Key Points

• Many asset managers are migrating their assets to be tracked by blockchains.

• Both Solana and XRP stand to capture inflows related to this migration.

• But, at least so far, they're excelling in very different classes of tokenized assets.

• 10 stocks we like better than XRP ›

Smart investors know that you don't need to swing at every pitch. Sometimes, simply parking a modest sum in the right play before the crowd arrives can reap outsize rewards. A fast-maturing corner of crypto -- real-world asset (RWA) tokenization -- offers that setup today as it moves stocks, bonds, and other traditional instruments onto blockchains for cheaper, faster settlement compared to existing financial technologies.

Two coins already capturing some of the capital flows related to tokenization are Solana (CRYPTO: SOL) and XRP (CRYPTO: XRP). They approach the megatrend of asset tokenization slightly differently, giving investors a paired bet on whatever flavors of tokenized finance proliferate next. Even a relatively modest investment of $1,500 could be intelligently allocated into either of these two coins, so let's investigate both. And I suggest holding for at least three years.

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 »

This chain is a speed specialist

Solana's chief selling points are its throughput and its cheapness.

The network routinely clears more than 1,000 transactions per second (TPS) at sub-penny fees, letting developers iterate without worrying that usage spikes will crush users' wallets. That has proved invaluable for tokenized stocks. After a platform called xStocks launched on the chain in late May, the value of stock tokens on Solana tripled to about $48 million within three weeks; as of late July, the chain's tokenized stocks are worth more than $102 million.

Zoom out, and the corpus of tokenized assets on Solana now stands near $553 million, up by more than 218% this year alone, which is more than double the sector's overall growth.

Image source: Getty Images.

The chain is thus emerging as a natural magnet for asset issuers experimenting with tech that's beyond their traditional venues.

If Boston Consulting Group's projection that the sum of tokenized real-world assets will reach $16 trillion by 2030 is even half-right, a rising tide of assets would keep nudging validators to lock up Solana for staking, tightening supply. Furthermore, asset issuers will need to buy and hold the coin to manage their tokens, not to mention parking at least some of their fiat currency on the chain as stablecoins.

Regulatory surprises remain the main risk here, as tokenized stocks and funds live in (partially) uncharted territory. But, that risk seems likely going to get resolved within the next few years thanks to new leadership at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and when it does, the chain would pick up a new tailwind in the form of regulatory clarity.

Buying $1,500 worth of Solana and holding it through then is thus a favorable course of action.

This institutional plumber is carving a compliance moat

Where Solana thrives on raw speed, the XRP Ledger (XRPL) is a money transfer and asset-tracking system that embeds the (boring but essential) features banks actually ask for, like account freezing tools, native blacklisting, and built-in identity layers that satisfy know-your-customer (KYC) rules without the need to bolt on third-party widgets. Those controls are attracting issuers of regulated debt and payment instruments, which are the (once again, boring but essential) enormous backbone of finance.

XRP now has roughly $133 million in tokenized assets on its chain, up from under $50 million a year ago. That footprint is small compared to other chains like Ethereum, but its composition skews toward institutional debt rather than stocks. Every new bond or payment token minted consumes XRP for fees, subtly trimming float and sharpening its scarcity narrative.

Whereas one of Solana's strong points so far has been with tokenized stocks, XRP's advantage at the moment is in its deeply liquid tokenized U.S. Treasury bill platform, worth $75.2 million, which is something that banks and other financial institutions need. When those players use XRP as part of their financial back end, they gain a significant advantage from being able to tap into borrowing those Treasuries natively on-chain. Furthermore, the ledger's tight compliance posture also reduces headline risk, as institutions can adopt the coin without cobbling together legal patchwork like they'd need to do with Ethereum-based solutions.

Of course, the chain relies entirely on the business development muscle of Ripple, the business which issues XRP. Should legal or strategic missteps slow institutional partner onboarding, the coin's growth would stall. Still, the chain's design speaks the language of regulators, which is a competitive advantage that compounds as rules tighten worldwide and as larger players (with heftier compliance requirements) enter the crypto space.

Over the coming years, as institutions pile into crypto to take advantage of its technology, few chains are better positioned than XRP. And that's why it's worth buying with $1,500 today, and holding for at least three years.

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 $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

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

Key Points

• Ripple is gaining regulatory and industry buy-in.

• The project's potential is greater than many realize.

• 10 stocks we like better than XRP ›

The price of XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) is surging once again. This week, the coin popped nearly 30% in value. Over the past month, the crypto asset has increased in value by roughly 60%. And over the last 12 months, XRP has surged by around 500%.

After blasting through the $3 mark and setting a new all-time high, is Ripple still a buy? If you believe in this story, the token could be a buy at any price under $10. But there are a few things you want to be aware of before loading up.

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 »

Is Ripple gaining regulatory and industry buy-in?

The biggest cause of Ripple's recent price surge has been growing optimism surrounding the regulatory environment, as well as encouraging signs of potential industry adoption.

For years, Ripple has faced a long list of regulatory and adoption challenges. From a regulatory standpoint, the project has been involved in a lawsuit by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which charges it with selling unregistered securities in the coin lauch. After roughly five years, the case was finally settled for $50 million in May, unburdening the project from one of its biggest valuation drags.

From an industry buy-in standpoint, the project has long struggled to attract top-tier banks to its novel system of cross-border transactions. That remains a long-term challenge, but ongoing adoption by global banks, including Travelex Bank in Brazil, Axis Bank in India, UnionBank in the Philippines, ChinaBank, and Qatar National Bank, has provided real-world validation of Ripple's network. Partnerships with local banks help the Ripple team make their services easy to use.

The cross-border transactions market is already worth around $200 trillion today. By the end of the decade, its value is expected to approach $300 trillion. Ripple is clearly competing in a gigantic market -- one of the largest total addressable markets in the world. Adoption and regulatory approval have long been the challenge. But improving conditions this year for both of those categories have investors increasingly excited.

Image source: Getty Images.

Buy Ripple today if you fit this one characteristic

Do improving conditions make Ripple a buy today? For many investors, the answer is yes. In fact, Ripple could be a buy as long as it's under $10. At $10, Ripple would have a $600 billion market cap. That's justifiable, assuming Ripple takes only a few percentage points off the market shares of various global payment networks.

The SWIFT network, for example, handles more than $5 trillion in transactions per day. Capturing just 1% of this volume would result in roughly $18 trillion in annual volume for Ripple. At that rate, Ripple would likely be worth significantly more than $10.

If you're an aggressive growth investor seeking maximum upside potential, Ripple looks like a buy at under $10. But if you're looking for a more balanced risk-versus-reward scenario, it's best to look elsewhere. That's because the global payments system is highly consolidated, as SWIFT's massive volumes show.

Financial institutions have long been wary of competing systems and are unlikely to switch en masse to a relatively unproven system like Ripple, even if Ripple's network is superior on paper. Additionally, there is growing competition for alternative payment networks such as Visa's B2B Connect and JPMorgan's Onyx platform.

From a fundamentals perspective, it's still far too early to nail down a fair valuation for Ripple. It remains a very speculative asset. There's huge upside to be sure, but if and when that upside is realized, as well as its ultimate magnitude, is difficult to predict.

Aggressive growth investors should strongly consider a small exposure to Ripple. Most investors, however, are better off elsewhere.

