmart, I didn't factor price into my review.

Country Crock had the lowest percentage of vegetable oil.

I bought a 15-ounce tub of Country Crock, which is the brand we always kept in the house when I was a kid.

The label emphasized that it was churned in Kansas and contains "farm-grown ingredients." It also had the lowest amount of vegetable oil of the brands I tried, at 40%.

Its oil blend consists of soybean, palm-kernel, and palm oils.

It was incredibly easy to spread, but needed a little more salt for flavor.

I noticed right away that Country Crock's butter alternative was easy to spread, even when chilled.

The texture was smooth, and it didn't tear the soft bread at all when I spread it.

I tasted it both plain and on the bread. Although it tasted similar to butter, I think it could've used some more salt for a better flavor — it was a little bit bland. 

I Can't Believe It's Not Butter has an AHA seal of approval.

I Can't Believe It's Not Butter's spread has an American Heart Association certification label because it's made with soybean oil (an unsaturated fat) and has about 70% less saturated fat than regular butter.

Aside from the AHA certification, the label also noted that it's rich in omega-3 alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) and contains 45% vegetable oil (a blend of soybean, palm, and palm-kernel oils).

I could believe this wasn't butter, but the flavor was still good.

The texture of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter was very smooth and almost as easy to spread as Country Crock.

As for the flavor, this didn't have me fooled into thinking I was eating real butter. But it wasn't bad by any means.

It definitely had an earthy, vegetable-oil taste, but it wasn't bland, and it thankfully didn't have an oily texture.

Earth Balance had the highest percentage of vegetable oils.

Earth Balance's spread was highly distinguishable from the others.

The label also noted it's non-GMO, dairy-free, gluten-free, and vegan. It contains 78% vegetable oils, the highest of any I tried, including a blend of palm, canola, soybean, flax, and olive oils.

After opening the tub, I noticed right away that this spread was the darkest in color and looked more solid than the other products.

The Earth Balance spread didn't have a lot of flavor, and it was incredibly challenging to spread.

I found it really difficult to spread Earth Balance, maybe because of the high vegetable-oil content.

Although some of the other spreads were smooth and spreadable even when chilled, this remained pretty solid even after it came to room temperature.

The flavor was fine. It had both a slight buttery taste and an earthiness from all of the oils, but overall it was pretty bland.

Still, as the only vegan product I tried (some of the other spreads contain vitamin D that can be sourced from lanolin, which can come from sheep wool), it's a decent alternative to real butter.

Smart Balance notes health benefits on the label.

Similar to Earth Balance, Smart Balance has a high percentage of vegetable oils at 64%. Its blend includes canola, palm, and olive oils.

The label says that the product contains 400 milligrams of omega-3 ALA per serving.

This product was really difficult to spread.

It wasn't dark beige like Earth Balance, but Smart Balance's butter alternative was similarly difficult to spread.

When I tried putting it on bread, it started tearing up the piece. It also came out of the container in solid chunks.

It softened up somewhat as it came to room temperature, and the label at least warned that it would be "firm out of refrigeration." But I think the perk of a buttery spread is that it can be used right out of the chilled container, unlike waiting for real butter to soften. 

In terms of flavor, Smart Balance had a great butter-like taste at first. But then, as it melted in my mouth, it left an aftertaste I didn't love.

Country Crock was my favorite, but I still plan to stick to traditional butter.

Of the four buttery spreads I tried, Country Crock was my favorite.

It was the easiest to spread — which is the whole point, in my opinion. It wasn't the most flavorful, but none of the spreads were really rich in flavor.

I thought the flavor of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter was pretty good, but it wasn't quite as easy to spread. I'd probably skip Smart Balance and Earth Balance because of their higher cost and more solid texture.

All in all, I still plan to stick to using traditional butter. But I'd buy Country Crock again if I needed a quick, convenient butter-like spread.

This story was originally published on January 4, 2023, and most recently updated on June 3, 2025.

AT&T has struck a deal to buy CenturyLink's consumer fiber broadband division for $5.75 billion, giving the Internet provider another 1.1 million fiber customers in 11 states.

The all-cash deal is expected to close during the first half of 2026 assuming the companies obtain regulatory approval. AT&T will gain new customers in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Washington.

The deal will give AT&T room to grow its user base by more than the 1.1 million existing CenturyLink customers, as AT&T said the network areas being sold include over 4 million fiber-enabled locations. "The transaction will enable AT&T to significantly expand access to AT&T Fiber in major metro areas like Denver, Las Vegas, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Orlando, Phoenix, Portland, Salt Lake City and Seattle, as well as additional geographies," AT&T said.

