It's been a strange year for the crypto market. After a hot start to 2025, every major cryptocurrency continues to be whipsawed by the constant ups and downs of tariffs and global trade.

What can investors expect in the second half of the year? According to the new Motley Fool Money 2025 Cryptocurrency Investor Trends Survey, investors remain bullish on the future prospects of crypto, especially Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC). Let's take a closer look.

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Bitcoin could double in value in 2025

Bitcoin has been front and center throughout the year. Even with the volatility of the current tariff situation, investors remain very bullish about the cryptocurrency's prospects.

Image source: Getty Images.

According to the Motley Fool Money 2025 Cryptocurrency Investor Trends survey, 68% of U.S. adults who currently hold crypto in their portfolio think that Bitcoin could hit $200,000 by the end of 2025. Based on its current price of $105,000, that suggests that Bitcoin could double in value over the next six months.

Even U.S. adults who don't own crypto in their portfolios are surprisingly bullish about Bitcoin. For example, 25% of them also think that Bitcoin could hit $200,000 by the end of 2025. Another 49% are undecided. Only 26% think it's unlikely.

As a result, investors are likely to continue to buy the dip for the rest of the year. Anytime Bitcoin loses 10% or more of its value, they'll view it as a buying opportunity. And, indeed, this is what we've already seen in the first half of the year, with money continuing to flow into the spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) from retail investors.

Solana and XRP could rally if new ETFs are approved

Currently, only Bitcoin and Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) have spot ETFs. However, one big story of the year has been the potential for other major cryptocurrencies to get spot ETFs of their own. Two that are often mentioned are Solana (CRYPTO: SOL) and XRP (CRYPTO: XRP).

These new spot ETFs could be a game changer. They make buying crypto as easy as buying your favorite tech stock. You can open up an app on your phone, hit a button, and get exposure to Bitcoin instantly. According to the Motley Fool Money crypto survey, "I don't understand how to buy it" remains one of the major barriers to investing in crypto, and spot ETFs help solve this problem.

That leads me to think there will be a rally in Solana and XRP later in the year. That's when the SEC is scheduled to sign off on new spot ETF applications for both cryptos. As soon as these start trading, it could lead to a wave of new investor money flowing into them.

Ethereum may continue to underperform

Ethereum is still the world's second-largest cryptocurrency, and continues to be an important part of the White House's crypto strategy. So why does Ethereum continue to lag the market? Even after a mini-rally in May, Ethereum is still down 20% for the year.

By parsing the data and responses in Motley Fool Money's crypto survey, I might have uncovered the answer: Investors just don't like Ethereum. They can't figure out what to do with it, and it doesn't generate the sort of big, splashy news headlines that can grab their attention.

According to the survey, 36% of respondents who don't own crypto said they "don't know what to do with it." Overall, only 11% of respondents said they understood how crypto works. Bitcoin is easy to explain -- it's "digital gold." But what, exactly, is Ethereum?

Moreover, survey respondents appeared to show a clear preference for big, splashy news headlines. For example, as soon as Bitcoin hit the $100,000 price level, it immediately helped to pull in investors who might have otherwise ignored crypto. Bitcoin hitting $100,000 is the type of headline that's tailor-made to float across the chyron of a TV.

Or, take the example of Elon Musk joining the Trump administration earlier this year. Even though Musk had no direct role in the White House's crypto policies, the overwhelming sentiment of survey respondents was that just having him aboard would somehow be good for crypto.

Ethereum hasn't been able to deliver anything close to a splashy $100,000 news headline or a high-profile public figure like Elon Musk. The biggest news this year has been a new blockchain upgrade in May. As a result, investors just aren't interested. Ethereum may continue to underperform the market until a new narrative emerges.

What happens next for crypto?

In the crypto market, sentiment can change on a dime. Now that Musk has left the White House, for example, will investors become more or less bullish on crypto? And how long are investors willing to wait for Bitcoin to double in value, if it shows signs of stumbling over the summer?

That being said, the new Motley Fool Money crypto survey is a great temperature check on what crypto investors are thinking right now. Using the survey response data, it's possible to put together some compelling narratives about where Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and XRP might be headed in the second half of 2025.

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 $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!*

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See the 10 stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of June 2, 2025

Dominic Basulto has positions in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and XRP. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and XRP. 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.

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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?

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!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 962% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 169% 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 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

It might sound strange at first, but stablecoins are soaring these days.

