Ripple, once on a delayed growth path due to an SEC lawsuit, is now witnessing exponential value gains. Its XRP tokens have surged over 350% in the past month, becoming the 3rd cryptocurrency by market cap. This bull run has been led by crypto whales who bought over $1.6 billion worth of XRP in the past weeks, pushing the project's market cap to over $150 billion.

XRP's Current Trading Status

Currently, Ripple's XRP tokens are trading at $2.65. According to Sentiment, the biggest buyers were wallets holding between 1 and 10 million XRP. These whales have accumulated nearly 680 million tokens in the past three weeks, and the number of wallets holding XRP is now well above 5.5 million. While XRP's gains are expected to slow down in the near future, it remains a significant player in the crypto market.

Pepe Unchained - The King of Meme Coin Presales

In the next 10 days, Pepe Unchained is set to become the highest-grossing meme coin presale of all time. It is projected to raise over $80 million and could result in a 100X price pump or higher. Built on its own blockchain, Pepe Unchained offers 100 times faster transaction speeds and lower gas fees than Ethereum. The ongoing $PEPU token presale has already raised over $66.5 million, with nearly $3 million in the past 24 hours. This is an incredible opportunity for early investors.

CatSlap - The Cat-Inspired Meme Coin

CatSlap, a cat-inspired meme coin, quietly launched last week and has shown huge potential. It launched on Dexscan with a modest market cap of around $1 million and pumped to over $31 million just hours later. After a price correction, it is now back above $21 million. The project is not only for fun but also has a P2E game where you can make your cat slap the most to earn free $SLAP tokens. It has partnered with Best Wallet and is attracting a lot of investor interest.

Crypto All-Stars - The Revolutionary Meme Coin Staking Project

Crypto All-Stars is a meme coin project that brings all memes under one roof. It introduces a revolutionary staking protocol that allows users to stake up to 12 different meme coins and earn native $STARS tokens. With support for 12 popular memes including DOGE and SHIB, and more to come, it's an excellent choice for long-term meme coin holders. The official $STARS token presale has raised over $8 million in the past few months, and you can still get $STARS tokens for only $0.0016648. Staking these tokens earns you rewards of up to 270% APY a week after the first listings.

Flockerz - The Vote-to-Earn Meme Coin

Flockerz is a unique meme coin that gives the community control over important decisions through a Vote-to-Earn reward system. Members of the "Flock" can vote on everything from new features to token allocation. Those who stake more $FLOCK tokens have a bigger say. The official $FLOCK token presale has raised over $4.2 million, and staking your tokens earns you APYs of over 520%. It's an exciting project that puts the power in the hands of the community.

Final Thoughts

While XRP has seen significant gains, emerging meme coins like $PEPU, $SLAP, $STARS, and $FLOCK are predicted to have explosive gains. All these memes are likely to pump by 10X or higher, offering high rewards for early investors. Meme coins are expected to be the highest-gaining cryptos during the upcoming altcoin season, so don't miss the chance to invest early and get the best returns. Remember, conduct your own due diligence before taking any action based on this information.

A blistering post-election rally by Bitcoin (BTC -2.38%) to the $100,000 price level may have just been the start of a much longer rally that could extend well into 2025. This opinion is held by billionaire Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tim Draper, who has been investing in tech companies since the internet boom of the 1990s.

The Potential for Bitcoin to Reach $250,000

Draper primarily views Bitcoin as a world-class payment technology that could start to take over a greater share of the modern financial system. In a recent interview, he noted, "Bitcoin is just better technology than using banks and governments as the trusted third party."Since Bitcoin runs on the blockchain, it is transparent, global, open, and theoretically impervious to outside hackers. Moreover, it is decentralized, meaning no central authority controls it.Even with this superior technology, Bitcoin will need a lot to go right if it is going to hit $250,000. According to Draper, it will require mainstream adoption at a much faster pace than is happening now. While people are adding Bitcoin to their portfolios via the new spot Bitcoin ETFs, there is not nearly as much usage as there should be. In short, people are hoarding Bitcoin, but they are not using Bitcoin.Remember when predictions said people would be routinely using Bitcoin for everyday transactions? Or when people predicted that governments around the world would be adopting Bitcoin? That hasn't happened, with a few high-profile exceptions.The case that everyone talks about is El Salvador, which adopted Bitcoin as legal tender in 2021. However, the results have been mixed there, with recent academic research suggesting that everyday citizens simply aren't embracing Bitcoin the way people thought they would.

New Catalysts for Bitcoin

Still, something feels different this time around with Bitcoin. Perhaps it's the pro-crypto optimism surrounding the Trump administration, which appears willing to take active steps to promote Bitcoin. During the campaign, Donald Trump promised to support the Bitcoin mining industry and create a pro-business environment for cryptocurrency. In addition, he promised to create a strategic Bitcoin reserve, which would commit to buying 1 million Bitcoins over the next five years.Indeed, Draper points to this push for less government regulation of crypto and the creation of a strategic Bitcoin reserve as two factors that could propel Bitcoin to $250,000. Draper is now expecting Bitcoin to hit $120,000 before the end of the year and then double in value next year.

Previous $250,000 Predictions and Their Shortcomings

While the argument is certainly compelling, it's important to note that Tim Draper has been making $250,000 price predictions for Bitcoin for several years now. In 2018, he famously predicted that Bitcoin would hit $250,000 by 2022. The highest that Bitcoin reached during that period was $69,000.Then, amid the crypto market meltdown of 2022, Draper amended his Bitcoin forecast to $250,000 by mid-2023. That, too, did not come to fruition. While Bitcoin continues to hit new all-time highs, it has yet to break through the psychologically important $100,000 price level (although it has come tantalizingly close).Perhaps the reason previous $250,000 price forecasts have fallen short is because Draper focuses on mass adoption by online retailers as one of the keys to Bitcoin's future success. As he sees it, blockchain technology offers online retailers a superior option for processing transactions than credit cards, and it would seem to be a no-brainer to offer customers the option to pay in Bitcoin when checking out.No doubt, this is due to Tim Draper's paradigm of the world, which is highly informed by his experience in Silicon Valley. Online e-commerce was arguably one of the biggest innovations that came out of Silicon Valley's internet boom. But when was the last time you used Bitcoin to pay for anything online?

Bullish on Bitcoin for 2025

From a different perspective, it's far better to focus on the growing adoption of Bitcoin by institutional investors, who are showing a real willingness to add Bitcoin to their portfolios. By opening up Bitcoin to these investors, the new spot Bitcoin ETFs have been a home run. In less than 12 months, these Bitcoin ETFs have pulled in tens of billions of dollars from investors. The iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT -1.32%) is leading the way, with more than $40 billion in assets under management.When you combine this institutional buying pressure with new government buying pressure that would result from the creation of a strategic Bitcoin reserve, all signals appear to be flashing green for 2025. Bitcoin has a historical track record of turning in triple-digit annual returns, and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if Bitcoin eventually hits the long-awaited $250,000 price level next year.