The 15-year-old chipmaker saw its shares climb 61% above its IPO price by the close of its first trading day.

Still Bright is now loaded up with $18.7 million in seed money to build out its demonstration unit.

Key Points

• Intel is undergoing a large restructuring under new CEO Lip-Bu Tan.

• AMD continues to take market share from Intel in the PC segment.

• TSMC has become the world's dominant chip manufacturer.

• 10 stocks we like better than Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing ›

Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) may be unrivaled in the tech sector in its underperformance in recent history. Over the last 10 years, the stock is down 26% even as many of its semiconductor peers and the "Magnificent Seven" have delivered monster returns.

Intel's recent earnings report highlighted the company's multiple challenges as new CEO Lip-Bu Tan has embarked on a massive right-sizing campaign. The company has already laid off 15% of its workforce. It's spinning off its networking and edge business, turning Intel into a stand-alone company that can take on outside investment. It's also taken more impairments for equipment that's no longer useful.

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That's all part of Tan's strategy of refocusing the business on core priorities like AI, its x86 CPU franchise, and the launch of a foundry for its 18A process.

Some investors continue to bet on Intel's eventual turnaround, but the latest report shows that's likely to take longer than investors had hoped. Instead of buying Intel, investors are better off buying these two stocks that are capitalizing on the company's struggles.

1. Advanced Micro Devices

While Intel has struggled over the last decade, Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ: AMD) has emerged as a winner, grabbing market share from Intel in the PC-focused client segment.

It's also proven itself to be more nimble, shedding its foundry business to become a fabless designer, and it's emerged as the closest challenger to Nvidia in AI graphics processing units (GPUs), though it's a distant second behind the leader. AMD has made several acquisitions of start-ups in AI to bolster its product offerings and make it more competitive.

AMD is also growing much faster than Intel, showing it's capitalizing on the AI boom. It hasn't reported second-quarter results yet, but in its first quarter, revenue rose 36% to $7.44 billion, driven by its success in both the data center, where revenue jumped 57% to $3.7 billion, and in the client segment, where revenue jumped 68% to $2.3 billion on the strength of its Zen 5 Ryzen processors.

By contrast, Intel reported a 3% revenue decline in its client segment to $7.9 billion. As those numbers show, Intel is still the leader in PC chips, but AMD is rapidly gaining market share. The client segment is also Intel's biggest, making up nearly half of its revenue before intersegment eliminations.

Finally, AMD is in a strong position because it has healthy franchises in both central processing units (CPUs) and GPUs, which should benefit it in the AI era.

2. TSMC

In the foundry business, Intel's primary competitor is TSMC (NYSE: TSM), or Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. In fact, it's not a close competition at this point as Taiwan Semiconductor makes up more than half of the contract chips in the world and roughly 90% of advanced chip production in the world, even manufacturing advanced chips for Intel.

Intel has aspirations of challenging TSMC in the contract business, but at this point, the legacy chip maker is far behind, and it will take years for that strategy to materialize.

In the meantime, Taiwan Semiconductor continues to post blistering growth. In Q2, it reported 44.4% revenue growth in U.S. dollars to $30.1 billion, and profits have soared as well, as earnings per share jumped 60.1% to $2.47.

Thanks to its dominance of the contract foundry business and relationships with tech giants like Nvidia and Apple, TSMC enjoys huge operating margins, which came in at 49.6% in Q2. By comparison, Intel is struggling to turn a profit.

TSMC now makes most of its revenue from advanced chips, which it defines as 7 nanometers (7nm) or less. That strength in advanced chips also positions it to continue to take advantage of growth in AI.

Considering its growth rate, TSMC's valuation also looks attractive at a price-to-earnings ratio of 29. As rivals like Intel and Samsung have faltered, TSMC's leadership position has become even more dominant. The stock looks set to continue being a winner.

Should you invest $1,000 in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing right now?

