Key Points
While XRP is still outperforming Ethereum for the year, Ethereum has been soaring over the summer, so the performance gap is narrowing.
The formation of new Ethereum Treasury Companies has been bullish for Ethereum's future growth prospects.
The stablecoin investment thesis favors Ethereum, due to its dominant market position in stablecoins.
XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) remains the top-performing major cryptocurrency of 2025. Year to date, XRP is up a resounding 42%. By way of comparison, crypto bellwether Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) is only up 22%. So it's easy to see why many investors are focused on XRP.
But don't sleep on Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH), the world's second-largest cryptocurrency. For the year, it is only up a modest 8%. However, over the past 30 days, Ethereum is up a head-spinning 40%. It now has the sort of momentum that XRP had earlier in the year. So should investors shift their focus from XRP to Ethereum
The one catalyst that set off Ethereum's summer rally was the sudden appearance of high-profile Ethereum Treasury Companies. These companies, inspired by the success of Bitcoin Treasury Companies, are designed to do just one thing: Buy as much Ethereum as they possibly can, as fast as they can.
The one name that really stands out here is Bitmine Immersion Technologies (NYSEMKT: BMNR). Before June 2025, it was a sleepy little Bitcoin mining company. But then it hired Fundstrat co-founder Tom Lee as its chairman, and things have really taken off. The company is in the process of reinventing itself as the world's top Ethereum Treasury Company.Given Tom Lee's public profile, he's the sort of person who often pops up on CNBC. Increasingly, he's talking up the merits of investing in Ethereum. In doing so, he's playing the same evangelist role that Michael Saylor of Strategy (NASDAQ: MSTR) does for Bitcoin. So, given all this new buzz, other Ethereum Treasury Companies are also launching.
should be pointed out that new XRP Treasury Companies have also formed this summer. But there is much less enthusiasm for them than for the new Ethereum Treasury Companies. That could change over the next 12 months, but for now, Ethereum has the clear edge.
The stablecoin investment thesis
There's another factor in Ethereum's favor: The rise to prominence of stablecoins. Everyone, it seems, has been talking about stablecoins this summer, from retailers to fintech companies to Silicon Valley giants. The U.S. Treasury Department has also pushed the stablecoin agenda.
And guess what? The top blockchain for stablecoins right now is Ethereum. It accounts for a reported 49% of all stablecoin activity right now. The only other blockchain that comes close is Tron (CRYPTO: TRX).
In contrast, XRP is almost nowhere to be found in the ongoing debate over stablecoins. That's despite the fact that Ripple, the company behind the XRP token, launched a stablecoin of its own in December 2024 with the stated goal of boosting demand for XRP
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Motley Fool
Here's What It Would Take to Make $1 Million With XRP (Ripple) in 5 Years
Alex Carchidi, The Motley Fool
Sat, August 9, 2025 at 2:10 PM GMT+5 6 min read
In This Article:
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Key Points
There are a lot of reasons to be excited about XRP's next few years.
Competition and macro conditions could still very easily derail its march upward.
Implementing good investing habits consistently could still lead to big returns here.
10 stocks we like better than XRP ›
If you hang around crypto investors long enough, you will hear at least one story that goes like "I bought a few thousand coins back when nobody believed in the asset, forgot about them for a few years, and now I'm retiring early." Most of us have missed a multitude of those once-in-a-lifetime events without even realizing it, and it isn't reasonable to expect to land one. Still, disciplined investing over time can put the same life-changing sums of money on the board, assuming the asset cooperates.
Today, many look to XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) for such returns, both over the short term (perhaps unreasonably) and the longer term. If XRP were to achieve escape velocity, could a determined investor turn steady purchases into a seven-figure stake by summer 2030, five years from now? Let's make a few assumptions and a few calculations to figure it out.
A group of investors sitting in front of computer screens with stock prices jump into the air with their hands up and celebrate.
Image source: Getty Images.
How to get to $1 million
The arithmetic here is fairly straightforward.
Commit $2,000 at the start of every month for five years straight, making 60 purchases in total. At today's $3 price per coin, each purchase bags about 667 XRP, so the running total after five years should be 40,000 XRP.
