2 Altcoins to Buy With $100 Right Now

Altcoins, or any cryptocurrency other than Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC), are often considered speculative investments. Whereas Bitcoin can be actively mined, valued by its scarcity, and considered a hedge against inflation, many altcoins have fewer visible strengths. Instead, they often trade on headlines, market hype, and a "fear of missing out". That said, investors shouldn't simply gloss over all these altcoins.

Some of them can still be valued for their scarcity and utility, attracting more attention from developers and investors as the crypto market heats up again. Two such coins are Solana (CRYPTO: SOL) and Cardano (CRYPTO: ADA). While I wouldn't bet the farm on either of these altcoins in this wobbly market, I believe they could turn a modest $100 investment into a lot more money over the next few decades as more catalysts kick in.

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Solana

Solana, like Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH), is a proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain that supports staking (locking up tokens to earn interest-like rewards) and smart contracts, which are used to develop decentralized apps and other crypto assets. However, it accelerates those transactions with its own proof-of-history (PoH) mechanism, which timestamps them before they're validated.

That upgrade enables Solana's native Layer 1 (L1) blockchain to achieve real-world speeds of 2,000 to 5,000 transactions per second (TPS). Ethereum's L1 blockchain can only achieve real-world speeds of about 15-30 TPS, but it's keeping up with Solana with Layer 2 (L2) "rollups" that bundle together transactions and process them off-chain at much higher speeds.

Solana hosted 17,708 active developers at the end of 2025, making it the second-largest blockchain-based developer platform after Ethereum (31,869 developers). Visa (NYSE: V) also uses Solana to settle stablecoin payments, while Shopify (NASDAQ: SHOP) integrates Solana Pay into its checkout services, enabling its merchants to accept cryptocurrency payments.

With 571 million tokens in circulation and no fixed supply limit, Solana can't be valued by its scarcity. However, its high transaction speeds, rapid growth in developers, and digital payment and e-commerce partnerships make it more useful than other smaller altcoins. Moreover, Solana's first spot price exchange-traded funds (ETFs) with staking features were approved last year -- and big inflows from institutional investors could drive its price a lot higher.

Cardano

Cardano is another PoS blockchain that supports staking and smart contracts. Its L1 blockchain achieves real-world speeds of around 250 TPS -- putting it ahead of Ethereum but behind Solana -- but it's only used by a few hundred developers. That's because each of its projects must be approved through formal peer reviews to ensure scalability and security.

That selective nature makes Cardano an appealing blockchain partner for large companies and government clients, but it hasn't yet scaled those partnerships as much as Ethereum or Solana. However, Cardano can also achieve higher speeds of about 1,000 TPS through its Layer 2 (L2) Hydra "heads" -- that bundle together its transactions and process them off-chain.

Cardano has a circulating supply of 36 billion tokens with a supply cap of 45 billion, so it can be valued by both its scarcity and its usefulness to developers. In 2026, the bulls expect Hydra to attract more partners with its high-speed, low-cost transactions, its Mithril validation upgrade to improve syncing and efficiency for wallets and nodes, and its next-gen Ouroboros Leios consensus mechanism to significantly boost maximum speeds.

Cardano's upcoming Midnight privacy upgrade, which enables confidential smart contracts, could make it more appealing for tightly regulated industries. Its first spot-price ETFs could also be approved in the near future, attracting more attention from institutional investors. All of these catalysts could make Cardano an appealing long-term investment.

Leo Sun has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin, Ethereum, Shopify, Solana, and Visa. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.