Before you buy stock in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, 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 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing 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 $630,291!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,075,791!*

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See the 10 stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of July 29, 2025

Jeremy Bowman has positions in Advanced Micro Devices, Nvidia, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Advanced Micro Devices, Apple, Intel, Nvidia, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: short August 2025 $24 calls on Intel. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

One week after Delta announced it is expanding a test using artificial intelligence to charge different prices based on customers' personal data—which critics fear could end cheap flights forever—Democratic lawmakers have moved to ban what they consider predatory surveillance pricing.

In a press release, Reps. Greg Casar (D-Texas) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) announced the Stop AI Price Gouging and Wage Fixing Act. The law directly bans companies from using "surveillance-based" price or wage setting to increase their profit margins.

If passed, the law would allow anyone to sue companies found unfairly using AI, lawmakers explained in what's called a "one-sheet." That could mean charging customers higher prices—based on "how desperate a customer is for a product and the maximum amount a customer is willing to pay"—or paying employees lower wages—based on "their financial status, personal associations, and demographics."

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Key Points

• The iShares Ethereum Trust (ETHA) has attracted more assets than any other Ethereum ETF, with 42% of asset inflows in just the past month.

• BlackRock's backing provides institutional credibility and virtually unlimited financial resources behind the fund.

• Buying Ethereum through an ETF eliminates the need for crypto wallets, special exchanges, and fractional coin calculations.

• 10 stocks we like better than iShares Ethereum Trust - iShares Ethereum Trust ETF ›

Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) based on the real-time price of Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) have been around for a year now. Since the funds were approved and launched in July 2024, Ethereum has gained 7% while the S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) rose 18%. The leading ETFs have done a great job of tracking this performance precisely, even if the cryptocurrency has been lagging behind stocks recently.

But one ETF stands apart from the rest in many ways. If you're planning to enter the Ethereum market via an ETF, the iShares Ethereum Trust (NASDAQ: ETHA) should be at the top of your list. Apart from having the most assets under management (AUM) in its category, the iShares ETF also comes with low fees and a proven fund family.

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So if you have $500 to spend on a crypto investment today, here's why you should consider the iShares Ethereum Trust.

Is Ethereum a good investment?

Ethereum is often more volatile than the larger Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) cryptocurrency. For instance, the two crypto giants have both posted approximately 1,200% gains in the last five years, but Ethereum's path to this peak had many more peaks and valleys along the way. The S&P 500 is basically flatlining next to both, even in the midst of the generative artificial intelligence boom:

Ethereum Price data by YCharts

Now, Ethereum serves a very different purpose than Bitcoin. Instead of a fundamental wealth-holding tool, Ethereum's smart contracts help app developers manage financial tools and trends in a global blockchain ledger. So Ethereum's value doesn't spring from a scarce supply, but from real-world usage of the resulting programs.

That makes Ethereum a promising investment if you feel like the financial world could use a whole new set of basic tools. Ethereum-based apps can track ownership of physical assets, execute financial transactions automatically, or manage your digital wallet securely. The Ethereum ledger is readable anytime, from anywhere.

At the same time, its encryption effectively makes all of this transaction data immune to hacking and fraud attacks. On this platform, developers can build a wide variety of financial apps, mobile games, and so on.

So if you see a market for this sort of thing in the long run, Ethereum has led the blockchain-based app development space for years. It's the industry standard -- for good reason. And that should make Ethereum a solid investment over the years, as decentralized app development continues to gain traction.

Why buy via an Ethereum ETF?

Buying Ethereum directly often means setting up a new account with a different type of brokerage -- one that can handle cryptocurrency trades rather than stock transactions. You also need to get comfortable with a different type of transaction, where you're usually trading fractions of a digital coin rather than batches of full shares of a stock. Prices are always changing, and you have to figure out where to store your new Ethereum coins.

