2025 Mainstream Public Chain Showdown: Who is your pick?

Recently, a question has gone viral — should we invest in ETH or BTC? Solana is causing a stir again, while Cardano is still dragging its feet…

Let's talk frankly about the real levels of these top players.

Data comparison: clear at a glance

Core Differences Breakdown

ETH vs BTC: Functionality vs Digital Gold

Market Capitalization: BTC leads by a wide margin ($2.37T vs $513B), but that's not all. In the month following Trump's election, ETH surged 54%, while BTC only rose by 10%.

Technical Arbitrage:

• BTC's Proof of Work is fortress-like secure, but the power consumption is outrageously high.
• After ETH upgraded to PoS in 2022, energy consumption was reduced by 99%, and daily fee income can remain stable at over $1.3 million.

BTC is the digital gold, with a hard cap of 21 million coins that gives it inherent scarcity. But ETH can do much more—DeFi lending, NFT markets, Web3 applications… this is the power of smart contracts.

ETH vs SOL: Conservative vs Aggressive

The data for SOL is a bit ridiculous—2,600 TPS, with a fee of only $0.02, 80 times faster than ETH.

But this guy also has pitfalls:

• The market cap is only $85B, less than 1/6 of ETH.
• The ecosystem is mainly based on the Pump.fun( coin creation platform), with obvious water content.
• From the downtime two years ago to this year's instability, trust is still being restored.

Ethereum excels in ecosystem depth—top applications like Uniswap and OpenSea are rooted here, with a significantly leading Total Value Locked (TVL), creating a positive feedback loop.

ETH vs Cardano: Researcher vs Gambler

The style of Cardano is “slow and steady wins the race”—all code updates must go through academic paper reviews to ensure safety.

Sounds cautious, but actually a bit rigid. The market is innovating wildly, while ADA is still in the lab. Moreover, Cardano's smart contract ecosystem hasn't taken off yet, and not many people are using it.

ETH vs XRP: Application vs Payment

XRP's positioning is clear——interbank cross-border payments. 1,500 TPS, second-level settlement, transaction fee $0.0002……invincible from a pure payment perspective.

The question arises: The SEC's legal hammer is always hanging over our heads, although there have been signs of easing recently, investor confidence has not fully recovered.

ETH follows the “application ecosystem” route, with DeFi, NFTs, derivatives… the entire financial system can run.

ETH vs Litecoin: True Digital Silver vs Self-Indulgence

Litecoin (LTC) is essentially a simplified version of BTC – faster transactions and lower fees. However, in this day and age, public chains without smart contracts really lack competitiveness. LTC's positioning as “digital silver” sounds nice, but in reality, it is a marginalized payment tool.

What the hell is WETH?

In simple terms: WETH is ETH that has put on the “ERC-20 suit”.

ETH native assets have compatibility issues in DeFi contracts, so some people lock ETH into smart contracts to exchange it for an equivalent amount of WETH (ERC-20 standard). After using it, they can exchange it back at a 1:1 ratio. It's like exchanging foreign currency.

Ordinary users don't have to worry about this; the wallet will handle it automatically.

How should you choose in 2025?

Must-choose for beginners: BTC or ETH

• BTC is the simplest and most straightforward, with a clear “vault” logic.
• Higher ETH yields (4-6% staking annualized + DeFi opportunities)

High Risk Preference: SOL + XRP

• SOL bets on the widespread adoption of large-scale applications
• XRP bets on the transformation of bank payments

The Smartest Play: Multi-Chain Configuration

• 60% BTC (Anchor)
• 30% ETH (Mainstream Eco)
• 10% SOL/XRP (gambling income)

Market Forecast

ETH: Looking at $6,500-$10,000 by the end of the year, provided that Layer 2 really takes off and institutions continue to buy.

BTC: The most stable, halvening cycle + continuous inflow from spot ETF = slow upward trend, target $185,000

SOL: Firedancer can achieve 1 million TPS, which would be a breakthrough; otherwise, it's just empty talk.

Conclusion: There are no absolute winners, only issues of adaptability. A smart investment portfolio should be a combination of “stable returns from main positions + small-scale trial and error innovations.”