For that pile of coins to be worth $1 million, the price per coin would need to touch $25. That represents a climb of more than eightfold, or a little more than 730% in terms of price appreciation. By comparison, Bitcoin rose by 883% during the past five years. In other words, our $1 million roadmap for XRP assumes replicating the gains that Bitcoin just delivered, and on about the same timescale.
Still, the target is not entirely unicorn territory if key trends deliver for the chain, like being the home for tokenized real-world assets (RWAs).
Boston Consulting Group (BCG) figures that the potential value of tokenized real-world assets could reach $16 trillion by 2030, up from $25 billion today. XRP was designed by its issuer, Ripple, with regulated finance in mind; Ripple's payment network already spans 90 markets and supports 55 currencies.
For a thought experiment, assume XRP captures just 5% of the tokenization pie during the next five years, and it would have $800 billion in additional value parked on its chain. With a fixed supply of 100 billion coins, that alone would imply an $8 price tag before even getting into whether experiencing such inflows would encourage investors to bid up its valuation beyond the underlying value of the new assets on the chain, which they surely would. So one trend alone could power XRP a significant portion of the way toward the price target needed to create millions for holders.
Now, layer on another major tailwind for inflows, specifically the probable approval of XRP spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Analysts now give XRP a 98% chance of winning U.S. ETF approval before 2026. Spot ETF demand turbocharged Bitcoin's price. If XRP sees even a fraction of the inflows that Bitcoin did, its valuation could become tremendous very quickly.
Finally, there's the price impulse associated with the ongoing development of the XRP Ledger (XRPL).
As the platform itself gains more capabilities, the valuation of the coin will likely increase to account for its additional utility. Ripple keeps adding compliance-friendly bells and whistles, such as automated market makers (AMM) and transaction clawback functions, all aimed at increasing institutional adoption. These features could coax cautious banks or other financial institutions into holding large XRP balances to cut costs and reduce transaction times with its cross-border settlements, shrinking the liquid float available for public trading and pushing up prices.
Put all of these pieces together, and a highly bullish but not implausible scenario of tokenization inflows, ETF demand, and other use cases could push XRP toward, and perhaps through, the $25 marker.
Making these numbers real won't be trivial
There are a handful of obstacles that are likely to prevent XRP from making investors into millionaires during the next five years, even if they don't rule out large gains.
Start with competition. Today, Ethereum still hosts more than half of the $25 billion in tokenized assets on public chains, and it also has the largest capital base of stablecoins on its chain by far, with more than $140 billion in value. XRP's share of the pie is growing, but Ethereum and a half-dozen other upstart networks aren't giving ground for free, and XRP only has $158 million in RWAs on its chain at the moment.
Then there's the macro backdrop.
A gargantuan jump in just five years calls for a rising tide of risk appetite and persistently favorable liquidity conditions, which are highly likely to occur during the next two years, but far less likely to be as good thereafter. If global liquidity eventually tightens, tokenization slows, or ETF inflows disappoint, XRP's climb could stall well short of $25.
Therefore, while investing slowly across five years is a reasonable wager on XRP's long-term utility, expecting the value of your position to mushroom into $1 million that quickly is not. A more conservative game plan is to stretch the time horizon by a few more years, lower your return assumptions, and stay flexible about monthly purchase sizes, especially if XRP rockets early or if there's a dip to buy.
None of this means XRP is unattractive as an investment. Just recognize that the coin's path to $25 in five years is very narrow and winding.
Should you invest $1,000 in XRP right now?
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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.
Here's What It Would Take to Make $1 Million With XRP (Ripple) in 5 Years was originally published by The Motley Fool
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Should You Forget XRP and Buy This Soaring Cryptocurrency Instead?
Dominic Basulto, The Motley Fool
Sat, August 9, 2025 at 1:33 PM GMT+5 5 min read
In This Article:
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Key Points
While XRP is still outperforming Ethereum for the year, Ethereum has been soaring over the summer, so the performance gap is narrowing.
The formation of new Ethereum Treasury Companies has been bullish for Ethereum's future growth prospects.
The stablecoin investment thesis favors Ethereum, due to its dominant market position in stablecoins.
10 stocks we like better than Ethereum ›
XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) remains the top-performing major cryptocurrency of 2025. Year to date, XRP is up a resounding 42%. By way of comparison, crypto bellwether Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) is only up 22%. So it's easy to see why many investors are focused on XRP.