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 $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

JPMorgan Chase is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Ryan Vanzo has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends JPMorgan Chase, Visa, and XRP. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Key Points

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

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

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

• 10 stocks we like better than Solana ›

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

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

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

Image source: Getty Images.

Solana

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

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

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

Cardano

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

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

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

XRP

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

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

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

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

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.

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 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?

Image source: Getty Images.

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?

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 $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

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

• XRP's token price has continued to move higher in conjunction with "Crypto Week" and bullish momentum for the broader market.

• Investors are betting that political support for the crypto industry could pave the way for big valuation gains.

• The Federal Reserve's decisions on interest rate policy will be a big catalyst for XRP and other tokens this month.

• 10 stocks we like better than XRP ›

XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) is making big gains again in Thursday's trading. The cryptocurrency was up 8.8% over the previous 24 hours of trading as of 2:30 p.m. ET. Meanwhile, Bitcoin was up 0.4% over the past day of trading, and Ethereum was up 2.7%.

XRP's token price has continued to roar higher in conjunction with the U.S. House of Representatives' "Crypto Week" initiative and bullish momentum for the broader crypto market. The cryptocurrency is now up 46% over the last three months.

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

Image source: Getty Images.

XRP rises as crypto market sees strong bullish momentum

Members of the U.S. House of Representatives are debating new cryptocurrency legislation this week, and the focus on the crypto industry has helped push valuations across the space higher. The House voted to advance three new bills that would establish new regulations and guidelines for the crypto industry, and investors are hoping that clearly defined regulatory frameworks could remove some of the barriers to wider adoption for cryptocurrencies.

XRP is also getting a boost from Bitcoin's rally. The market-leading cryptocurrency has hit new valuation records this week, and some investors are betting that political and macroeconomic conditions are falling into place to support a bigger rally for the token and the broader crypto market.

What's next for XRP?

XRP's token price is nearing a record high, and its market capitalization could soon climb above the $200 million mark for the first time in the token's history. While some recent economic data has raised concerns about whether the Federal Reserve will announce a cut for interest rates at its meeting at the end of this month, investors are still broadly betting that the central bank's Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) will issue multiple cuts to the benchmark rate this year. The potential for interest rates to move significantly lower has been central to bullish momentum for cryptocurrencies and other speculative investments recently.

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 $674,281!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,050,415!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 1,058% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 179% 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

Keith Noonan has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Key Points

• Market bubbles can form when macroeconomic and industry trends combine.

• Cryptocurrency's last big bubble was in 2021.

• It is reasonable to wonder whether crypto is in a bubble right now.

• 10 stocks we like better than Bitcoin ›

Markets love a juicy narrative, and "crypto bubble 2.0" is certainly juicy. Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) sits near $117,000, only a whisker from its all-time high set July 10, while big altcoins, such as Solana (CRYPTO: SOL), Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH), and XRP (CRYPTO: XRP), have doubled or better since mid-2023. Yet bubble talk is cheap. History punishes investors who sell first and ask questions later, so it pays to look under the hood before slapping the B-word on today's rally.

Let's unpack why prices are higher, why the mood is nothing like the euphoria of 2021, and what that means for long-term investors. If you pay careful attention here, it just might save you from timing mistakes that haunt your portfolio for years.

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

Image source: Getty Images.

Fundamentals are in line with pricing

A bubble, by definition, is a price divorced from fundamentals. That diagnosis is tricky in crypto because fundamentals evolve fast, but a few data points stand out.

First, demand in the sector is now predominantly institutional, not retail. U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have sucked in roughly $50 billion since launching 18 months ago. Those coins are locked away in cold storage for a steady trickle of staking fee income, which is hardly the stuff of manic speculation.

Second, the macro backdrop is set to improve rather than worsen. The Federal Reserve held its benchmark interest rate steady in June but penciled in two cuts before the end of the year, with potentially more to follow in 2026. Looser monetary policy historically expands the money supply and the risk appetite, which is exactly what happened during the last big crypto bubble in 2021. If cuts arrive on schedule, crypto could enjoy a liquidity tailwind that was absent during 2022's wipeout.

Third, utility on leading chains is finally visible, which is to say there's a concrete reason to buy the native tokens of those chains. Solana's weekly network fees and its application revenue are surging to new highs -- people are using its decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, and platform operators are generating money as a result.

XRP's ledger, meanwhile, is onboarding tokenized U.S. Treasuries and bank-friendly compliance tools, making it a more attractive home for institutional capital. That fee and transaction revenue is small in absolute terms, but it proves that these coins are being bought to pave the way for real workloads, not just speculation.

Separately from the above, one thing that people tend to be curious about is how meme coins fit into the picture. Yes, meme coins exist, and they still spike to silly valuations of $1 billion or more. However, the entire meme coin cohort is currently valued at only $64.1 billion, just a smidgen of crypto's $3.7 trillion total market capitalization.

And it isn't as though new meme stars are emerging every day in a way that captures attention outside of the limited circles of crypto insiders.

Classic bubble signals aren't even present

When the market is at its euphoric peaks, there are many tell-tale signs, ranging from soaring retail inflows to sky-high use of leverage and nearly incessant dinner table chatter from people who don't usually invest. None of those are flashing red today.

Start with sentiment. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index, offered by CoinMarketCap, reads 67 ("greed"), well below the 90-plus extremes logged in early 2021 and late 2024. Greed is in control at this moment, yes, but it's hardly mania by historical standards.

Web search interest tells a similar story. Searches for "Bitcoin" remain near six-month lows even as its price grinds higher, indicating that newcomers are not piling in en masse. Other signals, like the app store ranking of crypto wallet and trading apps, also look ice cold.

On-chain data is equally sober. Glassnode, a crypto data provider, calculates that a "super majority" of holders sit on unrealized profits after Bitcoin's rebound past $107,000. This implies that there could be some profit-taking in store, but also that almost nobody is under pressure to sell.

Furthermore, leverage in derivatives markets sits well below 2021 peaks. The odds of a liquidation spiral sending the price downward are low.

Could sentiment overheat relatively soon? Absolutely.

The macroeconomic tailwinds look quite favorable for the entire crypto sector right now, as does government policy, and as does monetary policy in the near term. And with institutional capital piling in, a lot could happen to ignite super-positive sentiment as soon as this fall.

But for now, no crypto traders are flashing their newly purchased Lamborghinis on social media. Nor are the valuations of most of the crypto majors overextended compared to 2021. So, don't get scared out of the market by talk of a bubble.

In sum, the data indicates that we are in a warm but far from overheated market. Keep an eye on the key indicators so that you will be ahead of the game if they start to signal too much froth.

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 $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.

See the 10 stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of July 7, 2025

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

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.

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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.

See the 10 stocks »

*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.

Key Points

• Cryptocurrency prices boil down to the basics: supply and demand.

• Bitcoin continues to hold advantages in adoption and tokenomics over other cryptocurrencies, also known as altcoins.

• The government's spending habits bode well for Bitcoin's long-term price action.

• 10 stocks we like better than Bitcoin ›

The cryptocurrency market has been heating up since the Trump administration assumed office in January.

President Donald Trump campaigned on supporting cryptocurrencies, and his actions have followed through on this promise. He signed an executive order to establish a strategic federal reserve for digital assets and has broadly loosened the regulatory grip on the industry.

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But when it comes to deciding the smartest cryptocurrency to buy right now, it may still pay to stick with the basics. Most cryptocurrencies are highly speculative investments. That said, Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) appears poised to build on its years of impressive returns.