ETFs make the whole process much easier, assuming you already have a stock-trading brokerage account. These funds act just like stocks, with shares usually priced in a comfortable range. A few iShares Ethereum Trust shares at $27 apiece can be more comfortable than a single Ethereum coin at $3,640.

What makes the iShares ETF special?

As mentioned, the iShares fund is more popular and therefore more liquid than other Ethereum-based ETFs. This makes trading safer and easier, with more stable share prices and quicker transactions.

It's part of the world-famous iShares fund family, next to the even more popular iShares Bitcoin ETF (NASDAQ: IBIT) and the massive iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (NYSEMKT: IVV). Financial services giant BlackRock runs the show, giving investors the peace of mind that comes with essentially bottomless financial backing.

And like most of its iShares cousins, this one comes with a low fee ratio. At 0.25% per year, it's not exactly the cheapest Ethereum ETF to own, but it comes close to the lowest-cost Grayscale Ethereum Mini Trust (NYSEMKT: ETH) at 0.15%. The BlackRock backing and world-class liquidity can make up for this small gap, and some Ethereum ETFs come with fee ratios as high as 2.5%.

The iShares Ethereum Trust is only pulling away from the competition, too. With 42% of AUM inflows over the last month, this fund added more AUM than any other Ethereum ETF has done year to date.

You should consider the iShares Ethereum Trust before any other fund in this category. It's a great place to put your next $500 (about 18 shares) of investable cash to work. Market makers broadly agree, judging by the dominant inflows of more funding.

Should you invest $1,000 in iShares Ethereum Trust - iShares Ethereum Trust ETF right now?

Before you buy stock in iShares Ethereum Trust - iShares Ethereum Trust ETF, 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 iShares Ethereum Trust - iShares Ethereum Trust ETF 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 $636,628!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,063,471!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 1,041% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 183% 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 July 21, 2025

Anders Bylund has positions in Bitcoin, Ethereum, iShares Bitcoin Trust, and iShares Ethereum Trust - iShares Ethereum Trust ETF. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin and Ethereum. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Key Points

• Artificial intelligence (AI) spending could reach $4.8 trillion by 2033, and this company stands to benefit.

• It's a major AI player and still trading at an attractive valuation for long-term investors.

• 10 stocks we like better than Nvidia ›

If you're looking for massive growth potential, check out artificial intelligence (AI) stocks. According to the U.N., the AI market is set to explode from a $189 billion valuation in 2023 to nearly $5 trillion by 2033. However, despite these massive projections, one of the most popular AI stocks on the market today remains surprisingly cheap.

This popular AI stock is cheaper than you think

Looking for an AI stock that can directly benefit from a massive jump in demand over the next decade and beyond? Check out Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA). While many investors are already familiar with the company, you may not realize how cheap the stock actually is. Fortunes have already been made with Nvidia stock. But there's still plenty of room left to run.

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Before we jump into Nvidia's surprisingly cheap valuation, let's quickly review what makes this stock so special.

Nvidia is the largest GPU stock in the world. Its hardware powers data centers worldwide -- data centers that AI developers rely on to build, train, and deploy their models. End users, too, rely on data centers to use AI services, putting Nvidia's GPUs at the center of the AI value chain. Recent estimates suggest that the company may have a market share of 90% or more for GPUs designed for AI use cases.

How did Nvidia get so dominant? According to William Blair analyst Sebastien Naji, Nvidia invested heavily to develop "the broadest ecosystem" of software tools and developers, which essentially allows it to control both the hardware and software components of its GPUs. "And so it's just so much easier to build an application, build an AI model on top of those chips," Naji adds.

Nvidia got a lead on the AI GPU market through early investment. Its software focus, meanwhile, allowed users to customize their chips, creating a "stickiness" to its products. Switching to a competing chip isn't just a matter of hardware, but also software integration, providing Nvidia with a durable moat around its business model.

Nvidia's sales have grown in the heavy double digits for years. And its gross margins lead the industry. And yet, as we'll see, shares remain surprisingly cheap.

