Ethereum has soared to $2,400 following its recent Pectra upgrade, and market sentiment has flipped on its head.
Just two days ago, a prominent crypto influencer went viral for dunking on Ethereum and alluding that its upgrade is like dressing up a dumpster.
However, the upgrade surprised everyone when it turned $ETH deflationary and sent investors scrambling to buy. Ethereum has soared 25% in the past 24 hours, and prominent trader Kaleo now predicts it’ll rally to $25,000 this year.
Ethereum’s market sentiment has transformed in a 48-hour window, creating a big opportunity for traders to capitalize.
However, buying $ETH directly may not provide the biggest gains. Rather, smaller ecosystem tokens could help investors maximize profits. With that in mind, here are our picks of the best crypto to buy now:
Solaxy
Solaxy is building the world’s first Solana layer 2 blockchain. It aims to tackle the network’s congestion issue by handling some of its workload using off-chain computation and transaction bundling technology.
Solaxy aims to compute 10,000 transactions per second through this approach, making it cheaper, faster, and more reliable than Solana.
If it achieves this goal, it could well be the home of the next batch of Solana innovations, such as meme coins, decentralised applications, and infrastructure tools like crypto wallets.
The project is currently undergoing a presale which has raised $33.7 million so far. This reflects huge market appeal and indicates big growth potential once it hits exchanges.
Just like Virtuals Protocol, Solaxy has a unique advantage in that the $SOLX token is available on both the Solana and Ethereum blockchains. This provides extra visibility and could allow it to rise faster than its single-chain peers.
Virtuals Protocol
While the Ethereum price has soared today, Virtuals Protocol is one of the cryptocurrencies that has massively outperformed.
It has gained a staggering 47% in the last 24 hours and 5% in the last hour upon press time.
With such momentum on its side, it’s clear that something is brewing in its ecosystem.
The project is an AI agent launchpad allowing users to create autonomous agents with text-based prompts.
As to what might be brewing in the ecosystem: the project recently created a feature called Genesis Launches, enabling agent deployment with fair token distribution and creator incentives.
Analyst Edgy argues that its continued development amid the Q1 market crash is why $VIRTUALS is performing so well now.
“Basically, they kept shipping. And there’s enough fundamentals for them to break their ATH when market conditions are better,” he wrote.
Virtual Protocol is available on both Solana and Ethereum layer 2 blockchain Base. This exposes it to multiple ecosystems, which is a massive advantage.
Pudgy Penguins
Ethereum is finally waking up, and talk of an Ethereum season, in which its ecosystem tokens explode, is increasing.
If Ethereum season does start now, Pudgy Penguins is one project that stands to benefit. Like Virtuals Protocol and Solaxy, $PENGU also has the advantage of exposure to both the Ethereum and Solana blockchains.
That’s because the project started as an Ethereum-based NFT collection in 2021 and shifted to the meme coin market in 2024, where it launched on Solana.
The Pudgy Penguins meme coin has exploded approximately 4x from its April lows, reaching a near-$1 billion market cap. Meanwhile, the Pudgy Penguins meme coin has outperformed other major collections this month, reflecting the project’s supportive community.
$PENGU has been one of the top performers today with a 17% gain.
Momentum is on its side, which signals it could keep rallying alongside Ethereum.
Ethena
Ethena is an Ethereum-based DeFi ecosystem with its own yield-bearing stablecoin, USDe.
The stablecoin uses delta-neutral strategies to produce low-risk returns for investors, currently valued at 4.4% APY. For many crypto users, this stablecoin revenue will make USDe an attractive way to take profits compared to storing them in static stablecoins such as USDC and USDT.
The $ENA token governs the Ethena protocol and also provides staking rights. According to its website, there are 678K Ethena users, so having a vote on the project’s future direction is an important utility.
$ENA has gained 23% in the past 24 hours, making it one of the Ethereum ecosystem’s highest gainers. This indicates that it could be one of the better beta plays as prices rise.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not provide financial advice. Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile, and the market can be unpredictable. Always perform thorough research before making any cryptocurrency-related decisions.