I'll explain below why Bitcoin remains the smartest cryptocurrency to invest $1,000 into today.

Image source: Getty Images.

Understanding how market forces affect Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency prices

The price of any traded asset at any given moment boils down to market forces -- what someone is willing to sell something for, versus what someone is willing to pay for it. It's the fundamental basics of supply and demand.

Some assets represent tangible things. For instance, real estate is physical property that you can appraise. Stocks represent ownership in companies, with revenue and profits. Having something tangible helps someone determine how much to pay for it.

However, cryptocurrencies are digital assets, often with little or no tangible value to support their market prices. As a result, cryptocurrencies can be highly volatile. Their long-term price direction depends on factors that ultimately influence that delicate balance between supply and demand.

It's that simple. Bitcoin, the original cryptocurrency, has been such a lucrative investment over the years because it continues to get this right.

Bitcoin's advantages over most altcoins

For starters, Bitcoin has a capped maximum supply, and new coins enter circulation at a slower rate following each halving, when mining rewards decline. Meanwhile, interest (demand) in Bitcoin has risen over time as it gains support from individuals, institutional investors, and even corporations and governments. For example, some companies have begun carrying Bitcoin on their balance sheets instead of cash and equivalents, and the U.S. government will start stockpiling Bitcoin thanks to Trump's executive order earlier this year.

Investors looking to invest in altcoins, or any cryptocurrency aside from Bitcoin, must consider their purpose and tokenomics. Many altcoins are meme coins, designed with little intention of real-world utility. Their market prices depend on sustained popularity.

Ethereum and XRP are popular altcoins, but both come with some issues. The Ethereum network's token, Ether, has an unlimited supply, which applies downward pressure on the token's market price. Meanwhile, XRP's creator, Ripple Labs, remains entangled in a civil lawsuit with U.S. regulators after a judge recently rejected their efforts to settle the case. It could weigh on XRP's real-world adoption and its market price until the litigation is resolved.

Cryptocurrencies as a whole have become increasingly popular across the investing community, but Bitcoin remains, at least for now, the most widely adopted and valued cryptocurrency by a wide margin.

Why Bitcoin's price can continue to rise

Bitcoin may not represent property or a business, but society has given it value as an anti-inflationary asset. This purpose drives higher interest in Bitcoin, and it's an important distinction that separates it from other cryptocurrencies at the moment.

One might think of Bitcoin as a digital version of gold. It doesn't have as much practical use as fiat currency, but it is valued, and there is only a limited amount of it. Just like gold, Bitcoin's price, denominated in U.S. dollars, continues to increase as more dollars flood the economy.

US M2 Money Supply data by YCharts

Bitcoin has risen much faster than gold, but it also started at a much smaller value. Even today, Bitcoin's fully diluted market value of $2.3 trillion is a fraction of the world's gold supply, which is about $22.3 trillion. I'm not sure that Bitcoin will ultimately match gold's value, but it's reasonable to think that there's more upside ahead, given the huge disparity.

The U.S. government's consistent fiscal deficit helps contribute to an expanding money supply. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the newly passed "big, beautiful bill" will likely increase the U.S.'s national debt during the next decade, which bodes well for Bitcoin and other assets priced in U.S. dollars.

These tailwinds, combined with a growing interest in Bitcoin from various parties worldwide, make it the clear choice for investors looking to invest $1,000 in cryptocurrencies today.

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 $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.

See the 10 stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of July 7, 2025

Justin Pope has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Key Points

• Dogecoin has a big sail to catch sentiment-driven hype.

• XRP has real utility and features that attract capital to its chain.

• Delivering millionaire-maker returns is a very high bar for most assets to clear.

Sprinting races and marathons both cover distance, but using the strategy that works in one will wreck you in the other. Crypto investors chasing "millionaire-maker" coins often confuse the two, buying a meme coin sprinting across social media.

Two perennial favorites in this conversation are Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE) and XRP (CRYPTO: XRP).

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Both have cult followings and large market caps, yet only one is building the muscle needed for a long haul. Let's see which, if either, has the special sauce to make investors into millionaires, and then separately answer the question of whether either deserves a slot in a sensible portfolio.

Dogecoin's upside is only limited by investor enthusiasm

Dogecoin commands a respectable $25.7 billion market cap at a price near $0.17 and 150 billion coins in circulation.

Those numbers matter, because every year, another 5 billion DOGE trickles into the supply through block rewards. The protocol has no cap on supply, so supply growth is perpetual, even if the inflation rate shrinks over time.

With fundamentals this thin, price action has long hinged on celebrity shout-outs and macro phenomena that dictate liquidity conditions in the crypto sector. Elon Musk's social media posts have, in the past, served as prime catalysts for sudden spikes and slides in the coin's value. That isn't something serious investors look for when they're evaluating an asset's merits, because it's actually a risk.

Image source: Getty Images.

Separately, the coin has no formal road map, and no major functionality upgrades are in progress. It's a meme coin, not a living project that could offer real utility someday.

So what does it take to parlay a $10,000 stake in this coin into $1 million? Per the math, a neat 100-fold move would do the trick. That would lift its market cap to roughly $2.5 trillion, which is to say, greater than Bitcoin's entire float.

That leap also implies mass adoption, a killer utility use, or a meme craze bigger than any in internet history, enabled by multiple firehoses of supporting liquidity from central bankers around the world.

None of those things look at all likely.

This coin won't make anyone into a millionaire again.

XRP has real utility, but it's still a long shot here

XRP's market cap sits north of $133 billion, at about $2.26 per coin. Demand for the coin stems from more than silly pictures of dogs.

First, the development cadence of its chain is brisk.

On June 30, Ripple, the company that develops XRP, pushed its long-awaited Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) sidechain to the mainnet, letting smart contracts written in the same language as what's used for Ethereum run on the XRP ledger (XRPL) for a fraction of typical gas costs. That opens the door to onboarding thousands of existing decentralized applications (dApps) and app developers to XRP, and it is very probable it'll be stealing them from the Ethereum ecosystem, perhaps permanently.

Second, Ripple is spending to widen XRPL's moat.

The April acquisition of prime broker Hidden Road for more than $1.2 billion gives institutional investors an on-ramp for lending, cross-margining their capital, and transaction settlement that operates directly on the ledger. And Ripple's road map includes building more compliance tooling aimed squarely at enticing banks and asset managers to store their capital on its chain.

These moves won't send the coin to the moon overnight, but they do give XRP multiple levers in the form of transaction fees, stablecoin issuance, and custody tooling to capture a large amount of value as the finance sector moves to using blockchains as its plumbing. If XRP nabs even a sliver of the trillions in real-world assets (RWAs) forecast to migrate to on-chain management this decade, the upside will be enormous for investors who build up a position now.

But could XRP 100x, given its rosy setup today?

A jump to roughly $220 per coin would take its cap to about $13 trillion. That's still massive, and therefore very improbable in the near term.

But, unlike Dogecoin, XRP has plausible growth drivers in the form of enterprise adoption and a living road map. Don't confuse its better odds of making investors richer with good odds for it making anyone into a millionaire.

For investors, that translates to moderation. Buy and hold XRP if you're interested in getting some exposure to its considerable upside, but keep your expectations in check, and don't over-invest, especially not if your portfolio isn't sufficiently diversified first.