Is now the time to invest in Nvidia?

On the surface, Nvidia stock looks expensive. Shares trade at nearly 30 times sales -- a huge premium for a multitrillion-dollar stock. But on a profit basis, the situation improves dramatically.

Yes, Nvidia shares are trading at 54 times trailing earnings. But because sales are growing so quickly, it's important to look at the company's forward valuation. Based on what the company is expected to earn over the next 12 months, shares trade at just 39 times forward earnings.

Meanwhile, Intel, another chipmaker, is struggling to remain profitable. Its revenues are expected to fall by around 5% over the next fiscal year. The firm failed to invest in the AI opportunity, and the company is struggling to remain relevant in the next-gen GPU space. By comparing Intel and Nvidia on some key metrics, we can easily ascertain Nvidia's core strengths. Nvidia is positioned well for the near term and the long term. Intel's fate, meanwhile, remains uncertain for both time frames.

NVDA Revenue Growth Estimate for Current Fiscal Year data by YCharts

Compared to competitors like Intel, Nvidia is doing quite well. But is 39 times earnings actually a "bargain" valuation? It is if you keep doing the math. The AI market is expected to continue growing by 20% to 30% annually for nearly a decade. With the S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) trading at 30 times earnings, it won't be long until Nvidia stock trades below the general market based on today's trading price.

The key here is patience. If you're willing to hold Nvidia stock for the long term, high sustained growth rates will quickly eat into the up-front valuation premium, making the stock a bargain in hindsight. As with any high-multiple stock, expect plenty of volatility along the way. But if you're betting on AI stocks for the long haul, Nvidia remains surprisingly cheap for patient shareholders.

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

Before you buy stock in Nvidia, 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 Nvidia 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 $636,628!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,063,471!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 1,041% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 183% 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 July 21, 2025

Ryan Vanzo has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Intel and Nvidia. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: short August 2025 $24 calls on Intel. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

In response to a question about how AI works with today's legal system, Altman said one of the problems of not yet having a legal or policy framework for AI is that there's no legal confidentiality for users' conversations.

Key Points

• Intel beat Wall Street revenue expectations but posted an unexpected loss due to charges related to streamlining.

• The company, under new CEO Lip-Bu Tan, is taking decisive action to get costs in line.

• These are the early days of what figures to be a long turnaround, but the initial results provide some reason for optimism.

• 10 stocks we like better than Intel ›

Here's our initial take on Intel's (NASDAQ: INTC) fiscal 2025 second-quarter financial report.

Key Metrics

Metric	Q2 2024	Q2 2025	Change	vs. Expectations
Revenue	$12.8 billion	$12.9 billion	1%	Beat
Adjusted EPS	$0.02	-$0.10	n/m	Missed
Gross margin	35.4%	27.5%	-790 bp	n/a
Intel Foundry revenue	$4.3 billion	$4.4 billion	2%	n/a

Intel Works to Get Its House in Order

Intel posted better-than-expected revenue in the second quarter but noted an unexpected loss due to impairment charges related to "excess tools with no identified reuse." This is the first full quarter under new CEO Lip-Bu Tan, who joined in March, and the new chief executive outlined his plan for the company, including significant cost cuts.

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Intel management said it has completed the majority of a plan to cut its workforce by 15% and is taking action to optimize its manufacturing footprint. The company said it no longer intends to move forward with planned projects in Germany and Poland. In addition, Intel said it would "further slow" the pace of construction at a plant in Ohio to ensure the spending is aligned with market demand.

Revenue was boosted by strong demand from the personal-computer business, driven by efforts by PC makers to boost inventories ahead of potential tariffs. The company's client computing group, which includes PCs, saw revenue grow by $300 million on a sequential-quarter basis to $7.6 billion.

Intel's Foundry unit, which has been touted as a future driver for growth, did $4.4 billion in revenue in the quarter compared to $4.7 billion in the first quarter of 2025 and $4.3 billion a year ago.

