The cryptocurrency sector had an interesting 2025, to say the least. Many of the world’s largest cryptocurrencies surged in the early part of the year, with the last quarter of 2025 bringing plenty of pain for investors, nearly across the board.
That said, this dip is one that I think could be bought by investors who want to own some amount of crypto in their portfolio. Whichever percentage an individual chooses really depends on one’s risk tolerance level and need for gains/performance. With some hedge funds and endowment funds now investing in crypto as a ways to bolster their portfolio upside over the very long-term, this is a space which could see plenty of institutional capital flows over the years to come.
With that in mind, I’ve got a list of three top cryptos I think could provide investors with the sort of upside they’re looking for over the next decade. Those with the ability and willingness to have a portion of their portfolio invested in more volatile assets (with higher upside potential), here are the three cryptos I think investors will kick themselves for not owning a decade from now.
Solana (SOL)
Solana (CRYPTO:SOL) has evolved into this sector’s preeminent high-throughput execution layer. Combining massive transaction capacity with some of the lowest transaction fees in the sector, whether it’s NFTs or decentralized trading, users and developers are flocking to Solana as a place to build and trade. That’s a good thing for the network effects driving Solana’s valuation.
With few fundamentals to value cryptocurrencies on, transaction volume and network effects are two commonly-referenced statistics as key drivers of token performance over any period of time. With approximately 2.3 billion transactions processed in 2025, and 2.2 million daily active addresses trading on Solana’s network, this is a durable and organic layer-1 network I think investors would be remiss to ignore.
Importantly, within the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector, Solana has capture a market share of more than 40%, thanks in part to this network’s highly scalable and low-cost nature. With more decentralized exchanges, automated market makers, and applications looking to tokenize real world assets picking Solana as their network of choice, this is a top crypto I think could easily 5-10x over the course of the next decade if this bull market continues.
Hyperliquid (HYPE)
Continuing on with the theme of layer-1 networks which are purpose built for speed and transaction volume, Hyperliquid (CRYPTO:HYPE) is another top token I remain bullish on right now.
That’s mostly because Hyperliquid has quickly become the go-to on-chain derivatives network for traders. Pairing its own high-performance layer one platform with a perpetuals-focused decentralized exchange, Hyperliquid competes with the best projects out there in terms of speed, depth and product range.
Importantly, this project’s user base has rocketed higher over the past year, surging from around 300,000 users a year ago to more than 1.4 million. As demand for perpetual futures and other derivatives products picks up, I think Hyperliquid’s impressive fundamental growth could continue.
In combination with surging total value locked (TVL) and other user metrics over the course of the past year, this is a top project which has proven it can grow at scale. For those betting on continued growth within the crypto derivatives space, Hyperliquid remains one of my top picks in this volatile but high growth space.
XRP (XRP)
Instead of dominating DeFi or the crypto derivative markets, XRP (CRYPTO:XRP) is a project which aims to become the underlying plumbing of global payments and liquidity. You know, one of the key integral theses out of the gate for cryptocurrencies overall – to become the future mode of value transfer around the world.
Via its parent company Ripple (and its core RippleNet product), XRP allows institutions, corporations and individuals to engage in cross-border currency transactions at a fraction of the cost of SWIFT and other networks. This simple and easy-to-understand investing rationale has led individuals and large investors to flock to XRP, with this token being one of the best-performing cryptocurrencies in 2025.
I’d expect to see similar performance for XRP in the year to come, assuming market conviction driven by regulatory clarity and deepening integration into payment corridors continues. With transaction volumes on the rise, and a high-velocity market structure available via XRP which supports much larger valuations if utility continues to expand, this is a top project I think should be on every investor’s radar screen right now.
