If you’re thinking about allocating $2,000 to the cryptocurrency sector, you’re in luck, because there are a plethora of great choices right now. It’s just a matter of finding the coins that mesh the best with your investing philosophy and your other preferences. And, if you’re willing to invest a bit of effort in keeping an eye on a couple of others, you’ll have a good sense of what to look for that might make them worth buying in the future, too.
Let’s take a peek at two cryptocurrencies worth buying today, and another that might be a smart purchase in a year or so, once a few issues are cleared up.
Solana is ripe for a purchase at the moment
Solana (CRYPTO: SOL) is the blockchain to beat right now thanks to its fast transaction speeds, dirt cheap gas (user) fees, and the huge trading volumes generated by the chain and its many projects. For instance, on Jan. 20 alone, across 6 million active wallet addresses, the chain generated fees of more than $35 million. Those fees will cover the network’s costs and go toward other efforts that the development team is implementing, including fostering the health of its project ecosystem and upgrading the throughput — or processing capacity — of the chain.
There’s also a strong investment thesis for why Solana will continue to gain in value stemming from its large collection of increasingly popular meme coins, decentralized finance (DeFi) infrastructure projects for artificial intelligence (AI) agents, and its ongoing poaching of traffic from its leading competitor, Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH), which it bests in both cost and speed. Its dominance may not last forever. But for now, it’s easy to see its value increasing until it’s the second-largest cryptocurrency, rather than the fifth-largest as it is now, and that’s another thing that makes it worth buying today.
XRP’s march forward is undeniable
XRP (XRP 4.62%) is closer to a traditional fintech play than a blockchain with a project ecosystem like Solana, but it’s still very much worth an investment for a few reasons.
As of Feb. 11, its 24-hour volume was more than $4.5 billion, making it one of the coins with the highest volume in the entire cryptocurrency sector, aside from stablecoins. And for XRP specifically, that volume matters a lot, because it translates into fees. It’s also a proxy for the coin’s adoption among its target users: Traditional financial institutions that want to make cross-border money transfers more quickly and cheaply than with legacy technologies.
Those users, including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Santander, and other banks, are testing and implementing XRP because they only need to pay fractions of a cent for most of the transactions they make on the chain. Plus, most of their transfers will close out in about five seconds or less. Compare that to the older international money transfer technologies: They can cost $50 or more per transaction, even before accounting for currency exchange fees charged as a percentage of the transfer’s value, and take as much as a full business week to close. In short, XRP is worth buying because it’s offering a superior product for a much cheaper price to customers who are eager to use it. That’s something most other cryptocurrencies cannot claim.
One to watch: Ethereum
As the second-most valuable cryptocurrency after Bitcoin, Ethereum is without a doubt fairly entrenched in its niche, which includes everything from minting non-fungible tokens, to DeFi projects, smart contracts, meme coins, and more. But compared to XRP and Solana, it is not worth buying today unless you’re a contrarian or willing to take on even more risk than what’s inherent in a normal crypto investment.
As mentioned above, Solana is excelling in all the areas where Ethereum was once the leader. Ethereum’s chain is pricier, slower, and overall more difficult to use in a number of ways that cause a lot of friction when it comes to bringing in new users. But it’s impossible to discount Ethereum’s sheer weight in the cryptocurrency sector, and that’s why it might be a good purchase in the future even if it isn’t today.
For new growth areas in crypto like artificial intelligence (AI) agent infrastructure, there are many more developers who are skilled in developing applications on Ethereum than on Solana. And, at the moment, there is a larger ecosystem of AI agents hosted on Ethereum than its competitor. That may be a decisive difference over the long term, especially if the Ethereum Foundation’s leadership shakeup succeeds in its goals of recruiting stronger technical leadership and forging better relationships with key developer communities that made their home on the chain.
So don’t give up on Ethereum just yet. Add it to your watch list, and check back in nine months or so.
JPMorgan Chase is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Bank of America is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Alex Carchidi has positions in Ethereum and Solana. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bank of America, Ethereum, JPMorgan Chase, Solana, and XRP. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
