Ether, Solana and XRP could heat up again as crypto winter ends.

Bitcoinin (Bitcoin 0.27%) reduce by half, which took place on April 19, was one of the biggest catalysts for the cryptocurrency market this year. This closely watched event, which halves Bitcoin mining rewards every four years, was expected to tighten the supply of the flagship cryptocurrency and stabilize its market price.

Along with the halving, approvals of Bitcoin’s first spot price ETFs and hopes of lower interest rates brought back the bulls and increased its price by over 140% in the last 12 months. Personally, I believe that Bitcoin still has a lot to do space to runbut investors should also consider investing in three other promising cryptocurrencies – Ether (ETH 0.60%), Solana (SUN 0.67%) and XRP (XRP -0.11%) – when crypto winter finally ends.

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1. Ether

Ether, the native cryptocurrency of the open-source Ethereum network, differs from Bitcoin in two ways. First, switched from energy-intensive system proof of work Mining method (PoW) (used by Bitcoin) for the most energy efficient proof of bet System (PoS) for validating transactions in September 2022. This “Merge” reduced the total mining energy consumption of the Ethereum network by 99.95%.

Secondly, the Ethereum blockchain can be used for the development of decentralized applications (dApps), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), smaller cryptocurrencies and other crypto assets. This flexibility makes it more attractive to developers than the Bitcoin blockchain, which can only be used to mine more Bitcoin.

Bulls believe that the Ethereum network will continue to expand as developers create more dApps and tokens, and that some of these applications will disrupt traditional financial institutions. As this ecosystem matures, the value of Ether – already the second largest cryptocurrency in the world – will stabilize and continue to increase.

Several companies, including Ark Invest and VanEck, are also pushing regulators to approve their spot-price Ether ETFs. If this effort is successful, the price of Ether could get together even bigger.

2. Solana

Ethereum’s main competitor is Solana, which also operates an open-source blockchain for developing decentralized applications and tokens. It uses the same PoS process as Ethereum, but speeds up the process with its own proof-of-history (PoH) method. This fundamental difference allows Solana to process transactions at a much faster rate than Ethereum.

Solana suffered two major setbacks in 2021 and 2022. First, the explosive growth of the NFT market caused severe congestion and security issues on its network. Secondly, cryptocurrency exchange FTX – one of Solana’s biggest backers – went bankrupt and began liquidating its tokens to raise new money for its creditors.

However, Solana’s price eventually stabilized and recovered as it upgraded its network and withstood FTX’s massive sell-off. Its blockchain is still being used to produce popular meme coins like BONADO (BONADO 11.65%) and WIF (WIF -7.52%), as well as decentralized exchanges like Jupiter and Orca. Launched Solana Pay, which was integrated into Shopify last year to reach more mainstream users. It also settled more stablecoin transactions for Visa and Circle.

All these developments indicate that Solana, which is now one of the five most valuable cryptocurrencies in the world, still has a lot of room to grow as the crypto market heats up again.

3.XRP

XRP is the native cryptocurrency of Curling payment protocol network, launched in 2012. Ripple instantly settles real-time gross payments, remittance payments, and foreign exchange transactions with low fees and no chargebacks, typically transferring money across international borders. Financial institutions such as Travelex Bank, Tranglo and Sentbe later linked to Ripple’s payments network, but their XRP tokens were not as widely accepted for payments as Bitcoin or Ether.

For now, XRP biggest challenge is a US Securities and Exchange (SEC) lawsuit that was launched in late 2020 in response to Ripple’s offering of $1.3 billion in XRP tokens. The SEC argues that the offering constituted an illegal sale of unregistered securities. The final phase of this testing began in April and will likely drag on for at least a few more months.

Ripple appears to be winning this battle so far. Last July, a judge ruled that XRP tokens were not, in fact, unregistered securities, and the SEC dropped its separate lawsuits against two Ripple executives. If Ripple finally scores a decisive victory against the SEC, the price of XRP – which is trading nearly 90% below its all-time high – is expected to soar.

Leo Sun has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions and recommends Bitcoin, Ethereum, Shopify, Solana, Visa, and XRP. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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