The best cryptos to own in 2026 are ones that will benefit from major real world blockchain adoption. The growth of stablecoins and real-world asset (RWA) tokenization mean a large number of financial transactions could start to move on chain in the coming years.
Smart-contract -- or programmable -- cryptos like Solana (SOL +0.58%) could grow exponentially if tokenization takes off. It is one of the top 10 cryptos by market cap that stands out for its processing capabilities.
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Solana's strong potential for 2026
Solana's biggest advantages are speed and low cost. It's averaged around 1,000 transactions per second (TPS) over the past three months, according to Chainspect data. Last year, developers pushed it to 100,000 TPS in a test run, but day-to-day activities haven't yet come close to that.
CRYPTO: SOL
Key Data Points
While it hasn't had any outages since February 2024, technical issues dogged its early days. As a result, Solana developers put their efforts into strengthening the system last year. If Solana plans to partner with financial institutions on tokenization and payments, reliability will be crucial. Solana's Alpenglow upgrade, due to roll out this year, is focused on efficiency and resilience.
Tokenization and stablecoin markets could reach $4 trillion
When the government passed stablecoin legislation last year, it removed some of the barriers to tokenization and stablecoin adoption. Stablecoins are a form of tokenization, which is essentially a way to record ownership of assets on the blockchain. Using on-chain representations of, say, real-world dollars could mean low-cost, round-the-clock, global asset transfers.
There are concerns about the way a relatively untested technology could impact the financial system, but that hasn't stopped major financial institutions and payment providers from looking for ways to integrate them into their operations.
Deutsche Bank (DB +0.03%) estimates the market for U.S.-backed stablecoins could reach $2 trillion in the coming years. Real-world asset tokenization of other assets could reach a further $2 trillion or more by 2030, per McKinsey.
Solana has captured around 4.5% of both the stablecoin and RWA market, per xyz.com and DefiLlama. It is in fourth or fifth place in a space that's dominated by Ethereum (ETH 0.02%). Even if Solana doesn't increase its piece of the stablecoin cake, 4.5% of a hypothetical $4 trillion market would increase the amount of value on its chain from around $9 today to $180 billion. That doesn't factor in the strong possibility that companies will build their own blockchains, but it gives a sense of how big the potential is.
Solana could soar this year
As I write this (Jan. 13), Solana has dropped about almost 20% in the past year. However, not only did it set a new all-time high in 2025, but it also demonstrated its capabilities as a serious Layer-1 crypto. There are no guarantees, and Solana may experience new technical hiccups or other tailwinds, but it is a strong project.
Its battle-tested speedy processing could be what the stablecoin industry needs. After all, as a Bitwise report shows, it is the only major cryptocurrency with the potential to compete with Mastercard in terms of transaction speed. If stablecoins continue to surge, Solana will almost certainly grow with them. The bigger question is how much of the market it can take.
