During the past decade, it's hard to find two better-performing cryptocurrencies than Bitcoin (BTC 0.43%) or Ethereum (ETH 0.24%). In the 10-year period since January 2016, Bitcoin is up 24,700%, while Ethereum is up 21,900%.
There's no guarantee that these two cryptocurrencies will soar by the same amount during the next decade or two, but there are no other cryptos that I'd rather buy and hold for the long haul. Here's why.
1. Bitcoin
Since 2012, Bitcoin has never posted back-to-back losing years. In seven of those years, Bitcoin posted triple-digit percentage returns, highlighted by a towering 5,428% return in 2013. In both 2023 and 2024, the cryptocurrency posted triple-digit returns, and the conventional narrative heading into 2025 was that Bitcoin was once again going to double in price.
Bitcoin / U.S. dollar chart by TradingView
Although that didn't happen, Bitcoin is likely to maintain its upward trajectory in the years to come. The current thinking now is that Bitcoin can hit a price of $1 million by 2030. Thinking even longer term, Michael Saylor, founder and executive chairman of Strategy, formerly known as MicroStrategy, thinks Bitcoin could hit a price of $21 million within the next two decades.
But just keep this in mind: Bitcoin is also highly cyclical, and typically follows a four-year cycle of boom and bust. Therefore, you should plan to invest in Bitcoin for a period of at least five years in order to maximize your returns. That way, even if Bitcoin has one bad year, you will more than make up for your losses in the other years.
Image source: Getty Images.
Even better, Bitcoin combines unparalleled upside potential with a fair amount of downside risk protection. For much of its history, Bitcoin has been completely uncorrelated with any other asset class, which has made it a potential safe-haven asset during times of macroeconomic uncertainty and geopolitical instability. So much so, in fact, that Bitcoin is sometimes referred to as digital gold.
Much like gold, Bitcoin tends to retain its value in the face of a sudden macroeconomic or geopolitical crisis. Simply stated, if war breaks out somewhere in the world, Bitcoin is likely to see an inflow of new money from risk-averse institutional investors.
2. Ethereum
For much of its history, Ethereum has played second fiddle to Bitcoin. Although there have been some years when Ethereum has outperformed Bitcoin -- such as 2020, when Ethereum soared by 472% while Bitcoin only increased by 304% -- that has been the exception rather than the norm.
CRYPTO: ETH
Key Data Points
Nevertheless, Ethereum is arguably a better long-term investment than Bitcoin. Although Bitcoin is primarily a store of value similar to gold, Ethereum is much more of a true blockchain ecosystem. The Ethereum blockchain is a core building block for nearly everything important that gets built in the blockchain and crypto world.
The easiest place to see this dynamic at work is in decentralized finance (DeFi). Many of the world's top decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges (known as DEXes) run on top of Ethereum, and some of the world's top cryptocurrencies are actually tokens minted on the Ethereum blockchain. Moreover, Ethereum literally pioneered smart contracts, which are used to create entirely new financial instruments for investors.
As a result of all this activity and innovation, it's easy to see why Ethereum has become the preferred blockchain of Wall Street. Just about any crypto innovation -- including stablecoins and tokenized assets -- are built, launched, managed, and traded on the Ethereum blockchain.
That's why I'm confident in Ethereum as a cryptocurrency that investors can buy and hold for the long haul. Even after a decade, Ethereum remains a behemoth in the world of decentralized finance, accounting for a head-spinning 64% of all total value locked (TVL) in the blockchain world.
How to get exposure to Bitcoin and Ethereum?
Right now, the prices of Bitcoin and Ethereum probably generate a fair amount of sticker shock among first-time crypto investors. A single Bitcoin trades for about $90,000 these days, while a single Ethereum coin trades for more than $3,000.
That's why, if you have just $500 to invest in crypto, you might want to consider the new spot crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that provide exposure to the price action of the underlying cryptocurrency. For example, the spot Bitcoin ETFs provide 1-to-1 exposure to Bitcoin's price.
These ETFs are a lot cheaper, too. For example, the top-ranking spot Bitcoin ETF -- the iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT 0.23%) -- currently trades for about $51. For $500, you would be able to pick up roughly 10 shares.
If you are planning to buy and hold for decades, then it's important to diversify your portfolio. With that in mind, Bitcoin and Ethereum both make for splendid long-term investments.