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Router maker TP-Link is facing a criminal antitrust investigation into whether it engaged in predatory pricing, Bloomberg reported yesterday. TP-Link was already facing government scrutiny over its ties to China.

"The US is conducting a criminal antitrust investigation into pricing strategies by TP-Link Systems Inc., a California-based router maker with links to China whose equipment now dominates the American market, according to people familiar with the matter," Bloomberg wrote. "Beyond pricing, a focus of the inquiry is also whether the company's growing US market share represents a threat to national security... The scrutiny began in late 2024 under the Biden administration and has continued under President Donald Trump."

Justice Department prosecutors are investigating whether TP-Link engaged in a predatory pricing scheme that "involves selling goods below cost in order to gain market share before raising prices once competitors have either been hobbled or eliminated," the report said.

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The crypto market has calmed down after a couple of months characterized by price-cutting volatility. Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) is down 8% year-to-date on April 21. That's comparable to the stock market, as the S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) index fell 13% over the same period. If anything, Bitcoin has been more stable than stocks amid the tariff drama, rising 3% since the end of March while the leading stock index dropped 9% lower.

But if you're planning to buy into the crypto sector in this period of stable prices, you have other options than Bitcoin. The largest crypto's market-beating stability hasn't rubbed off on the entire sector, and many altcoins are available at dramatically lower prices nowadays.

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In particular, I recommend taking a closer look at Polkadot (CRYPTO: DOT) right now. The cross-chain app development coin, managed by the Web3 Foundation, has also outperformed the S&P 500 in April with a smaller 4% price drop. But it's down 42% since the end of 2024, even though a stack of bullish growth drivers is piling up.

I'll give you the lowdown on Polkadot's transformation. If you're still not excited about this promising Web3 investment by the end of this page, you should probably stick to more traditional ideas like Bitcoin and value-oriented stocks. That's OK -- Polkadot is just one of many perfectly reasonable investment ideas in this dynamic market.

Polkadot's special place in the crypto world

Polkadot has two main purposes, and they are tightly related to each other:

• As the official coin and blockchain network of the Web3 Foundation, Polkadot was explicitly designed to support the next generation of the internet. It facilitates privacy, personal data control, and a financial system of peer-to-peer transactions. Getting this dotted ball rolling could disrupt everything from personal finance and media publishing to medical records and social media.
• The Polkadot blockchain network doesn't stand alone. Instead, it can connect to many of the leading blockchains out there, sending and receiving data from one to another. Let's say your Web3 decentralized finance app needs to manage money transfers with the Cosmos (CRYPTO: ATOM) network and store the user's wealth in the form of Bitcoins. The process is handled by Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) smart contracts, based on real-world data provided by Chainlink (CRYPTO: LINK). Letting these components talk to each other can be complicated, but Polkadot's integrated development tools make it easy. And that's how you build an advanced Web3 app.

Where are all the Polkadot apps?

So Polkadot's purpose is pretty clear, and I'm looking forward to Web3 ideas making an impact on mainstream culture. I'm not aware of any game-changing examples so far, though the Subsocial content monetization platform and Polkamarkets data forecasting community are off to a good start.

If those early hopefuls don't get the party started, the first Polkadot killer app might be a decentralized game or a mobile network management system. The first big Polkadot apps might not have the cryptocurrency's logo plastered all over it, but it can do the heavy cross-chain communications lifting behind the scenes. The resulting torrent of Polkadot usage will still build real-world value, one microscopic transaction fee at a time.

Polkadot's impressive technical makeover

On top of the incoming Web3 future, Polkadot is upgrading is technical platform at the moment. The original collection of parachains and crowdfunding auctions was powerful but also confusing in many ways. The new Polkadot 2.0 design simplifies everything into a single computing hub, running a massively scalable supercomputer on the blockchain. This platform can execute perfectly ordinary computer programs, such as a playable version of the classic ID Games game DOOM . That's a pretty silly example, but also a colorful demonstration of the next-generation Polkadot ecosystem's flexibility.

Putting this upgraded system in the hands of a global developer community could very well create that long-awaited first Web3 killer app. If this isn't the right market for any of these disruptive ideas, the stage will be set for a longer waiting game. So I can't promise that Polkadot will skyrocket in 2025, or the foreseeable future.

But I don't mind buying coins on the cheap and waiting for the sea change to come -- even if it takes several years. Investing is a marathon, not a sprint.

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Anders Bylund has positions in Bitcoin, Chainlink, Cosmos, Ethereum, and Polkadot. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin, Chainlink, and Ethereum. The Motley Fool recommends Cosmos. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.