Data center revenue came in at $3.9 billion.

Immediate Market Reaction

Investors seem to be taking the earnings miss in stride. Shares of Intel were up about 2% in after-market trading immediately following the announcement on Thursday but ahead of the company's conference call with investors.

What to Watch

Intel and Tan are at the early stages of a very long journey, with the CEO focused for now on getting costs under control before focusing attention on reestablishing Intel's legacy as an innovation powerhouse. That will take time, and investors can only gather so much information from a single quarter's results.

Intel is guiding for revenue of $12.6 billion to $13.6 billion in the current quarter, which would be down slightly from a year ago at the midpoint. It expects to be breakeven on a per-share basis, which would be substantially better than last year's third-quarter loss.

The jury's still out on Intel. But for those who have bought into the turnaround story, there is ample reason for optimism that Tan is aggressively taking important first steps.

Helpful Resources

• Full earnings report
• Investor relations page
• Additional coverage

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

Before you buy stock in Intel, 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 Intel 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 $634,627!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,046,799!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 1,037% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 182% 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 July 21, 2025

Lou Whiteman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Intel. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: short August 2025 $24 calls on Intel. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

An invite-only startup event hosted by former YC and a16z staff will help founders learn to pitch press and run their own social media.

Seattle-based Avalanche recently operated its desktop fusion machine for hours on end while maintaining 300,000 volts.

TRIC Robotics just raised a $5.5 million seed round for its tractor-sized robots that help eliminate bacteria and pests on strawberry plants.

We recently unveiled the Going Public Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 — a new destination for founders navigating the complexities of company building, from early traction to IPO and beyond.

When Vultron announced its $22 million funding round earlier this week, the AI startup made sure to highlight a key investor: Craft Ventures, the firm “co-founded by White House AI adviser David Sacks.” The announcement has raised questions about conflicts of interest in the Trump administration, where Sacks serves as both AI and crypto czar […]

Tiffany Luck, a partner at NEA, outlined what she looks for in a pitch, during a presentation at TechCrunch’s All Stage event in Boston.

A federal judge ruled yesterday that President Trump violated US law when he fired Democrat Rebecca Kelly Slaughter from her position at the Federal Trade Commission.

"Because the law on the removal of FTC Commissioners is clear, and for the reasons explained below, the court will grant Ms. Slaughter's motion for summary judgment and deny Defendants' cross-motion for summary judgment," said the memorandum opinion from Judge Loren AliKhan in US District Court for the District of Columbia.

Trump is appealing the ruling to the DC Circuit court of appeals and yesterday asked the District Court to stay its order while the appeal is pending. The case could end up at the Supreme Court, with the Trump administration seeking to overturn a 1935 precedent that AliKhan cited while ruling in Slaughter's favor.

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© Getty Images | Bloomberg

Key Points

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

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

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

• 10 stocks we like better than Solana ›

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

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

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Solana

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

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

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

Cardano

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

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

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

XRP

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

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

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

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

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

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 1,048% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 180% for the S&P 500. Don’t miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor.

See the 10 stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of July 15, 2025

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

Key Points

• XRP is seeing good uptake among banks and large investing groups.

• Strategy's unique approach to buying Bitcoin is delivering leveraged returns.

• One of these assets is more likely to keep you up at night than the other.

• 10 stocks we like better than XRP ›

XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) and MicroStrategy (NASDAQ: MSTR) both soared during crypto's 2025 revival, with the fintech coin rising by 46% and the crypto treasury company climbing by 49% this year so far (as of July 18).

Yet one earns its keep by processing real transactions for banks and institutions, while the other is a listed company whose sole trick is piling more Bitcoin onto an already mountainous stack.

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But which route is going to lead to higher returns for investors with a moderately sized amount of starting capital to invest -- say, $5,000?