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

Before you buy stock in Dogecoin, 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 Dogecoin wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

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

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

See the 10 stocks »

*Stock Advisor returns as of June 30, 2025

Alex Carchidi has positions in Bitcoin and Ethereum. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) is rising Tuesday. The cryptocurrency's token price was up 7.1% over the previous 24 hours of trading as of 4:30 p.m. ET. At the same point in the day, Bitcoin was up 2.5%, and Ethereum was up 5.7%.

Investors moved into higher-risk investments today following signs that the Federal Reserve could cut interest rates in July and the announcement of a ceasefire between Israel and Iran. Despite today's gain, XRP is still down roughly 6% over the last month.

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Image source: Getty Images.

XRP rises on interest rate hopes

Investors are seeing bullish signals today and bidding up cryptocurrencies and stocks in response to indications that the Federal Reserve's Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is feeling more dovish when it comes to interest rate policy. The central banking authority has taken a cautious approach to reducing rates in hopes of ensuring that inflation is under control and that new tariffs will not lead to a reacceleration of price increases, but recent comments from key officials seem to support the notion that a rate cut could be delivered at the Fed's meeting next month. Investors had broadly expected that they would be kept waiting until at least September for the next rate reduction, and an earlier-than-anticipated cut could help power sustained bullish momentum for XRP and other cryptocurrencies.

The Israel-Iran ceasefire is also boosting crypto prices

Earlier today, a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Iran was announced. While there were reports of continued military actions from both sides, the attacks were relatively minor -- and subsequent reports suggest that the ceasefire is now holding. With signs that geopolitical risk factors may be moderating, investors are feeling more willing to embrace speculative plays -- and that's good news for XRP and other cryptocurrencies.

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 $676,023!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $883,692!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 793% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 173% 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 23, 2025

Keith Noonan has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Investors in XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) are in a good position today. The coin has broken above $2 and sports a market cap north of $127 billion, making it the world's fourth-largest cryptocurrency. It's seeing widespread adoption by institutional investors, and there are a plethora of other reasons to be bullish about XRP's future.

Yet three headwinds are blowing straight in its face, and they explain why the gains have cooled since March. None of them are fatal, but ignoring them is like pretending a stiff breeze won't slow a kayak. So let's look at each challenge and see what it might mean for long-term holders.

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1. Competitors want to eat its lunch

The first challenge is the chain's competition from other cryptocurrencies and fintechs.

Ethereum now anchors roughly $126 billion of the $240 billion stablecoin market, cementing its role as the default solution for dollar-denominated transfers in the crypto sector despite its frequent clunkiness and mediocre user experience on average. Every stablecoin dollar routed through Ethereum is one less unit that might have been transferred via the XRP Ledger (XRPL).

Meanwhile, traditional payment processors are rolling out the same kinds of cross-border tools that once made XRP look revolutionary.

Image source: Getty Images.

Visa just backed a fintech moving $12 billion a year in stablecoin settlements for businesses. Stripe, another payment processing company, is striking bank partnerships to do the same.

These companies own distribution channels, meaning that merchants already clear trillions of dollars through their pipes every year. If they add stablecoin rails, corporate treasurers have fewer reasons to bother with a crypto they have never held.

In theory, XRPL's speed and tiny fees still shine. In practice, network effects reward the chain where counterparties already keep accounts.

Unless Ripple, the business that issues XRP, can persuade the next wave of stablecoin issuers to launch natively on XRPL or deliver a blockbuster central-bank deal, the payments pie could keep enlarging without XRP securing a bigger slice.

2. Supply unlocks are problematic for some investors

For a value-oriented cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, the scarcity of coins is a major driver of higher prices, as new coins can only be produced at a very slow rate. So there's no untapped major reservoir of supply that buyers can reliably count on.

With XRP, supply trickles in like clockwork. Ripple's programmatic schedule releases 1 billion XRP from escrow on the first of every month. Roughly 80% of that sum is relocked and thus retained, but 100 million to 200 million coins still hit the float (get sold) in each cycle. At $2.15 per coin, that is $215 million of potential sell pressure every 30 days.

Annualized, the unlocked supply could reach 1.2 billion coins, equal to about 2% of XRP's circulating base of 58.9 billion. That dilution is mild compared with new token issuance elsewhere, yet it matters in a market where marginal buyers care about float, not total cap.

Every fresh tranche forces investors to absorb inventory before the price can advance. And aside from preventing prices from surging upward due to a supply shock, the mere existence of the tokens leaving escrow is enough to spook some investors and discourage them from buying anything at all.

3. Retail investor skepticism of crypto remains stubbornly high

Finally, market sentiment about the crypto sector as a whole is stuck in a rut that's likely dragging on XRP to some degree.

A Pew Research Center study from 2024 found 63% of U.S. adults have little to no confidence that today's crypto platforms are safe or reliable. Given XRP's commitment to offering compliance tools to help institutional investors and banks obey regulations, those fears are overblown, but people still have them. Another Pew survey, from 2022, found that 46% of people who actually bought crypto say performance has fallen short of expectations.

Skepticism translates into smaller purchases and slower conversion of the curious into the committed. That matters because retail investors still drive a big slice of crypto's price elasticity. Crypto fatigue is psychological, and bear market scars heal on their own timetable.

Assuming continued macro calm, a few years of visible real-world usage could flip the narrative. Until then, doubt will act like gravity on XRP's rallies -- but be aware that doesn't mean it can't grow significantly anyway.

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 $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

Alex Carchidi has positions in Bitcoin and Ethereum. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin, Ethereum, Visa, and XRP. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Success in crypto rarely comes from chasing hype. The investors who tend to come out ahead are those who focus on enduring utility or value, which are often revealed when a blockchain starts solving real-world problems in regulated markets. Right now, XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) fits that description.

From newly unlocked markets in the Middle East to a surging wave of interest in the chain's merits as a home for real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, XRP's fundamentals are also aligning with a friendlier regulatory regime in the U.S. Each of these catalysts are potent on their own, and taken together, they form an explosive trio that could make the coin a lot more valuable than before. That's why it warrants an investment, even if it's a small one on the order of $1,000.

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Here's what you should know about each of these developments.

1. Dubai's green light opens new paths for capital to flow

In late May, the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) formally approved XRP under its virtual assets regime, making it the first coin that's allowed for use inside the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC).

Licensed banks, fintech companies, and treasury desks that operate in the DIFC can now build payment, custody, and liquidity products on top of XRP without seeking separate exemptions from regulators.

That matters because the DIFC is the Middle East's biggest dollar-clearing zone. It's also a hub for multinational corporations routing billions in working capital flows every day. So if XRP can be used as the medium of exchange for even a portion of those money transfers, the coin is well-positioned to accomplish that goal.

With the requisite regulatory compliance boxes ticked already, an importer in Dubai can settle invoices in seconds instead of days, while a global bank or institutional investor can hold XRP as an on-ledger liquidity vehicle. The alternatives to XRP in these contexts are significantly more expensive and substantially slower on average.

Image source: Getty Images.

Assuming that even a small slice of the region's $400 billion in annual trade volume migrates to on-ledger settlement, incremental demand for XRP could run well into the hundreds of millions of dollars. While such an outcome is not guaranteed, the path is now legally open, which is something rival networks cannot claim -- and that's yet another bullish wrinkle to add to this bullish catalyst.

