Crypto is in the spotlight as 2025 gets underway. Here's a look at some top buys.
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In a span of just 15 years, cryptocurrencies emerged from obscurity to become an important part of financial markets. But there's one thing the industry's evolution hasn't eradicated: extreme volatility.
At its peak in November 2021, the crypto market was worth upwards of $2.9 trillion. By mid-2022, hit by rising inflation and an aggressive rate-hiking cycle by the Federal Reserve, the entire market was worth less than $900 billion. Fast forward to Jan. 21 of this year, and cryptocurrencies collectively were worth $3.6 trillion.
Bitcoin ($BTC )
Cryptocurrency is an incredibly nascent asset class, with origins only dating back to 2009. Extreme volatility is par for the course, so investors looking to insulate themselves from the potential total collapse of their holdings will want to go with more established names. None is more established than Bitcoin, the first cryptocurrency and largest by market capitalization with a valuation of more than $2 trillion, or nearly 58% of the overall market.
Ether ($ETH )
Second by market capitalization is Ether, which is the native token on the widely used Ethereum blockchain. Often colloquially referred to as Ethereum, ETH's market cap is around $400 billion and accounts for about 11% of the total cryptocurrency market. Unlike Bitcoin, Ether's underlying network is far more than just a tool for peer-to-peer payments; the Ethereum blockchain is custom-made for smart contracts and decentralized finance tools, as well as for so-called Web3 applications and the trading of non-fungible tokens, or NFTs.
Solana ($SOL )
Like Ethereum, Solana is a blockchain that was built with utility in mind. In Solana's case, it's become known for facilitating the easy creation of decentralized applications, or dApps, but the network is actually even faster than Ethereum, has far lower fees and is intended to be more easily scalable than rivals. The native token of this blockchain is the eponymous Solana, also known as SOL.
SOL didn't start trading until 2020, but it has had a meteoric rise to stardom in the years since. At the beginning of 2021, SOL accounted for just 0.01% of the crypto market's total value. Come Jan. 21, SOL makes up 3.27% of the multitrillion-dollar space, representing a more than 300-fold increase in its market share over the last four years.
Avalanche ($AVAX )
When investing in cryptocurrency, investors should understand that it's Bitcoin and Ether in their own tier. Solana has arguably earned its spot as a second-tier coin due to the strong meme coin ecosystem, ease of use and low fees. AVAX and the other altcoins on this list, however, all have more risk, and investors should factor that into their decisions. Consider them purely speculative wagers.
Avalanche's subnets feature allows users to deploy their own mini-blockchains on top of its network. Developer Ava Labs envisions a future in which most mainstream commercial entities and even many individuals will want their own blockchains, with Avalanche subnets offering a convenient solution to that problem. If that reality materializes, then AVAX, which plunged 90% in 2022's bear market, could emerge as a longer-term winner.
Though not up as much as some of the other coins on this list, AVAX is still in the green over the last year, with the token up 9.6% through Jan. 20. Avalanche currently has a market capitalization of $15 billion, making it the 10th-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, excluding stablecoins.
Pepe ($PEPE )
If you're new to the world of cryptocurrency, there's something you need to know: Sometimes the coins that take off are just plain stupid. Pepe, a meme coin with no inherent value other than its name – a reference to an old internet meme of a frog – is just such an example.
So, why include PEPE on the list of the best cryptocurrencies to buy? Well, as long as you're resigned to speculating (you are, if you're playing the crypto market), meme coins can provide enormous upside, and tend to have strong communities of loyal holders and intermittent periods of huge surges as they catch fire on social media. Pepe has the benefit of being a well-known, long-living internet meme, and has already cleared some difficult market cap thresholds: With a market cap of $6.6 billion, it's one of the top 25 most valuable cryptocurrencies in the world today, excluding stablecoins.
Cardano ($ADA )
Founded in 2017 by Ethereum co-founder Charles Hoskinson, Cardano is a proof-of-stake blockchain and one of the largest blockchains to successfully run that more energy-efficient protocol. Cardano aims to foster a developer-friendly ecosystem for dApps. Unlike Ethereum, Cardano has a hard cap on the number of coins that can ever exist, topping out at 45 billion. Thankfully for investors, around 35 billion, or roughly 78%, of that supply has already been issued, meaning the amount of overall dilution remaining is both known and relatively limited.