Latest news with #CRYPTO
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
3 Reasons to Buy Solana Instead of Ethereum and 1 Reason Not To
Solana is gaining ground against Ethereum in a few different domains. Its chain is better positioned to win in segments like AI and DePIN. That doesn't mean you should let your expectations for its growth get unmoored. 10 stocks we like better than Ethereum › If Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) is the eight‑lane interstate of smart‑contract blockchains, Solana (CRYPTO: SOL) feels more like a bullet train. Both chains reach the same destinations, but one arrives faster, cheaper, and with fewer inconveniences along the way. That's why many longtime crypto investors are wondering whether now is the moment to swap some Ether for Solana, assuming they haven't already. Solana enjoys three durable edges that even Ethereum's recent Pectra upgrade hasn't erased. Let's take a peek at each and understand why it might be worth hopping onboard with Solana. Solana's chain regularly posts real‑world throughput above 1,000 transactions per second (TPS) and transaction times near 0.4 seconds. In contrast, Ethereum's base layer still crawls at roughly 15 to 30 TPS, and its transactions are trapped within the chain's 12‑second blocks. For users who want snappier performance with Ethereum, it's necessary to bridge capital to one of its layer‑2 (L2) subchains, which is an additional step, plus sometimes it requires different tooling, thereby adding a lot of friction. The raw numbers matter most for latency‑sensitive segments like on‑chain artificial intelligence (AI) and decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN). One Solana‑based DePIN project called Roam crossed 2.5 million registered users in March 2025. A spike in usage of that magnitude would swamp most Ethereum L2s before breakfast, not to mention completely clogging up the main chain. The takeaway here is that Solana is already handling traffic that would immediately break Ethereum's highest‑throughput pipes for everyone. Higher speeds also simplify developer life. Building a real‑time AI data marketplace or a global mapping protocol is easier when a chain's transaction confirmations arrive in under a second, and finality is nearly instantaneous. Ethereum could close the speed gap over time, but Solana owns it today. A typical Solana transaction costs between $0.0001 and $0.0025. Ethereum's layer‑1 average gas fee for a token swap was about $5.55 on the morning of June 25, and it often spikes above $15 when traffic is high. The days of gas fees in the $60 range are probably over, but compared with fees that are nearly free, even a few dollars feels like a lot. For investors, that difference between the two chains compounds quickly. Automated trading bots or decentralized finance (DeFi) strategies that make sense at Solana's fee levels can be dead on arrival on Ethereum. Cheap fees also help to onboard new users -- a demographic every network ultimately needs to thrive. Solana‑based coins captured a lot of attention in 2024 and early 2025; Ethereum's ecosystem, in large part, did not. Part of that gap is technical. Ethereum's 140‑plus alternative layers create liquidity silos, reliance on a plethora of bridges for capital, and an endless pile of unique tooling for basic tasks like wallet access or scanning certificates to verify asset provenance. Solana's monolithic design avoids those headaches. Furthermore, the chain's publicly posted development roadmap emphasizes focusing on throughput bumps, institutional onboarding, and smoother tooling throughout 2025. These narratives matter in crypto. When people believe a chain feels intuitive, the flywheel of builders, users, and capital spins faster. And right now, that reputational tailwind is blowing harder for Solana than for Ethereum. Don't confuse Solana's edge with having explosive upside. At roughly a $77.5 billion market cap versus Ethereum's $290.4 billion, Solana already trades like a blue chip. It isn't a smart move to sell your Ethereum in hopes of investing in Solana and then having that coin subsequently go to the moon. Could it one day overtake Ethereum? Probably. In fact, I'd bet on it happening eventually, at least as of right now. But that would still be "only" a 4X return, not the 100‑bagger fantasy that some holders whisper about. Don't fall for that kind of thinking even if you're optimistic here. Long‑term investors should see Solana as a calculated bet on speed, cost efficiency, and execution, not a ticket to instant riches. Before you buy stock in Ethereum, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Ethereum wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $713,547!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $966,931!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,062% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 177% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 23, 2025 Alex Carchidi has positions in Ethereum and Solana. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Ethereum and Solana. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. 3 Reasons to Buy Solana Instead of Ethereum and 1 Reason Not To was originally published by The Motley Fool
Globe and Mail
2 days ago
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Could Solana Overtake Ethereum by 2026?
