1 Top Cryptocurrency to Buy Right Now (Hint: It’s Not Bitcoin)
It’s less than a month into the new year, and already, several top altcoins are starting to pull away from market benchmark Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC). While Bitcoin is up 15% for the year, other cryptocurrencies are up 30%, 40%, and even 50%.
On my watchlist now is Solana (CRYPTO: SOL), which surged over 50% between Jan. 12 and Jan. 17. There are several catalysts for Solana in 2025, and all of them are setting up this cryptocurrency for rapid growth over the coming years.
The next Ethereum?
First and most importantly, Solana has emerged as the premier blockchain challenger to Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH). Solana is a smart contract blockchain platform, and that means it can do anything Ethereum can do. It also means Solana has a thriving blockchain ecosystem in areas ranging from decentralized finance (DeFi) to blockchain gaming.
But here’s the thing: Solana is faster, cheaper, and easier to use than Ethereum. That’s something that Cathie Wood of Ark Invest pointed out nearly a year ago, when she emphasized the potential for Solana to take market share away from Ethereum. Faster speeds and lower costs are key to winning over new customers and attracting new users. For good reason, Solana has been tagged as a potential Ethereum killer.
New spot ETFs
There’s another significant reason in Solana’s favor: the relatively high probability that new spot Solana exchange-traded funds (ETFs) will be coming in 2025. Recall how last January, with the debut of the spot Bitcoin ETFs, hundreds of billions of dollars flowed into Bitcoin, forcing it even higher. So far, over $100 billion has entered the spot Bitcoin ETFs.
That’s not to say that $100 billion is going to flow into Solana. After all, Bitcoin is of an entirely different scale and size than Solana. But J.P. Morgan recently suggested that as much as $6 billion of new investor money could flow into the Solana ETFs.
Mobile crypto strategy
Solana also has something that no other top Layer-1 blockchain network has: a mobile crypto strategy. Solana launched the crypto-friendly Saga smartphone in 2023, and is following that up with a lower-cost Seeker smartphone in 2025. Some people want to carry their crypto with them wherever they go, and the easiest way to do that is with a mobile device optimized for crypto.
According to Solana’s founders, the easiest way to onboard new users is through a mobile device optimized for crypto. Once you buy a new Solana mobile device, you are more likely to use the Solana blockchain and interact with all the different apps within the Solana blockchain ecosystem.
Meme coins
Perhaps the most important aspect is that the blockchain seems to be the go-to place for launching, buying, and selling meme coins. There are thousands of new meme coins each day, and Solana is probably the easiest, lowest cost, and most efficient blockchain platform to do that.
Just think about the new meme coin launched by President Donald Trump in the weekend before his inauguration. The meme coin launched on the Solana blockchain and immediately soared to a valuation of $10 billion. The price of Solana spiked 12% with the news of the meme coin launch.
But assuming one doesn’t consider buying meme coins as a serious investment strategy, I do think the case could be made to say that it’s smart to buy Solana simply for the fact of participating in this meme coin thing. You just need to get Solana tokens to get hold of Solana meme coins-to buy those in effect, as well as dollar-denominated assets requires holding dollars.
Thus, any surge in meme coin trading increases overall demand for Solana. That’s why the price of Solana rallied after the Trump meme coin launch. Total trading volume on the Solana blockchain more than doubled, while overall transaction activity exploded.
How high can Solana go?
There are a number of different ways to think about just how much higher Solana might go over the long haul. If you buy into the idea that Solana is the next Ethereum, then one methodology is simply to compare the market caps of Solana and Ethereum, and then make some basic assumptions about just how quickly Solana might close the gap.
At present, Ethereum’s market cap is $400 billion, while the market cap for Solana is $125 billion. If it does close the gap with Ethereum, then we are talking about a potential gain in the size of market cap of $275 billion. Going off the company price at the present amount of approximately $250, this would imply a target price to reach $550.
Just keep in mind: A lot needs to break right for Solana to reach that goal. It needs to keep taking away market share from Ethereum. It must receive regulatory clearance for new spot ETFs. And it needs to continue executing on mobile crypto. That’s a long list. But if all those things happen, then Solana — and not bitcoin — is the cryptocurrency you need to buy right now.
Should you invest $1,000 in Solana now?
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