2. A $7 billion tokenized treasury boom is looking for a home

Businesses that transact on the blockchain want to hold assets on the blockchain too, because it's convenient. For that to happen, the assets need to be tokenized, which is to say that the rights to their ownership need to be traceable via a newly created crypto token.

When it comes to assets that companies need to hold the most, U.S. Treasury bills and bonds are up there. On the XRP Ledger (XRPL), tokenizing U.S. Treasuries has gone from idea to reality in under two years.

The total value of on-chain Treasuries hit $7.2 billion this week across all blockchains, up nearly 50% this year. XRP is going to be the home of an increasing proportion of that pie.

Ondo Finance just bridged its $693 million OUSG token, a short-duration Treasury fund, to the XRPL. When paired with the ledger's feature set, institutional capital will likely be enticed more than before as a result. XRP's built-in compliance features will allow asset managers to satisfy know-your-customer (KYC) and anti-money-laundering (AML) rules, which are prerequisites for their deployment of capital.

Therefore, institutions that must demonstrate airtight controls can experiment with tokenized Treasuries and other fixed income instruments (bonds) using infrastructure that looks and feels like the systems they already trust. In the long run, that'll increase the value of XRP, as it'll lead to more capital being parked on its chain.

3. The SEC is softening

Regulatory risk has long been XRP's Achilles' heel, but the tide has finally undeniably turned in its favor, and the positive effect is just starting to hit.

In March, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) moved to dismiss its high-profile lawsuit against Ripple, the business that issues XRP, ending a years-long legal battle that had scared off institutional investors from approaching the coin and the chain.

A friendlier enforcement climate lowers the odds of fresh actions against Ripple and increases the likelihood that pending applications for spot XRP exchange-traded funds (ETFs) will clear the SEC's gauntlet.

To be clear, regulators could reverse course, and court battles tied to other chains still loom, so litigation could still rain on the parade a bit. Yet the balance of probabilities now favors XRP, and that is a material change from the fog that hung over it just a year ago.

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 $658,297!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $883,386!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 992% — 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

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

When people daydream about cryptocurrency investments, the fantasy usually ends with imagining how they will spend all of the millions of dollars they made. Yet very few assets have the horsepower to turn a modest investment into that kind of money.

And with the market marching toward fresh highs again, two of the sector's leaders, Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) and XRP (CRYPTO: XRP), keep resurfacing in those millionaire-maker conversations. One is celebrated as digital gold; the other is quietly wiring real cash around the globe. Which of the pair is more likely to bring riches to investors?

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Bitcoin shows the power of enforced scarcity

Let's start by examining first principles.

Bitcoin's protocol caps its supply at 21 million coins. So it can't experience debasement in the way that a fiat currency does. As many coins have been burned, lost, or otherwise rendered inaccessible, there will always be far fewer coins than that available for sale, which makes the supply proposition even sweeter.

Demand is the other half of the equation, and in Bitcoin's case, it looks very favorable as well.

In May alone, crypto funds pulled in roughly $7.1 billion of net inflows, most of which went into Bitcoin-backed exchange-traded funds (ETFs), thereby pushing their total assets under management to a record $167 billion. Other data indicate that a total of $11 billion has poured into digital-asset products during the past seven weeks. This is undeniable evidence that Bitcoin is in demand from asset managers.

Image source: Getty Images.

Scarcity plus new buyers is a potent combination for price. A very large proportion of Bitcoin is now being held at a profit based on recent prices. Fewer nervous hands holding coins that are underwater translates into fewer sudden supply shocks.

Should ETFs see outflows or regulators reverse course, the float (coins available for public trading) would loosen and price momentum could stall quickly. Even then, the coin's halvings every four years or so will keep expansion of new supply shrinking, mathematically raising the odds that any dip is temporary rather than terminal.

Now it's time to rain on the parade. With an investment of $10,000 today, Bitcoin would need to reach a market cap of around $210 trillion for it make you into a millionaire. For reference, that's roughly twice the size of the gross domestic product of the entire global economy in 2024.

In other words, don't hold your breath for a small investment in this coin to make you into a millionaire.

XRP's utility is a mixed blessing in this context

Where Bitcoin leans on scarcity, XRP is built to move money as cheaply as an email, which is to say practically free. Ripple, the company that issues the XRP coin, is building it out to be the core of an entire ecosystem of financial products and services that are oriented toward the needs of the largest institutional investors out there.

A recent corporate guide from Ripple pitches global e-commerce, which is now past a total value of $6 trillion in annual sales, as low-hanging fruit to market XRP to deliver faster settlement. Running even a small portion of those payments would require institutions to buy quite a bit of XRP, sending the coin's price aloft.

Technical momentum is picking up too. In March, the XRP ledger's latest upgrade activated native automated market makers, letting anyone contribute liquidity and earn fees without clunky smart contract workarounds.

That feature could deepen on-chain liquidity and make XRP spreads more competitive with fiat rails, which would in turn make institutional investors more interested in parking their capital on the chain, as it could support the transaction sizes they need. In April, Ripple folded its new RLUSD stablecoin into Ripple Payments, which now claims nearly $10 billion in trading volume since its December launch. The stablecoin is hosted on XRP's network, so its value contributes to the total value of the chain and the coin.

Still, a few headwinds remain.

XRP's economics depend heavily on Ripple's business decisions and its work to develop its features. A strategic misstep or a fresh legal tangle with the Securities and Exchange Commission could sap adoption severely and depress the coin's price. Other chains are competing with it to court the same institutional money, and in some segments, they're winning.

Thus the coin's utility alone does not guarantee price appreciation.

Which coin carries better millionaire odds?

Neither XRP nor Bitcoin are going to make you a millionaire overnight. But both could be great wealth-building tools if you're willing to diligently dollar-cost average into a position and hold it for a handful of years.

With that said, if your goal is simply to stack a nest egg that could cross seven figures within a decade or two, Bitcoin's path is clearer. It needs only continued scarcity-driven demand to succeed, which is something that the ETFs, a growing number of corporate treasuries holding it, and perhaps even governments will provide.

In contrast, XRP requires both steady protocol evolution and a broad corporate shift toward on-ledger settlement of transactions in a few different categories to see its price reach meteoric heights. That can happen, but it involves more moving parts and a longer adoption curve, so it isn't as reliable a millionaire-maker.

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 $658,297!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $883,386!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 992% — 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

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

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.

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 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!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 792% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 173% 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

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.

For decades, international payments have been routed through the SWIFT network, which is a messaging system that connects thousands of banks. SWIFT transactions can take days, sometimes weeks, because of intermediary banks, currency conversions, and messaging delays. The main users, banks, need to carry liquidity buffers to cover the risk of those issues. This means that using SWIFT, which stands for Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, comes with a capital burden for banks.

XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) is a cryptocurrency designed for nothing flashier than moving value from A to B almost instantly and for almost nothing in fees. Banks wrestling with faster-payments mandates and cross-border fee pressure now have a tool that settles transactions in the time it takes to blink, so long as they're willing to abandon SWIFT. Here's why some of those banks and other financial companies are starting to consider XRP as a core reserve they might keep for decades rather than merely as a cryptocurrency investment to hold on the balance sheet.

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 »

It's a lot faster and cheaper than the status quo

On the XRP ledger (known as XRPL), a transfer finalizes in roughly three to five seconds, with typical network fees of less than 0.001 XRP, or about a tenth of a cent at recent prices. For the sake of comparison, consider that SWIFT's own progress report touts a "dramatic" improvement to a 24-hour average for cross-border settlement last year, down from 96 hours in 2019.

