Better Crypto Buy Right Now: Shiba Inu vs. Solana
Key Points
With the crypto winter seemingly over, investors are once again looking at cryptocurrencies, which plunged earlier this year.
Shiba Inu and Solana are two of the more notable cryptocurrencies.
Shiba Inu was an early meme token, while Solana has a very strong blockchain network.
After a very difficult year that saw crypto prices get hammered, the sector has bounced back and recovered much of the losses from earlier this year. Bitcoin, the world's largest cryptocurrency, is up nearly 5% during the past month.
Suddenly, it feels as if the sector has life. Analysts now believe interest in crypto will soar on prediction markets, while blockchain technology could prove to be compatible with agentic artificial intelligence (AI). Investors are once again hunting for the best cryptocurrencies.
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Let's take a look at two of the most popular cryptocurrencies, Shiba Inu (CRYPTO: SHIB) and Solana (CRYPTO: SOL), and see which is the better buy right now.
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Shiba Inu: Declining interest this year
Shiba Inu was one of the earlier meme coins. While Dogecoin started as a joke, using the dog mascot to fuel its virality, Shiba Inu was born of a joke on top of a joke. If Dogecoin could soar in popularity with no real value, why couldn't another meme token?
The founders of Shiba Inu were right and timed the meme-token mania perfectly. Meme tokens tend to move in the general direction of the sector, but with much more volatility. The decline this year among cryptocurrencies has been rough for Shiba Inu.
The token has slipped to the 31st-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, while Dogecoin is No. 11 (as of Sept. 28).
Shiba Inu is heavily dependent on interest from retail investors, so if they're busy investing in AI stocks or quantum computing, it can suck some of the interest away from crypto, particularly from speculative tokens like Shiba Inu. Unlike Dogecoin, Shiba Inu is an ERC-20 token, meaning it was built on Ethereum's network.
However, the developers behind Shiba Inu created a Layer-2 blockchain solution that can process Shiba Inu tokens off Ethereum's main network, speeding up transactions and burning tokens, taking them out of circulation and reducing the supply.
Shiba Inu has struggled immensely during the crypto bear market, but it could thrive in a crypto bull market if retail interest returns.
Solana: Still one of the strongest technical networks
Solana is quite different from Shiba Inu because it runs on one of the strongest technical blockchain networks.
Solana's network uses proof-of-stake and proof-of-history consensus mechanisms. Proof of stake is an energy-efficient governance model that lets Solana investors stake their tokens to validate transactions, mint new blocks, and earn rewards. Investors with more tokens will have a better chance of being selected to validate transactions.
Solana pioneered proof of history, which solved a key bottleneck for blockchain networks by assigning a timestamp to each transaction.
Before that, networks relied on external sources to assign timestamps. Proof of history greatly sped up the number of transactions Solana's network could process.
Currently, Solana is processing about 4,000 to 6,000 transactions per second (TPS). However, during a network stress test, the network reached 100,000 TPS at one point, showing just how much potential it has.
This speed makes it an ideal network for payment transactions, particularly with stablecoins, which is why it is one of the leading networks for stablecoin transactions.
Which is the better buy right now?
Making crypto price predictions is a challenge, primarily because cryptocurrencies can't be valued like traditional stocks, which are typically valued on earnings and free cash flow. So it's particularly hard to predict what Shiba Inu will do.
As I mentioned, these meme tokens often move in line with the broader sector but with greater volatility. So when crypto crashes, meme tokens often implode. When crypto soars, they tend to skyrocket. Still, while we may no longer be in a crypto winter, it's hard to tell whether this recent rally really has legs.
Especially in the long term, I think Solana is a much better buy given the technical strength of its network and its real-world uses for payments, particularly in stablecoins.
Bram Berkowitz has positions in Bitcoin and Ethereum. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.