But don't sleep on Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH), the world's second-largest cryptocurrency. For the year, it is only up a modest 8%. However, over the past 30 days, Ethereum is up a head-spinning 40%. It now has the sort of momentum that XRP had earlier in the year. So should investors shift their focus from XRP to Ethereum in the second half of 2025?
The arrival of Ethereum Treasury Companies
The one catalyst that set off Ethereum's summer rally was the sudden appearance of high-profile Ethereum Treasury Companies. These companies, inspired by the success of Bitcoin Treasury Companies, are designed to do just one thing: Buy as much Ethereum as they possibly can, as fast as they can.
The one name that really stands out here is Bitmine Immersion Technologies (NYSEMKT: BMNR). Before June 2025, it was a sleepy little Bitcoin mining company. But then it hired Fundstrat co-founder Tom Lee as its chairman, and things have really taken off. The company is in the process of reinventing itself as the world's top Ethereum Treasury Company.
Given Tom Lee's public profile, he's the sort of person who often pops up on CNBC. Increasingly, he's talking up the merits of investing in Ethereum. In doing so, he's playing the same evangelist role that Michael Saylor of Strategy (NASDAQ: MSTR) does for Bitcoin. So, given all this new buzz, other Ethereum Treasury Companies are also launching.
Person with hand on chin while thinking.
Image source: Getty Images.
It should be pointed out that new XRP Treasury Companies have also formed this summer. But there is much less enthusiasm for them than for the new Ethereum Treasury Companies. That could change over the next 12 months, but for now, Ethereum has the clear edge.
The stablecoin investment thesis
There's another factor in Ethereum's favor: The rise to prominence of stablecoins. Everyone, it seems, has been talking about stablecoins this summer, from retailers to fintech companies to Silicon Valley giants. The U.S. Treasury Department has also pushed the stablecoin agenda.
And guess what? The top blockchain for stablecoins right now is Ethereum. It accounts for a reported 49% of all stablecoin activity right now. The only other blockchain that comes close is Tron (CRYPTO: TRX).
In contrast, XRP is almost nowhere to be found in the ongoing debate over stablecoins. That's despite the fact that Ripple, the company behind the XRP token, launched a stablecoin of its own in December 2024 with the stated goal of boosting demand for XRP.
As might be expected, a very strong stablecoin investment thesis is starting to form around Ethereum. The growing perception is that it is going to become a primary beneficiary of stablecoin adoption. As more people begin using stablecoins for activities like making online transactions, it should lead to new activity flourishing on the Ethereum blockchain, as well as a much healthier Ethereum ecosystem.
Renewed activity in spot Ethereum ETFs
Ethereum and Bitcoin are currently the only two cryptocurrencies with spot crypto ETFs. That is a key selling point with institutional investors, who are using these ETFs as a way to get exposure to the crypto market.
Admittedly, earlier in the year, there was a lot of talk over the slowing pace of money flows into Ethereum ETFs. In some months, there were actually net outflows. That makes sense -- Ethereum's performance earlier in the year was dreadful, and investors were quite rightly taking their money out of spot Ethereum ETFs and moving it elsewhere.
But here's the thing: Ethereum's summer rally has resulted in a new flood of money coming into the spot Ethereum ETFs. That's helping to push Ethereum higher as well.
That being said, new spot XRP ETFs could be coming any moment now. The SEC is currently reviewing a handful of spot XRP ETF applications, and has until mid-October to render a judgment on them. If the SEC approves them, that might help to close the "ETF gap" between XRP and Ethereum. But for now, Ethereum has the edge.
Ethereum is hardly a risk-free investment
Just remember: Even though there are several factors that appear to make Ethereum a more attractive investment than XRP right now, it's hardly a risk-free investment. There's still enormous volatility in crypto, and Ethereum is no exception.
Helping to mitigate this risk is Ethereum's long track record of performance that dates back to 2015. Investors now have a decade's worth of data to digest. If history is any guide, Ethereum will once again become a top market performer. Thus, while I can understand the allure of investing in an inexpensive $3 crypto like XRP, I'd rather put my money behind an expensive $3,600 crypto like Ethereum
