Better Cryptocurrency to Buy With $5,000 and Hold for a Decade: XRP vs. Solana

When you make an investment for the long term, you need to be certain that the factors driving that investment's success today will either continue to be in play over the years to come, or that the investment will be able to adapt itself successfully to shifting conditions over time. In the context of cryptocurrencies, both XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) and Solana (CRYPTO: SOL) could credibly fit both of those bills.

But which one is the better option for buying and holding for the next decade with a hefty investment of $5,000? This is a close contest, so let's carefully examine the case in favor of each.

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XRP's runway is quite long

For XRP to continue to grow over the next 10 years and beyond, it only needs to continue doing what it is doing today.

To be specific, it needs to add more banks, currency exchange houses, and other financial institutions to its blockchain. And once those users are there, it needs to continue to provide them with cheap and fast transactions.

The point of those transactions is to help its users dodge pricey international money transfer fees and currency exchange fees. And, with each and every action that occurs on its blockchain, XRP harvests a small fee that's negligible in size to its users, but significant to the coin's value when accumulated over time.

But how big of a market could the coin be targeting? The answers to that question range from a big one to a staggeringly large one. In 2023, the volume of international remittances -- just one type of common international money transfer between individuals -- was $860 billion.

Per an estimate from the Bank for International Settlements, in 2022 an average of $7.5 trillion in currency is traded internationally every day, though it's important to note that only a small fraction of that could be handled by something like XRP, as the sum includes many different types of transactions, most of which aren't supported by it.

For reference, on Feb. 20, XRP had a 24-hour volume of around $4.9 billion. So it has plenty of room to continue to grow by gaining more transaction volume regardless of how big its target market actually is. And that's a big factor in favor of it being a good investment over the next 10 years or more.

Solana is showing off its flexibility right now

Today, Solana is known as the world's largest meme coin casino, as well as being a center of experimentation in decentralized finance (DeFi), and a budding home of infrastructure projects intended to help artificial intelligence (AI) agents interact with the blockchain.

It also has a vibrant collection of marketplaces for selling and trading non-fungible tokens (NFTs), as well as a smorgasbord of other projects for all manner of purposes.

Much like its main competitor, Ethereum, Solana supports smart contracts, which are a key element of its ability to offer value to developers and investors. In the near term, those smart contracts will be used in conjunction with the AI infrastructure projects hosted on the chain to pave the way for AI agents to transact with one another, taking advantage of the chain's cheap gas fees and quick turnaround times in the process.

As of Feb. 20, its 24-hour volume was $3.5 billion, which is a metric for investors to watch carefully for increases over time, to see if the chain gets more widespread adoption than it already has.

While it isn't exactly guaranteed that being the home for blockchain-based AI agents will drive major demand for Solana, the chances are better than not for it to continue to grow simply as a result of the experimentation underway by developers in that space.

And that's even before getting into the other growth drivers for the chain, like the explosion of meme coin "investing" activity that started in 2024 and will likely continue through the foreseeable future thanks to its widespread popularity.

Solana can't stay static over the next 10 years if it's going to be a good investment. Nor will it. The chain is still in active development, and part of its ongoing success is attributable to providing developers and investors with the types of features and projects they want to collaborate with and invest in.

But there is always a risk that a smaller competitor might one-up Solana at its own game over the long term if it develops new features that are mismatched to the preferences of its users.

Overall, there's a strong, long-term investment thesis for both Solana and XRP.

Either could justify a $5,000 buy-and-hold investment for many years. Still, for more conservative investors, XRP is probably the better choice, since it relies less on continual innovation in the cryptocurrency space, and more on continued execution of its already successful fintech concept.

It could still get its lunch eaten by a competitor, but for today, XRP is the top dog, and Solana isn't quite there yet relative to the players it's trying to displace.

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Alex Carchidi has positions in Ethereum and Solana. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Ethereum, Solana, and XRP. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.