Why does that transaction time and cost gap matter to banks when it comes to choosing a technology to use?

If you're a bank, capital that's trapped in transit is capital that isn't earning a yield. Every hour shaved off transaction settlement frees up capital that can be redeployed, thereby enabling the bank to generate more earnings than it would otherwise. Thus, there's a strong financial incentive here for banks to switch, and little that keeps them tied to the legacy solution except for inertia.

Image source: Getty Images.

Furthermore, XRP's fee structure is predictable. SWIFT's message charges, foreign exchange spreads, and flat fees can be on the order of $50 per transfer. Typically, those exchange fees are billed as a percentage of the transfer amount, with 1% being a common take, so costs add up quickly for players that need to transact frequently and in large sums. With XRP, costs stay microscopic regardless of notional transaction size, and there is no currency being exchanged, so there are no exchange fees at all.

That reliability underpins the token's appeal as a utility reserve rather than a speculative investment. Once adopted, if it's anything like SWIFT, banks will be loath to transition to something else unless the benefits of doing so are very compelling.

Compliance matters too

The speed of a solution alone has probably never sold a big bank's chief compliance officer on adopting a new technology. What moves the needle is control and traceability.

XRP's ledger natively bakes a slew of regulatory compliance features directly into the protocol. Asset issuers, including those with key assets like stablecoins, can freeze individual trust lines, enact a global freeze, or enable deposit authorization so an account only accepts funds it has vetted. These features let banks satisfy know-your-customer (KYC) and anti-money-laundering (AML) obligations without incorporating external smart contract code, which is a tremendous headache on many other chains, particularly Ethereum.

As a result of XRP's compliance features and potential to cut costs, real-world pilots of financial businesses and organizations trialing XRP are piling up. Bhutan's central bank began a central bank digital currency (CBDC) sandbox on XRP's tech three years ago, looking to extend financial inclusion across its mountainous villages. More recently, Dubai green-lit a property tokenization platform that records deeds on XRPL, targeting $16 billion in real estate. Each project requires the ledger to prove it can handle regulated assets at scale, which is progress that risk officers and bank executives watch far more closely than investors typically do.

If those trials mature into production systems, banks holding XRP as an operational reserve gain a second benefit of optionality. The same tokens that are useful for making large international payments can also pay ledger fees for tokenized bonds or be used for trading other tokenized financial instruments. That versatility hedges against the risk that today's fast payment rails become tomorrow's legacy drag in the way that SWIFT is.

Thus, the durability of XRP as an asset is starting to look more persuasive than ever.

XRP's price can be volatile, yet the direction of travel toward faster payments, programmable compliance, and institutional custody is hard to miss.

For investors, that means the thesis behind buying and holding XRP today hinges less on a meme-driven price spike and more on the quiet decisions banks make to incorporate it over the next decade. Ripple, the company that issues XRP, is highly motivated to ensure that banks keep adopting the coin for their back-end use.

If XRP becomes the solution for tokenized deposits, CBDCs, and cross-border wholesale flows, demand from institutions with no intention of selling could easily anchor the coin's long-term value. And so far, the evidence is that things are moving in that direction.

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 $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 173% 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. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Ethereum and XRP. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Now that Elon Musk is finally leaving the Trump administration, it's time to forget about Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE). While there was hope earlier in the year that the billionaire tech titan might be able to help push up the price of this meme coin, that simply hasn't happened. For the year, Dogecoin is down a whopping 40%.

But all hope is not lost. There are plenty of other options if you are looking for a low-cost, high-upside cryptocurrency. My favorite pick right now is XRP (CRYPTO: XRP), which is up a modest 6% for the year. Here's why you should consider it for your portfolio.

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 »

Utility coin vs. meme coin

Dogecoin has always been -- and always will be -- a meme coin. Moreover, it was created as an internet joke, so it was never meant to be serious. The only way Dogecoin can increase in value is through hype, buzz, and speculation.

Musk's brief tenure in the White House is proof of that. Even though he had no direct role in any of the White House's crypto policies, the mere fact that he created a government-adjacent group called DOGE -- the same as the ticker symbol for Dogecoin -- created quite a bit of hype and speculation that something big might be coming for Dogecoin. But nothing ever did.

Image source: Getty Images.

In contrast, XRP has real utility. In other words, you can actually use it for something of value. XRP is primarily used as a bridge currency. As such, it can be used to facilitate cross-border transactions, as well as to convert one fiat currency (such as the U.S. dollar) into another fiat currency. All of this runs on the XRP blockchain, and is supported by Ripple Labs, a San Francisco-based tech company that has been around since 2012.

XRP's blockchain technology has already been embraced by large financial institutions as a way to move money around the world in a way that is cheaper and faster than with traditional financial tools. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has even suggested that the XRP payment network might eventually become even bigger than SWIFT, as it is adopted by more and more global institutions.

Higher upside potential

During the previous crypto bull market rally, Dogecoin soared in value seemingly overnight. It was the first-ever meme coin, and investors piled into it, hoping to become crypto millionaires.

But that was four years ago. In May 2021, Elon Musk appeared on NBC's Saturday Night Live at exactly the moment when many people thought Dogecoin was headed to the moon.

Dogecoin never made it to the moon. In fact, it couldn't even reach escape velocity. Dogecoin reached an all-time high of $0.74, and never recovered. Today, it's trading for $0.20. Never once in its history has it ever broken the $1 mark.

In contrast, XRP has already shown its tremendous upside potential. Yes, it was flatlining around the $0.50 mark for much of 2024, but it then suddenly went parabolic after the U.S. presidential election. At one point, it was up as much as 600% after the election.

Granted, XRP has cooled off considerably since then. It's now trading for just $2, and is down nearly 35% from its 52-week high earlier in the year. But it's still one of the only top cryptocurrencies up for the year.

Analysts and investors remain bullish on XRP's long-term prospects. It could easily double in value, to regain its all-time high of $3.84. Some even think XRP might soar in value to $10 or higher.

Sell Dogecoin, buy XRP

I get the allure of Dogecoin -- it's cheap and it's fun. But investing in Dogecoin just doesn't make sense, especially when it's down 40% for the year. At a time of maximum global macroeconomic uncertainty, the last thing smart investors want to be holding is a dog-themed meme coin with a funny name.

A better option would be XRP, which is still relatively cheap -- just $2, less than a cup of coffee these days! And, at times, XRP trades much like a meme coin. Just a hint or whisper of something big coming for XRP is often enough to send it higher. But at least XRP has some utility to it, and has much higher upside than Dogecoin over the long haul. If you are choosing between XRP and Dogecoin, this one's a no-brainer.

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 $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 173% 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

Dominic Basulto has positions in XRP. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends XRP. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) is about to experience an interesting tug of war over its supply. On one side are the predictable monthly coin supply releases from escrow by XRP's issuer, a company called Ripple. On the other side are the world's first XRP treasury companies, which are start-ups whose sole purpose is to stockpile the coin and sit on it to capture its price appreciation over time.

That second force is small today. But the very fact it now exists when it didn't before creates incremental, structural demand for a coin whose floating supply is otherwise set to expand. If you can handle a three-year holding window and an investment as small as $1,000, the odds are thus very favorable that demand will win out in your favor if you buy the coin. Let's explore 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. Learn More »

Meet the new XRP treasurers

A crypto treasury company is a publicly traded business that raises capital, buys a digital asset like XRP, and thereby offers its shareholders levered exposure to the underlying asset's price. This approach was first used by Strategy with Bitcoin, and now the same model is being attempted by a few enterprising companies with XRP.