XRP is building utility today, and it's working

The XRP Ledger (XRPL) is gradually turning into an institutional finance support layer as a result of the consistent development work performed by its issuing company, Ripple.

Last month, Ripple and Circle ported Circle's stablecoin onto the XRPL to grease the wheels of on‑chain payments for users in the traditional financial sector, as well as for the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector. The overarching strategy here is to beef up the chain's platforms for stablecoins, tokenized U.S. Treasuries, and other real-world assets (RWAs), and then build out the compliance and identity-tracking features that banks and asset managers crave. The idea is that once the financial and regulatory infrastructure is in good condition, the target users will be heavily incentivized to show up because there aren't other blockchains that are as carefully tailored to their particular needs.

Why does that matter for those considering an investment in XRP?

Each ledger transfer requires a sliver of XRP crypto that is permanently burned upon the transaction's completion. The busier the network, the scarcer the coin becomes. If stablecoin liquidity and real-world asset settlement grow in volume, demand for fees and for escrow collateral should keep pace, creating a modest-to-moderate upward pressure on the coin's price.

Legal overhang is fading too, which lowers the risk of making an investment now.

In March, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) signaled that it would abandon its appeal in its long-running lawsuit against Ripple, effectively ending a four‑year skirmish that once scared away institutions and a number of rightly cautious investors. Regulatory clarity doesn't directly feed through into short-term price appreciation, but it takes away the largest known tripwire for adoption, so it removes a significant drag on the asset's long-term potential.

Strategy is a levered bet on Bitcoin

Strategy is the corporate embodiment of the stereotypical diehard Bitcoin evangelical (some would say cultist) crowd. This means that it's all about buying as much Bitcoin as it can possibly afford, including by issuing new stock and taking out fresh debt, regardless of the coin's price.

As of July 14, it held about 601,550 bitcoins, purchased for $42.9 billion at an average cost of $71,268 each. At today's Bitcoin price of about $119,000, that holding is worth roughly $72 billion.

To expand the stack, management keeps issuing zero‑coupon convertible notes, including another $2  billion in February alone. It's going to continue in this same pattern until the cows come home.

For shareholders, that has paid off fairly well during the past five years.

MSTR data by YCharts.

Investors must understand that leverage supercharges Strategy's stock returns if Bitcoin rises, but it also magnifies pain. A 25% slide in the big orange coin would erase a vast amount of the company's value.

There's also a subtle timing mismatch. Strategy's convertible bonds mature years from now, starting in 2030, but historically, Bitcoin has shown that it can drop significantly in days and weeks. Strategy Executive Chairman Michael Saylor's conviction in the asset is legendary, but conviction doesn't repay debtors.

Finally, remember that Strategy is not Bitcoin -- there are actually a few ancillary activities the company still does related to its former identity as a software business. In other words, you're paying for its overhead in the name of getting exposure to Bitcoin, which you could replicate more cleanly with holding the coin itself.

Where $5,000 probably works harder

If your goal is to capture some upside in the crypto sector while taking on a moderate amount of risk, XRP looks like the preferable bet here.

The ledger is luring real revenue sources, like stablecoin float, cross‑border payment settlement, and tokenized treasuries, all while its biggest legal cloud just cleared. Assuming Ripple hits its roadmap milestones, institutional demand could continue to increase sharply during the next few years, sending XRP's price higher. It might not be a wealth-maker investment overnight, but the risk of a big implosion feels lower than during the lawsuit era, and it's undeniably finding traction right where it wants to.

Strategy is more of a racehorse for adrenaline seekers, which is to say that it's not a great play for the average investor. Should Bitcoin sprint to $200,000 by 2026, the stock's leverage could make XRP's gains look small. Yet that same leverage could become very cruel for shareholders if Bitcoin revisits $60,000, a level that would wipe out a huge chunk of the company's balance sheet and trigger harsh volatility. Most mainstream investors do not need that kind of insomnia-provoking asset in a retirement portfolio.