I don't mean that the price of Tether (CRYPTO: USDT) or USD Coin (CRYPTO: USDC) is skyrocketing, of course. They are going nowhere from that perspective, essentially pinned to the $1.000 price point as expected. But the entire category of stablecoins is gaining momentum, with lots of new names on the market and a rising tide of trading volumes.

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 »

So let's look at the surging stablecoin category. The calmest corner of the cryptocurrency market can be surprisingly exciting.

What makes stablecoins so... stable?

First, let's think about what stablecoins are good for.

These digital coins have several functions in the crypto world.

With a price permanently pegged to a traditional fiat currency such as the US dollar, the euro, or the Japanese yen, they are a helpful tool for crypto-trading exchanges and banks. Exchanging dollars for Tether or USD Coins is very straightforward, and then you have a crypto-based representation of simple dollars in your digital assets account. From there, you can use the stablecoins to buy other cryptocurrencies, without raising currency exchange questions by involving actual dollars again.

The leading names have become extremely stable over time. Tether prices fluctuated wildly in 2016, ranging from $0.10 to $2.01 when the very concept of stablecoins was new and unproven. The newer USD Coin had a lighter bout of volatility just after its launch in 2018, rising as high as $1.04. But Tether quickly stabilized and hasn't moved more than 1.1% away from a perfect $1.00 in the past five years. USD Coin took a quick 3.4% dip amid the collapse of the experimental Terra stablecoin in 2023.

Any respectable stablecoin looks like a straight horizontal line next to the S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) stock market index, other cryptocurrency prices, or any other fluctuating economic data point. Here's a five-year stablecoin vs. S&P 500 chart for your amusement. The big blip of USD Coin uncertainty in 2023 is barely visible:

Tether Price data by YCharts

Beyond Tether: The expanding stable of stablecoins

Tether was the first name in the stablecoin game, and it's still the largest and most widely used option. It's essentially your only choice if you want to use a stablecoin that is independent from specific crypto exchanges.

USD Coin was launched by a group including Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN). It's no surprise to learn that Coinbase defaults to using USD Coin across its trading platforms. That's not the only place you can buy, sell, and hold USD Coin, though. Every major crypto exchange supports it, and there are far more USD Coin transactions on Binance than on Coinbase.

The Sky.money crypto-trading platform is an interesting case. Coinbase launched the USD Coin, but Sky.money worked the other way around. This system started with the USDS (CRYPTO: USDS) stablecoin, formerly known as Dai and Maker. The rest of the trading platform was built around the quirks and requirements of USDS. Sky.money may not ring a bell, but USDS is the third-largest stablecoin by market cap.

And there are many more. For example:

• The Ripple Foundation launched a Ripple USD (CRYPTO: RLUSD) stablecoin in December, basing the coin on US dollars and the XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) cryptocurrency. This coin is helping Ripple's payment services execute international money transfers, serving as a super-liquid pool of cash-backed assets.
• The Tether Holdings group could soon introduce a second version of the Tether coin, specifically aimed at large institutional investors in the United States.
• And this could be the start of a large trend. Asset manager giant Fidelity Investments is planning a stablecoin. Even larger firm Blackrock (NYSE: BLK) introduced one in March 2024. Even Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) is open to the idea of an in-house stablecoin, depending on how American regulations will shape up around this opportunity.

So the stablecoin legion is growing larger and more diverse.

Stablecoin trading volumes speak volumes

Whether you're looking at Tether, USD Coin, or USDS, their average daily trading volume has been bubbling up over the last two years.

Tether's average transaction volume stood at $19 billion in early April 2023. Now it's up to $182 billion per 24 hours. USD Coin's volume rose from $6 billion to $28 billion over the same period. The Dai/USDS ecosystem surged from $130 million per day to $2.7 billion.

This is more than empty talk. People (and automated trading algorithms) are putting these stablecoins to work. In all fairness, the rising interest applies to non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies, too. Bitcoin's daily trading volume is up from $9.4 billion to $101 billion, for instance. But the stablecoin community is taking advantage of broader public crypto interests.

More than just trading tools

Stablecoins can do more than just facilitate trades between fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies. Their powers are growing over time, since every new stablecoin option wants to win customers and usage with their unique features.

Some of them offer generous interest rates, putting most savings and money market accounts to shame. The spare cash in my Coinbase account is earning an annual percentage yield (APY) of 4.1% right now. That's comparable to the best money market yields on the market today.

A few stablecoins rely on a specific blockchain system, like the XRP-based Ripple USD coin. Others pick a proven coin-launching foundation such as Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) or Solana (CRYPTO: SOL), depending on their technology to provide data security and smart contract functions. And then there's Tether, which provides transparent support for more than a dozen blockchain networks. That's a diverse approach, protecting Tether holders against platform-specific risks. Tether can always untether itself (har-de-har-har) from any risky or flawed solution, relying on a dozen alternatives instead.