In late May, the solar power and storage business VivoPower pivoted to become the world's first XRP-focused treasury company, closing a $121 million private placement-funding round and then in early June specifically allocating $100 million to purchase XRP in an over-the-counter (OTC) deal. And it isn't alone in picking XRP as its treasury asset, at least not any more. Within 24 hours of VivoPower's announcement, two other small companies, Ault Capital Group and an Asia-based logistics holding business, disclosed plans to buy XRP as a strategic reserve asset.

Why bother with holding coins when there are other ways to make money that don't rely on the vagaries of the market to generate a return?

Image source: Getty Images.

Although it's yet to be proven successful, except in the case of Strategy, generally crypto treasury companies argue they can outperform just holding their underlying assets directly by issuing equity or convertible debt, buying coins, and capturing any upside on behalf of shareholders. Those shareholders are effectively making a leveraged bet on the crypto by buying the company's stock, so it's true that their returns could be higher than just holding the coins directly.

Here's the math to know

How much impact will these new treasury companies have on XRP's supply relative to what's being released from escrow each month? If the answer is "close to zero," then the coin's critics can retain one of their arguments against buying it. On the other hand, if the treasurers are taking a large amount of supply off the table, it would be another argument in favor of buying and holding the coin.

Ripple still controls about 36.5 billion XRP in escrow and, by design, unlocks about 1 billion tokens on the first day of each month. Historically, roughly 800 million of that haul are relocked, leaving a net 200 million XRP that can hit the market and boost supply and depress prices. So there's an inflationary element of XRP that is relatively minor in the big scheme of things.

Compare that with VivoPower's initial $100 million purchasing goal for the asset. At today's XRP price of about $2.25, it can buy roughly 44 million XRP. In other words, a single new treasury entrant can sop up roughly 20% of a typical month's net supply increase. Layer in similar moves telegraphed by other aspiring crypto treasury companies, and supply can start to tighten rather quickly, at least for as long as there's a steady drumbeat of new entrants making big purchases.

Critics counter that treasury companies are leveraged, thinly capitalized, and prone to dumping if XRP's price plunges, which is a fair point. It's also the case that Ripple could decide to sell more of each month's escrow if prices surge.

Nonetheless, the key is that demand pressure from buyers now has a persistent, deep-pocketed corporate source instead of relying solely on retail traders and banks. And that's bullish.

The setup looks favorable here

Assuming the XRP treasury club grows, three tailwinds could reinforce the thesis for buying $1,000 of the coin and holding it for at least three years.

First, the approval of a U.S. exchange-traded fund (ETF) application is widely expected sometime in 2025. An approval would ignite institutional demand the way Bitcoin ETFs did. It's not guaranteed, but it's no secret that the new administration's leaders are very friendly toward crypto.

Second, the supply unlock schedule itself is finite and not very scary at all. If the unlocking pace persists as it has, Ripple's remaining stash of XRP will eventually run dry. The monthly supply drip could then end entirely, leaving crypto treasurers, remittance banks, and everyone else to fight over a fixed supply. That would drive prices up.

Finally, competition among treasurers is now accelerating. Corporate executives hunting for their own version of Strategy's moment of popularity may decide XRP's utility for making payments are safer than an all-Bitcoin bet.

Of course, none of this insulates investors from volatility. That's why a $1,000 starting stake is worthwhile; it keeps your exposure modest while still letting you participate in the upside if demand outruns new supply.

Patience is the key here. Give the tug-of-war three years to play out, and the coin's price will likely be a lot higher than it is right now.

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 $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 Bitcoin. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin and XRP. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Heading into 2025, XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) was the hottest crypto on the planet. But after hitting a 52-week high of $3.39 in January, XRP has fizzled out. It's now down 35% from its 2025 peak, and investors are understandably concerned.

Is now the time to buy the dip on XRP? Or is your money better spent elsewhere? Let's take a closer look.

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

Pro-crypto euphoria

Heading into November, XRP had basically flatlined at the $0.50 price level. However, after the presidential election, it suddenly surged, eventually reaching a multi-year high.

This makes sense, of course, because XRP was the one cryptocurrency destined to get the biggest bounce from a pro-crypto Trump presidency. Up until November, dark regulatory clouds were hanging over Ripple, the company behind the XRP token. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) claimed that XRP was a "security" and not a "commodity." This asset class is subject to stricter regulations regarding trading, ownership, and reporting requirements.

However, as soon as Trump was elected, XRP skyrocketed. The logic was simple: a Trump presidency would likely lead to a shakeup at the SEC, which would then help lift all the regulatory clouds hanging over Ripple and XRP. And that's exactly what happened.

The problem is that this development has been replaced by a new narrative around global trade and tariffs. All of last year's pro-crypto euphoria has already been priced into XRP, and investors are looking for a new narrative to drive XRP higher.

Spot ETFs incoming

The most likely new catalyst is SEC approval of spot XRP exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Already, there are several spot XRP ETF applications in the pipeline, including ones from Franklin Templeton (NYSE: BEN) and WisdomTree (NYSE: WT).

The thinking here is that a new pro-crypto approach at the SEC will give it the freedom to sign off on at least one of these ETF applications. The timing has been pushed back to the fourth quarter (Q4), but prediction markets are giving this a 93% chance of happening by the end of 2025. It's almost just a matter of "when," not "if."

Image source: Getty Images.

If the success of the spot Bitcoin ETFs is any guide, then these new spot XRP ETFs could result in a tsunami of new investor money flooding into XRP, helping to push up its price.

XRP as a treasury asset

As further proof of just how mainstream XRP has become, some publicly traded companies are now thinking about adding XRP as a treasury asset to their balance sheets. This is a strategy that was first popularized with Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC), and now it looks like the same strategy could be coming for XRP as well.

One example is sustainable energy producer VivoPower International (NASDAQ: VVPR), which plans to buy $100 million of XRP for its treasury. And a Chinese company recently filed with the SEC to buy $300 million of XRP for its treasury. It remains to be seen if other companies will follow their lead, but XRP bulls are understandably enthusiastic about this development. The coin was never meant to serve as a long-term value storage system, but XRP investors aren't complaining about this new idea.

But what about the fundamentals?

That's the good news. The bad news, unfortunately, is that usage of the XRP token has fallen off a cliff over the past two months. As demand for XRP falls, it means that there will likely be downward pressure on its price.

Keep in mind: XRP is essentially a bridge currency. That means it's primarily used to facilitate cross-border payments and transfer value between different fiat currencies. Typically, users convert one fiat currency into XRP, send it across the XRP blockchain to a user in another country, who then converts it into another fiat currency. It might sound complex, but it's cheaper and more efficient than using traditional finance tools.

However, now that global trade has been turned upside down, the growing consensus is that XRP may no longer be as needed as it once was. After all, who's sending money across borders these days? That could help to explain why the fall in demand for XRP has been so dramatic over the past two months. This time period lines up perfectly with the announcement of the Liberation Day tariffs on April 2.

Stablecoins vs. XRP

Moreover, there appears to be another factor at work here, and that's the emergence of stablecoins as yet another way to send cross-border payments. Stablecoins are now a $250 billion industry, and it's clear that they are here to stay.

