Hype, trends, and memes will not win the next bull market. The winners will be the networks and their altcoins that solve real problems at scale. So the question is not, “Which community screams the loudest?” It’s about which network actually comes closest to product-market fit. Today, we will highlight three altcoins that meet this requirement. These are Cardano ($ADA), Ripple ($XRP), and Hedera ($HBAR).
These altcoins are not based on hype. Instead, they are based on actual deployments, partnerships, technology, and networking activities. What I found surprised even me. By the end, you will know exactly which chain has the strongest foundation in the future. And I promise you, the answer is not obvious.
Cardano ($ADA)
Our first altcoin today is Cardano ($ADA). Let’s start with Cardano’s strengths. Then we’ll also discuss some weaknesses.
In short, Cardano’s design includes some interesting core design elements. We value peer-reviewed research and academic rigor. The latter provides a nice and thorough final product. But it also means it takes a long time to launch a product. Furthermore, Cardano also focuses on sustainability. This can be seen in the low-energy proof-of-stake consensus protocol “Ouroboros”. This distinguishes it from various other networks.
🚨Big News #Cardano! Introducing Ouroboros Phalanx – the latest upgrade that makes network attacks more difficult and expensive while enabling up to 30% faster transactions.
Safer. It’s more efficient. More Cardano.
Technical and non-technical blogs below 👇:— Input | Output (@InputOutputHK) October 31, 2025
Many Cardano users actively stake their $ADA. According to Pooltool, $ADA holders hold almost 57% of $ADA in circulation. There are 1.34 million addresses staking $ADA. These are impressive numbers. This puts Cardano in the top 20 in terms of staking rate.
Cardano Epoch 592 ends today 🔥
all $ADA Delegators will receive regular staking rewards as in the previous epoch.
57.4% of the circulating supply is at stake. If you’re not already staking, simply select a pool and delegate.
We’re almost reaching epoch 600. There are no stops. Until now. 🫡 pic.twitter.com/NXBlUvEelF
— Cexplorer.io 🅰️ (@cexplorer_io) November 5, 2025
The Leios upgrade has moved from the research phase to the engineering phase. This means that developers are currently working on and testing this upgrade. Among other things, transaction speeds should improve. Theoretical TPS (transactions per second) is 10k. In yesterday’s video, we talked about Laios to find out if Cardano is dead due to low TVL numbers. Here is the video link.
Now, speaking of Cardano’s TVL, it doesn’t look very good. On DeFiLlama, Cardano is ranked 25th. Current TVL is $248.5 million. Charles Hoskinson agreed. As a result, he and his team are working on a solution to solve this problem. Therefore, there are legitimate criticisms of Cardano’s TVL and low DeFi usage. In essence, the fundamentals of the Cardano network remain strong. There is also a broad ecosystem, but DeFi usage is weak.
Hedera ($HBAR)
Next on my list of altcoins is Hedera ($HBAR). As you may already know, Hedera is a hashgraph, not a blockchain. The main difference between these two is that blockchain uses a linear chain of blocks. Hashgraph uses a directed acyclic graph (DAG) to link transactions in a nonlinear manner. This increases transaction speed and increases throughput. Throughput measures the TPS that a chain can handle. Additionally, hashgraph can process transactions in parallel. This is in contrast to standard blockchains, which process one block at a time.
Well, that aside, what else can Hedera offer? The founders are Dr. Leamon Baird and Dr. Mance Harmon. Dr. Baird invented hashgraph technology. But what we really want to focus on is Hedera’s governing council. This is a diverse group of prominent organizations, not a single organization or individual. The council includes companies such as IBM, Deutsche Telekom, Google, and LG. So it’s not exactly the smallest company. Council members make important decisions such as software updates and pricing policies. Hedera can be described as an enterprise cryptography project. And you would be right.
Hedera recently launched its third crypto ETF in history, following the $BTC ETF and $ETH ETF. In late October, Canary Fund launched the $HBAR ETF. There was a huge inflow of $172 million HBAR. That’s about $34 million. And it gets better. There are 12 additional ETFs that reference $HBAR.
Today, HBAR makes history by becoming the third crypto ETF to be launched after Bitcoin and Ethereum.
To make this clear, out of over 19 million cryptocurrencies, @CoinMarketCap truck, that’s @canaryfunds HBAR ETF Passed – Quote @HederaInstitutional-level network of 🧵 pic.twitter.com/Rc5U6eX35M
— Hedera Foundation (@HederaFndn) October 28, 2025
Here’s another surprising statistic. Hedera has the second largest core developer pool across all L1s, after Ethereum. Who would have thought that? And earlier this week, Hedera integrated with Chainlink. This is the industry’s largest oracle provider. So, Hedera seems to be strong here!
By integrating with @chain linkHedera allows developers to build secure cross-chain DeFi and tokenized RWA applications with trusted data and seamless interoperability.
See how we are together creating a connected, transparent on-chain economy.
— Hedera (@hedera) November 4, 2025
Ripple ($XRP)
Next on today’s list of altcoins is Ripple’s $XRP. Ripple is a big name and maintains a steady news presence. Currently, Ripple’s network claims integration with banks and payment providers around the world. We want to enable faster cross-border payments. There are numerous claims that many partner banks have adopted Ripple’s messaging technology. That includes payment technology.
However, this does not include $XRP-based liquidity. These claims are difficult to verify. And then there’s commercial confidentiality. This means that details such as many banking volumes and financing arrangements are not fully disclosed.
There appear to be at least 12 banks currently actively using the $XRP infrastructure. This includes major companies such as American Express and Standard Chartered. So it appears that adoptions are taking place, but hard evidence differs.
Ripple Army is a great supporter. However, there is a tendency to go a little too far at times. This is just one example, but apparently Ripple has issued bank IDs to over 500 banks. That doesn’t necessarily mean those 500 banks also use Ripple or $XRP.
💡 Remember, Ripple has assigned bank IDs to over 500 banks. 🏦
and people still believe it #XRP Not used 🤭 pic.twitter.com/vwbXweJTn7
— 𝓐𝓶𝓮𝓵𝓲𝓮 (@_Crypto_Barbie) July 26, 2025
Recently, we have also seen various projects end up choosing other chains over Ripple. That was after extensive testing of Ripple infrastructure. for example,
- SWIFT chose Linnea.
- Western Union recently chose Solana over Ripple. This benefits the high throughput and low fees that Solana offers.
- MoneyGram and Ripple partnered from 2018 to 2021. MoneyGram then adopted Stellar Network.
Billions over 10 years $XRP SWIFT is now a $LINEA Featuring 30 Tier-1 banks.
This is the first time SWIFT uses a public blockchain… pic.twitter.com/zO0jAuE4Fm
— ElonTrades (@ElonTrades) October 5, 2025
These represent an opportunity cost for Ripple and $XRP.
verdict
So, let me give you the verdict. For me, there is a clear winner. Hedera outperforms both Cardano and Ripple/$XRP on many levels. I already have a successful ETF. Hedera also has some great integrations and partnerships going on recently.
That’s crazy $HBAR Passed before the ETF passed. $XRP ETFs did it
You can clearly see how Hedera is connected.
— Jesus Martinez (@JesusMartinezEZ) November 5, 2025
In contrast, both Cardano and Ripple have some issues to address. Cardano with low TVL and low DeFi usage. Meanwhile, Ripple recently confirmed that two potential network users have chosen completely different networks. SWIFT chose Linea over Ripple, And Western Union acquired Solana. So this round clearly goes to Hedera ($HBAR).
What do you think about this? Let us know in the comments section. Join the discussion on X and Discord.
Disclaimer
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