So you see, there's plenty of buzz in the stablecoin sphere right now. There are plenty of alternatives for good reason. These mega-stable coins (often with lucrative yield rates) may look especially attractive when the broader crypto market is experiencing wild volatility, like this week.

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With the market teetering on the edge of disaster due to concerns about tariffs and an economy that might be trending toward recession or potentially even already in a state of recession, now is a frightening time to be thinking about buying anything, especially a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC).

There's a significant chance that every dollar invested into the market right now might be worth a bit less for quite some time. And, especially if there's an economic downturn that's sharper than anticipated, investors might find themselves short on cash to cover expenses if they over-commit to any single investment.

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Nonetheless, I'm still willing to buy Bitcoin hand over fist right now. I don't expect that to change, even if there's a bear market or if the economic headwinds grow fiercer than they already are. I feel good about my strategy here, so let me explain why it will probably work.

Loading up right now is a smart move for the long term

As you've probably heard, the whole point of Bitcoin is that it's an asset that nobody can issue more of, in contrast to a fiat currency. You've probably also heard that Bitcoin gets more difficult to mine over time, meaning that its supply will grow very slowly in the future. That implies a pair of things which make it an easy asset to keep buying no matter the economic conditions.

First, the scarcity mechanism of Bitcoin means there's a big incentive to buy it today rather than next year. In the future, it will be harder to produce, so when you go to buy it, you will be competing over a smaller quantity of new coins coming on the market. If there's a major recession today, it won't change anything about these basic factors, although it may push the price lower for the near future. But if you're investing with a long time horizon, the price on any specific day or even in any given quarter does not matter so much as the probability that the price will be considerably higher when you plan on selling years in the future.

And there's nothing about a recession that is going to make Bitcoin easier to produce, regardless of whether it's caused by tariffs or war or mismanagement or anything else. Remember, Bitcoin mining operations are spread around the world, so even if one country is experiencing dysfunction, miners elsewhere will still be able to keep the chain alive -- and if there's a disruption to miners, it will only slow the supply growth even more.

Second, much of the concern surrounding risk assets right now is linked to the onset of new tariffs in the U.S. Bitcoin isn't a good that's imported, and it can't be created via fiat. It isn't a medium of exchange for trade payments to any significant degree. Tariffs on mining hardware will simply cause mining to be done elsewhere, so there is no threat to the network itself.

So there are no direct risks to its value either in the near term or the long term. Therefore, as long as the coin has a handful of evangelists who are willing to buy it at any price, as I am, there will continue to be a persistent level of demand, which, when considering its supply dynamics, probably will slowly drive up prices over the long run.

Knowing the points above, and knowing that my time horizon for Bitcoin is to hold it for 20 or 30 years, there simply is not much of a reason to stop my regularly scheduled purchases. Bitcoin isn't going to get any easier to make, and in the big scheme of things, major holders are going to keep accumulating it to take supply off the market. The price today is a distraction.

Altcoin investments are on pause, not cancelled

As bullish as I may be on Bitcoin, the same is not true of altcoins at the moment, including those that I've held dear like Solana. There's no need to rush to sell, and there's no need to stop investing in them altogether, but more caution is now warranted compared to just a few weeks ago.

In short, the largest altcoins in the cryptocurrency sector are not necessarily very insulated from economic downturns at all. It's a no-brainer that they're riskier than Bitcoin because they're smaller and less established overall. But it's in times of turbulence that additional risk exposure can cause real problems for investors, and potentially problems that won't blow over once economic conditions improve.

It isn't that the core investment theses of the top altcoins are suddenly invalid, or that I'm selling them as a result of economic instability or tariffs. It's that their recovery is not at all guaranteed because many of them rely on the quality of the (typically highly risky) projects their blockchain ecosystems to continue to attract new capital to invest.

When investment dollars allocated to high-risk plays start to run short due to investors losing their nerve in perilous times, those ecosystems start to shrink. For them to recover, new projects, most likely in newly emerging growth segments, need to launch and find traction -- and that's something that is a lot harder to do in a shaky economic environment.

I'm still a buyer of certain altcoins these days, and you could be too. But when it comes to picking between altcoins and Bitcoin, for now, it makes more sense to lean toward the somewhat safer and longer-term play, as a lot needs to go right for the riskier options to deliver, and the environment might not be right for that to happen for a while.

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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.