In fact, Ripple recently launched a stablecoin of its own. While it was originally intended to help stoke demand for XRP, this stablecoin could end up cannibalizing some of the transaction activity of XRP, further reducing demand for the token.

And that, of course, is going to further keep a lid on future price gains for XRP. In fact, a growing number of investors are now warning that XRP could drop below the $2 mark soon.

Should you buy XRP?

The decision of whether or not to buy XRP is more complicated than you might think. While there are definitely near-term catalysts waiting to send XRP higher, it all comes amid a backdrop of macroeconomic uncertainty.

Thus, before you decide to buy XRP, you need to be comfortable with the current situation involving global trade and tariffs. Even though XRP has enormous upside potential going forward, it may continue to trade sideways until the tariff situation is resolved once and for all.

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 $668,538!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $869,841!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 789% — 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.

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*Stock Advisor returns as of June 2, 2025

Dominic Basulto has positions in Bitcoin and XRP. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin and XRP. The Motley Fool recommends WisdomTree. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

There is a lot you could do with $6,500 -- put a down payment on a new car, buy a top-of-the-line gaming laptop, or even take an extended vacation somewhere warm and sunny. But if you used that cash to buy XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) in 2015, you would have a jaw-dropping $1,000,000 today. That's enough to stop working and earn more than the US's median income ($42,220) just from the interest on 30-year treasury bonds.

Of course, hindsight is 20/20; otherwise, we would all be rich. But while it is challenging to know which assets will generate such life-changing returns in the future, that won't stop us from trying. So let's dig deeper to see what the next five years might have in store for XRP.

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 »

A unique spin on the cryptocurrency industry

When San Francisco-based Ripple Labs launched the XRP blockchain in 2012, the cryptocurrency industry was very different from what it is today. Bitcoin, the original cryptocurrency, had launched just three years earlier, and people still didn't know what to make of the new asset class and how it could be useful in real life. XRP aimed to help bring this technology into the mainstream by disrupting the international payments market.

The developers realized that crypto represents an ideal bridge currency. Someone who wants to transfer U.S. dollars to South African rand can use their dollars to buy XRP and then use that XRP to buy rand, bypassing potentially slow and expensive centralized intermediaries.

Ripple designed their blockchain to prioritize everyday usability, with an average transaction time of just 3 to 5 seconds and low fees of just 0.00001 XRP, which is worth a fraction of a cent. For context, the average Bitcoin transaction costs $1.52 and takes 44 minutes to complete at the time of writing.

A lot has happened since 2012. New blockchains have become faster and cheaper than XRP. Meanwhile, dollar-pegged stablecoins, such as Tether, can often serve as better bridge currencies because of their fixed prices. That said, XRP's early-mover advantages give it a level of trust and mainstream acceptance that will be hard for new blockchains to beat. This edge is crucial in the often poorly differentiated digital asset markets.

Regulatory wins are a long-term tailwind

Regulatory wins are another long-term tailwind for XRP, which has faced intense legal scrutiny in previous years. However, under the Trump administration, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has backed away from regulatory enforcement to prioritize clarity. XRP's developer, Ripple, has benefited from this policy change.

In March, the SEC dropped its appeal against a 2023 ruling that decided that Ripple's sales of XRP to retail investors weren't classified as securities sales -- although sales to institutional investors still were. The company finally settled this case, agreeing to pay a fine of $50 million, reduced from $125 million.

Image source: Getty Images.

XRP is becoming a "blue chip" cryptocurrency

Over the next five years, regulatory clarity will be key to the further adoption of digital assets by institutional investors like pension funds, university endowments, and insurance companies. Often called "smart money," these sophisticated and well-heeled investors usually deploy huge volumes of capital for the long haul. They also tend to consider their positions carefully instead of panic-selling at the first sign of trouble.

Expect these buyers to gravitate toward XRP as it slowly becomes seen as a "blue-chip" cryptocurrency due to its relatively long history and mature, utility-focused design. That said, don't expect XRP to repeat the exponential growth it experienced over the last five years. Winding down the SEC lawsuit is a unique event with game-changing qualities.

The larger an asset becomes, the harder it is to keep growing rapidly. With a market cap of $135 billion, XRP is already quite large. If things go well, investors should look for steady, consistent growth instead of boom-and-bust volatility.

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 $639,271!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $804,688!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 957% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 167% 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

Will Ebiefung has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin and XRP. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

It's been a wild ride for cryptocurrency investors during the past few months -- and that's saying something. Bitcoin surpassed the $100,000 mark, reaching more than $109,000 just 16 years after its creation. While the price has retreated to about $102,000 amid broader uncertainty, investors still appear optimistic that Bitcoin will continue to grow.

That optimism has spilled over into so-called altcoins looking to repeat the extreme successes of the original crypto. XRP (CRYPTO: XRP), in particular, has garnered a loyal following. The crypto token aimed at revolutionizing the banking industry has seen its price rise more than 300% during the past six months alone. Could XRP repeat the success of Bitcoin? Could it be a millionaire-maker?

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 »

XRP basics

Let's step back for a moment and explore what XRP is and why it provides value. The crypto token is designed to act as a bridge between banks and other financial institutions. It helps facilitate international money transfers efficiently and lets banks settle transactions nearly instantaneously. Traditional methods can take days or even weeks, are often complex, expensive, and can involve third parties that complicate the issue further. XRP's core advantages over legacy systems are speed and minimal cost.

The fact that XRP provides real-world value and a record of use by the industry it is targeting makes it stand out in a market flooded by meme coins. Still, we have to try to quantify that value. Is it enough to justify the enormous $135 billion market capitalization XRP has already amassed?

Understanding XRP's value

It's difficult to come up with a direct comparison, but I think Visa is a good start. The company operates a vast global payment network that is not completely unlike XRP. Yes, there are fundamental differences, but I think it's still useful. How do the networks compare? Visa handles more than 640 million transactions per day. XRP's blockchain processes just 1 million per day.

Despite this disparity, Visa's market cap is only about five times more than XRP's. Does that seem proportional? It seems to me that either Visa is severely undervalued or XRP is severely overvalued. My money is on the latter.

Image source: Getty Images.

Maybe this isn't a fair comparison; let's try another way to think about it. The claim is often echoed that if XRP is widely adopted, it will capture a significant portion of the hundreds of billions of dollars banks pay in transaction fees each year. The flaw, as I see it, is that the only reason XRP is attractive to banks in the first place is because its cost is minuscule -- orders of magnitude less than traditional methods. Then it follows that even if it managed to handle transactions for the whole market, the fees it would collect would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars or low billions. That doesn't seem to justify the current market cap.

The question at hand

XRP may be faster and cheaper than traditional banking methods, but that doesn't guarantee adoption, and it certainly doesn't guarantee returns. Although there has been a surge in interest in XRP during the past few months, I'm skeptical of the token's long-term viability. It seems to me that XRP's price today already bakes in a ton of its future growth.

Although I fully admit that valuing crypto is difficult and often defies a lot of traditional thinking, I don't see XRP growing in the way it needs to make a good investment, let alone qualify it as a millionaire-maker, even by the most generous standards. I would also caution readers from getting too caught up in this sort of thinking and, instead, adopt a diversified approach, focusing on the long term.

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 $617,181!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $719,371!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 909% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 163% 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 5, 2025

Johnny Rice has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin, Visa, and XRP. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.