Every bull market has its David-and-Goliath subplot. In crypto right now, Solana (CRYPTO: SOL) is the nimble rising star that's aiming to take the crown from the heavyweight champion, Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH). The prize is becoming the smart contract platform that mainstream capital chooses to use first. Both coins have surged in the past three years, though Solana's gain has been faster, sparking talk of a coming "flippening," where its market value might eclipse Ethereum's. Is the chatter just noise, or is there a signal here that investors should heed? 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 » Why Solana is going to keep closing the gap Crypto users and investors tend to be an impatient bunch. Effectively, that means that when they're evaluating a new chain, its speed comes first. In that vein, independent benchmarks show that Solana consistently pushes thousands of real user transactions per second (TPS), and also that it can burst beyond 50,000 TPS when stressed with a high volume of load. In contrast, Ethereum's base layer still confirms a block every 12 to 13 seconds, limiting it to double‑digit values of TPS before needing to try to shunt users to costlier Layer 2 (L2) chains, which often require different tooling to interact with. Velocity attracts users. In September 2024, Solana logged 3.2 million daily active wallet addresses versus Ethereum's 410,000. The same pattern holds this year, with the numbers hardly changed. Per DeFiLlama, a crypto data aggregator, Solana handled $2.2 billion of decentralized crypto exchange (DEX) volume in the last 24 hours as measured in the afternoon of June 24. That's almost on par with Ethereum's $2.5 billion, despite Ethereum commanding nearly four times the total value locked (TVL) on its chain. The takeaway here is that new capital is likely to flow to where it can transact the fastest, and Solana is punching in the same weight class as Ethereum despite its significantly smaller size. Revenue data tell the same story. Between June 23 and June 24, Ethereum generated about $1.3 million in chain revenue and $2 million in decentralized application (dApp) revenue. Solana brought in $121,000 in chain revenue and and nearly $4 million in app revenue. In other words, Solana's apps are already earning roughly double what Ethereum's do, while its market cap is only about 25% as large. The metric of profitability per dollar of network value is thus working significantly in Solana's favor. The market cap gap also is narrowing. Ethereum's market capitalization hovers near $291 billion, while Solana's sits at about $77 billion. To outrank Ethereum today, Solana would need a roughly 280% price increase. That sounds steep, yet Solana has posted gains of that magnitude in shorter stretches before. What could stall the flippening (and why it still might happen anyway) Despite Solana's significant gains, Ethereum is hardly standing still. Its latest upgrade package, Pectra, went live on May 7, bundling 11 improvement proposals that expand block space, streamline wallet user experience, and raise the staking caps. Average gas (user) fees are now down since the update, though transaction speeds are roughly the same as before. The upgrade thus blunts Solana's cost advantage and potentially buys Ethereum time to work on its speed. Beyond the performance of its core tech, Ethereum's moat is its developer community. It still commands the largest pool of app developers and liquidity in crypto finance, though Solana added more new developers than Ethereum in 2024. Those network effects buy Ethereum even more breathing room to iterate and copy useful features that competitors debut. And the capital on its chain is likely to be at least a bit sticky. So could SOL really tack on 280% in six quarters to flip Ethereum? It might, if macro liquidity surges, and if it wins against its rival in key growth segments like artificial intelligence (AI), decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN), and real-world asset (RWA) tokenization. Barring that confluence of factors, a flippening is vastly more plausible in the 2029‑2030 window than it is within the next couple of years. For long‑term investors, the right approach is straightforward. Solana offers higher growth potential at the cost of higher execution risk. Ethereum offers a sturdier, slower‑growing base that is still innovating and could still offer substantial returns. Holding both coins would hedge the unknowns, but if you're forced to pick one horse for outperformance over the next five years, Solana looks like the better bet. 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 $704,676!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $950,198!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor 's total average return is1,048% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to175%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
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Could a $10,000 Investment in XRP (Ripple) Turn Into $1 Million by 2035?
