If the first half of 2025 taught investors anything, it is that crypto's center of gravity can swing extremely quickly. For long-term investors, the churn is distracting, but it is also fertile ground for spotting the projects most likely to matter when the dust settles.
From where I sit, three very different coins are worth special attention over the next six months: Solana, (SOL -5.15%) Ethereum, (ETH -2.18%) and Shiba Inu (SHIB -2.82%). One is sprinting ahead on real-world utility; one is a veteran chain that could be staging a genuine renaissance; and one is a lightning rod for market froth that doubles as an early-warning system. Here's why I'm watching them.
1. Solana is showing that tokenization is moving fast
The single fastest-growing pocket of Solana's ecosystem right now is tokenized equities. If you're not familiar, a tokenized equity is just a crypto token that represents ownership of a stock such that the stock can be traded on a blockchain instead of on the traditional financial markets.
In early July, the value of stock tokens minted on Solana tripled to surpass $48 million in just two weeks, later going on to surpass $100 million, largely on the back of the launch of a platform called xStocks. The adoption speed matters more than the headline figure here; there's a long way to go before the volume of tokenized stock trading on Solana ever approaches the volume of the actual stock market, but it's now undeniable that the chain is at the forefront of the trend of asset tokenization, along with Ethereum. And that means it's exposed to a lot of capital flowing in.
Image source: Getty Images.
If that pipeline keeps flowing, the coin's demand drivers will become increasingly distinct from the meme coin flows that powered its last rally.
Assuming regulatory guidance does not tighten abruptly, I plan to keep dollar-cost-averaging into Solana. The main wild card here is whether regulators will handle tokenized assets in the same way as they do normal stocks or if there will be additional requirements that asset issuers find burdensome.
2. Ethereum's comeback is underway
After a bruising first quarter, Ethereum bounced by roughly 138% in the last three months as institutional inflows returned, and inflows from exchange-traded funds (ETFs) climbed past $1.1 billion in June alone. Separately, more than 28% of the circulating supply of Ether is now staked, locking coins out of the liquid market and making every incremental buy matter a little more.
Meanwhile, the May Pectra update introduced native account abstraction and smaller, cheaper data blobs, trimming the network's long-standing cost bottleneck. Average gas fees have drifted lower for long stretches this year to reach a level not seen since 2020.
They could continue to go even lower, which would be remarkable if the chain's volume picks up even more alongside its native token's rising price.
The cocktail of tighter float and cheaper block space could, in theory, send Ether parabolic if developers and users flood back from their months-long hiatus. The market already sniffed out the change, and sentiment is now improving very rapidly.
If I had fresh capital on hand today, I would start to nibble and buy the coin. If there's a good opportunity to purchase some later this year, I'll be jumping on it.
3. Shiba Inu is a smart coin to watch
Meme coins are speculative by design, yet they are superb barometers of risk appetite.
Shiba Inu's rallies tend to arrive when marginal dollars are chasing whatever still looks cheap in an otherwise frothy environment. That means when it starts to surge, it can signal a reason to start to be a bit more cautious.
There's not any tech development going on with this coin, nor is there much else that could send its price higher, except for very favorable macroeconomic conditions and investors hungry to take on overly risky speculative bets. And right now, there are no flashing lights whatsoever; its price is still lower than a year ago.
If this dog coin does rip later this year, history suggests the broader crypto market could be approaching a top. My playbook is therefore to treat any Shiba Inu spike as a cue to trim risk elsewhere (ideally, by realizing some profits) and to redeploy my capital only after the froth subsides.
