Altcoins & the Art of Hopeful Spending

My aunt Carol, bless her heart, called last week. She’d seen a TikTok about altcoins – anything that isn’t Bitcoin, for those of us still clinging to recognizable currencies – and was convinced she’d stumbled onto the path to early retirement. She wanted my opinion. As an equity researcher, I’m supposed to offer informed insights. What I actually did was explain the concept of “market capitalization” three times and then pretended my connection was bad. It’s a slippery slope, you see. One minute you’re explaining scarcity, the next she’s remortgaging the house for something called DogeBonk.

Altcoins. They’re the financial equivalent of those “As Seen on TV” gadgets that promise to solve problems you didn’t know you had. Bitcoin, at least, has a certain… heft. It’s the grumpy uncle at the family reunion. These others? They’re more like the hyperactive cousins who insist they’ve invented a self-folding laundry system. Still, ignoring them entirely feels… irresponsible. There’s a peculiar energy to the market right now, a sort of desperate optimism. And occasionally, something interesting bubbles to the surface. Two coins, Solana and Cardano, have been accruing a little more than just hype. Not enough to fund my own retirement, mind you, but enough to warrant a slightly closer look.

Solana

Solana, I’m told, is a bit like Ethereum, but faster. Which, in the world of blockchain, is apparently a significant achievement. It’s all about “proof-of-stake” and “smart contracts,” terms that still sound vaguely threatening to me. They’ve added something called “proof-of-history,” which sounds like a really complicated way to timestamp things. The claim is that it allows for thousands of transactions per second. I tried to explain this to my father, who still believes the internet is a series of tubes. He asked if it meant he could finally get a faster connection for his online bridge games.

Apparently, Visa and Shopify are dabbling with it, which is either a sign of genuine innovation or a desperate attempt to appear relevant to the younger generation. There are 17,708 developers building on Solana, which sounds impressive until you realize that’s still less than the number of people who complain about airline baggage fees on Twitter. The biggest issue? There’s no cap on the number of Solana tokens. It’s like a bakery that keeps making croissants indefinitely. Scarcity, it turns out, is a key ingredient in the whole cryptocurrency recipe. Still, the recent approval of staking ETFs could bring in some institutional money. Which, in turn, could lead to more… hope. It’s a vicious cycle.

Cardano

Cardano, on the other hand, is the meticulously planned, over-engineered cousin of Solana. Everything is peer-reviewed, rigorously tested, and probably comes with a 500-page instruction manual. They claim it’s all about scalability and security. I suspect it’s also about making sure everything is done exactly right, even if it takes a little longer. They have around 250 developers, which is… a dedicated team. My aunt Carol, I imagine, would approve of their methodical approach.

Cardano does have a limited supply, which is good. They’re also working on something called “Hydra,” which sounds like a mythical beast designed to process transactions at lightning speed. They’re hoping it will attract larger companies and government clients. It’s a sensible plan. A little boring, perhaps, but sensible. They’re also developing a privacy upgrade, which could appeal to industries with a lot to hide. It’s a crowded field, of course. But the combination of limited supply and potential partnerships could make Cardano a worthwhile long-term investment. Or, at the very least, a slightly less reckless one.

I haven’t told my aunt Carol about Cardano yet. I’m afraid she’d want to buy all 45 billion tokens. And honestly, I’m not sure I could stop her.

2026-03-20 09:12

Solana

Cardano

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