Making a big investment in XRP 10 years ago was a very profitable move. It could be quite profitable to build up a position right now, too. The coin's situation now is very different from what it was in 2015, however. 10 stocks we like better than XRP › Can Ripple's native coin XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) carry an investment of $10,000 all the way to $1 million by 2035? In crypto, crazier things have happened. In fact, if you'd put $10,000 into XRP 10 years ago, you'd now have $1.9 million. So, let's analyze the prospects of XRP holders getting those kinds of returns again during the next 10 years. As you probably know, XRP's calling card is offering ultra‑cheap cross‑border payments and money transfers, and its target users are institutional investors and banks that hold large sums of capital. Using XRP or a stablecoin on its chain, banks and other financial institutions can avoid currency exchange fees as well as transfer fees, not to mention slashing days off of their average turnaround times for transfers. And it's this capability that's the foundation for XRP's chances of growing tremendously in the near future. More than 400 financial institutions already rely on Ripple's On‑Demand Liquidity channels, which move money in seconds instead of days and shave transfer costs to fractions of a cent. That utility gives the coin steady transaction demand rather than leaving it at the mercy of pure speculation to drive its price. Furthermore, Ripple has big plans for how to build out an entire financial value chain based around the XRP Ledger, and using most of the features it's developing will require users to own and transact with large volumes of XRP. There are three key developments in particular that will pave the way for significant growth. First, Ripple is rolling out an Ethereum Virtual Machine compatible sidechain, which is a fancy way of saying that it's developing a parallel blockchain that speaks the same smart contract language as Ethereum. In practice, that means developers can port code they already wrote for Ethereum and launch it on XRP without rewriting a single line, while transactions still clear at XRP's lightning pace. That will empower institutional clients to create sophisticated smart contracts while drawing from Ethereum's vast pool of developer talent. Second, Ripple agreed in April to buy the prime broker Hidden Road for $1.2 billion. Hidden Road provides collateral management, trade financing, and credit intermediation, all of which are highly desirable for institutional investors. Folding those services into the XRP ecosystem gives institutional treasurers a one‑stop shop for custody, borrowing, and settlement, thereby eliminating the need to send capital on‑ and off‑chain. Finally, the ledger is carving out a foothold in real world asset (RWA) tokenization, which is essentially the process of recording ownership of bonds, treasuries, or even inventory as crypto tokens so they can be transferred and financed as easily as email. XRP hosts roughly $160 million in RWAs today, up 37% in a single month, and consultants at Boston Consulting Group think the pie could swell to $16 trillion before the decade is out. If XRP captures even a sliver of that capital flow, price appreciation should follow. Regulatory clouds have recently thinned dramatically for the chain as well. In March the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission settled its four‑year case against Ripple, trimming the penalty to $50 million from $125 million and closing the docket. That opened the door for the coin's relisting on major U.S. crypto exchanges. The U.S. government even earmarked XRP as one of the assets eligible for storage in its planned Digital Asset Stockpile, which will effectively sequester part of the coin's float (the coins available for public trading) if the stockpile is ever actually implemented. Put all of these pieces together and it's very possible for the coin to make a 10-fold move, which entails an achievable compound annual growth rate (CAGR) near 26%. It's reasonable to be optimistic that XRP will gain 10-fold during the next 10 years. But it's simply unrealistic to believe that it will gain enough to turn a $10,000 investment into $1 million. Turning $10,000 into $1 million implies a CAGR of about 58% every year for the next decade. Such trajectories are typically reserved for brand new markets or early‑stage start-ups, neither of which describes XRP or Ripple anymore. Macroeconomic cycles could also test holders' resolve. A 58% CAGR depends on consistently high global liquidity, while history shows tightening credit can halve crypto valuations in months. The odds are simply not good here. Pragmatically, XRP is best viewed as a coin with credible five‑ to 10-fold potential if Ripple executes its roadmap and the RWA boom materializes. Thus the best strategy to capture a big return is to dollar‑cost average into the coin over time to cushion against volatility. Hope alone will not bridge the math gap between $10,000 and $1 million, but building disciplined exposure might leave investors pleasantly surprised if the tailwinds and tech development keep playing out in XRP's favor. Before you buy stock in XRP, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 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 $687,731!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $945,846!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 818% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 175% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 23, 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. Could a $10,000 Investment in XRP (Ripple) Turn Into $1 Million by 2035? was originally published by The Motley Fool Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
