In investing, time often beats timing. Your 20s give you the one asset money cannot buy, which is years of time, during which you can make steady contributions to your portfolio, which then can become years of potential growth. One of the most important tricks to making the most of your time ahead is picking a small set of assets, then letting discipline do the heavy lifting.
Two cryptocurrencies are ideal for long-term holding, specifically Bitcoin (BTC 2.98%) and Ethereum (ETH 11.54%). Both have clear, durable reasons they are likely to rise in value over long horizons, and both reward boring habits like dollar-cost averaging (DCAing), which simply means investing the same amount on a regular schedule. Here's how each are great for wealth-building, especially in a young investor's portfolio.
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Scarcity pays off huge over time
Buying and holding scarce assets that other people think are valuable tends to be a smart move in investing, especially if new supply of the asset can't be readily produced at the same scale as demand.
As you've probably heard, Bitcoin's supply is permanently capped at 21 million coins, a simple but powerful idea that creates scarcity you can plan around. Similarly, its new issuance also steps down roughly every four years at the coin's halvings. So its relative scarcity will increase over time, even if demand for it remains static.
Scarcity alone does not guarantee rising prices forever, but it does raise the bar for future sellers to clear before they pull the trigger and ditch their coins, as there is always a credible driver for prices being even higher in the future. That likely encourages many would-be sellers to retain their assets, constraining the float and behaving like a self-fulfilling prophecy to force prices upward.
It's also easier for investors to allocate to Bitcoin than ever before. In January 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved the listing and trading of several spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), giving investors Bitcoin access in regular brokerage accounts. And the asset managers issuing the ETFs will need to retain plenty of the coin over the long run to back their fund, increasing the chances that future buyers will need to pay higher prices.
The combination of a supply hard cap and access to capital in the traditional financial system makes Bitcoin an unusually clean candidate for long-term accumulation. There is no reason to expect its core value drivers to be any less potent in 20 years than they are today. Across many years in which its issuance keeps tightening and its ownership broadens, the odds tilt toward it becoming more and more valuable, provided you can keep contributing through the dull stretches as well as the scary ones where it drops 60% or more.
Regarding that last point, young investors also have a lot to learn by holding Bitcoin. Its volatility, while low for a cryptocurrency, is the main psychological test to clear. The only way to study for that test is to create an investment thesis that grants you the conviction to hold the coin through thick and thin.
Getting exposure to the decentralized finance ecosystem is a good idea too
Whereas Bitcoin is a scarce asset like gold, Ethereum is the programmable smart contract platform where a lot of useful things are happening.
For reference, a smart contract is simply a program that runs on a blockchain like Ethereum and automatically follows the rules its code defines. That capability underpins decentralized finance (DeFi), which is the main pillar of Ethereum's ecosystem and also the main reason why it's worth buying and holding as an investor in your 20s.
Ethereum consistently leads the rankings for total value locked (TVL), with $90.6 billion. Its huge base of users, app developers, and assets is what gives the platform staying power.
Crucially, the network keeps improving, which keeps users and capital on the chain rather than defecting elsewhere. On May 7, 2025, Ethereum activated the Pectra upgrade, a package of changes that, among other things, advanced capabilities to improve the chain's user experience and its staking mechanics. Incremental upgrades like these do not create instant price moves, but they strengthen the platform's usefulness and reduce friction for the builders who ship the apps that attract the next wave of users, and there are many more planned for the future.
For a 20-something investor, the thesis for buying Ethereum is that if more financial activity migrates on-chain over the next decade, as it almost certainly will, the chain that already hosts the deepest app ecosystem, the most stablecoin value, and the most developer mindshare is likely to capture a meaningful share of the value those apps generate. It might even capture more interest from financial institutions, too.
Competing smart contract chains will keep pressing it on speed and cost. Even so, competitors won't be able to beat this chain overnight, and the market itself is likely to keep expanding. So start buying some Ethereum if you don't already have it, and be ready to hold on to it forever to let its developers boost the value of your investment slowly and steadily.