Therefore, for a $5,000 allocation today, XRP is the better option. Leave Strategy for those comfortable underwriting both Bitcoin's swings and a heavily indebted software company that moonlights as a crypto hedge fund.

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

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

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Alex Carchidi has positions in Bitcoin and Circle Internet Group. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin and XRP. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Key Points

• Shiba Inu has not enjoyed the same success as many other cryptos this year.

• Shiba Inu is largely viewed as a meme token that lacks real-world utility.

• But there is one catalyst that could help the token take off, although it is far from a certainty.

• 10 stocks we like better than Shiba Inu ›

Shiba Inu (CRYPTO: SHIB) has been a top cryptocurrency since it sprung to life in 2020, but that's largely because of its cult-like following on social media as one of the major meme tokens. Many investors still don't take the token seriously because it lacks a real use case or technical advantage over any of its peers. Still, there is one catalyst that could help Shiba Inu catch fire.

Could a negative eventually become a positive?

Shiba Inu has never had a lot to offer from a use-case perspective, aside from its fervent community on social media that has made it a top 20 cryptocurrency by market cap. Shiba Inu started as an ERC-20 token, meaning it was developed on the Ethereum network and abided by a set of principles that any token wishing to operate on the network must follow.

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 »

In 2023, Shiba Inu launched Shibarium, a Layer-2 solution on Ethereum to help ease congestion issues on the network. Shibarium essentially lets Shiba Inu settle transactions off of Ethereum's network, which is intended to scale the Shiba Inu ecosystem and make transactions cheaper. The Layer-2 solution has also led developers to start building decentralized applications on Shibarium, offering more utility than it once had.

Like many cryptocurrencies, one issue with Shiba Inu is its large supply of tokens, which makes it difficult to benefit from any kind of supply-and-demand dynamic.

After all, one of the reasons investors love Bitcoin is because there will only be 21 million tokens ever mined. Shiba Inu launched with nearly 1 quadrillion tokens. However, the supply has been greatly reduced. Shiba Inu founder Ryoshi, who remains anonymous, gave 505 trillion SHIB tokens to Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, who put most of these tokens in a dead wallet and then donated the rest.

Today, there are 589.5 trillion tokens in circulation, according to CoinMarketCap. Now, that's still a huge amount, but if Shiba Inu can keep reducing total supply over time, perhaps demand will pick up and drive the price higher. Shibarium actually created a burning mechanism, which moves 70% of base transaction fees into SHIB tokens that then get burned and deleted from the total supply. The purpose is to bring down total supply over time.

Still, since the launch of Shibarium, only about 5.5 trillion tokens, or less than 1% of the total supply, have been burned, if you back out the 505 trillion that were given to Buterin.

Can the supply actually decline meaningfully?

Shibarium has certainly made progress in reducing supply and billions of SHIB tokens are being burned each month. But billions doesn't mean much when you are talking in trillions. Many estimates indicate that it will still take many, many years at the current pace to reduce the supply of Shiba Inu to the point where the supply-and-demand balance would become an attractive selling point to investors.

Perhaps Ryoshi can give away more tokens or the burn rate will continue to pick up at an exponential rate that would start to make a meaningful impact, but it's unclear whether this will ever happen.

I will say, I do think the addition of Shibarium gives Shiba Inu more legitimacy than it had as just a meme token. Unfortunately, I don't think it's enough yet to make the token a buy. Shiba Inu is still highly speculative and very risky for investors. However, investors should continue to monitor the situation for improvements to the burn rate and lower supply.

Should you invest $1,000 in Shiba Inu right now?

Before you buy stock in Shiba Inu, 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 Shiba Inu 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 $652,133!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,056,790!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 1,048% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 180% for the S&P 500. Don’t miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor.

See the 10 stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of July 15, 2025

Bram Berkowitz has positions in Bitcoin and Ethereum. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin and Ethereum. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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