Better Cryptocurrency to Buy With $3,000 and Hold for 5 Years: XRP vs. Ethereum

Group 1: Ethereum Overview - Ethereum is positioned as a leading cryptocurrency, particularly due to its potential in real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, which is expected to drive significant growth over the next five years [2] - Currently, Ethereum hosts approximately $14.6 billion of the total $24.1 billion in tokenized assets within the crypto sector, making it the largest hub for such assets [3] - The value of RWAs on Ethereum has increased by 16% in the past 30 days, indicating a rapid onboarding of asset issuers and managers to the platform [3] Group 2: Future Potential of Ethereum - Boston Consulting Group (BCG) projects that by 2030, there will be around $16 trillion of tokenized assets on blockchains, suggesting a substantial future market share for Ethereum [4] - Ethereum's ecosystem is experiencing growth in available capital, which can be utilized for new financial products and liquidity sources [4] - Major upgrades to the Ethereum network are making it cheaper to use, with two successful updates in 2025 and two more planned for 2026 aimed at enhancing efficiency [5] Group 3: XRP Overview - XRP's investment success is closely tied to Ripple's ability to market the cryptocurrency to financial businesses and develop the XRP Ledger (XRPL) effectively [6] - Ripple is focusing on enhancing programmability and maintaining low transaction costs through the XRPL Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) sidechain, which was launched in June 2025 [7]