The Biden administration has been critical of crypto, with banks hesitant, regulators aggressive, and adoption slowing. However, a Trump presidency could shift this landscape. Despite Trump’s previous skepticism of cryptocurrencies, a change in leadership might quickly alter the regulatory environment. Right now, investors have reason to consider the crypto sector one of the hot button issues on the ballot this year, with plenty of volatility likely in store for top digital assets.

Unfortunately for many investors, the crypto market’s recent performance has been underwhelming to say the least. The market has declined considerably in recent days, as market turmoil has affected risk assets negatively across the board. With the Yen carry trade unwinding, the Nikkei 225 seeing its largest single-day drop since Black Monday in 1987, and Treasury yields plummeting, signs of a recession are starting to get priced into a number of assets in the market. Unfortunately, this has meant much more significant losses for higher-beta assets such as cryptos, relative to even the most speculative equities out there, in recent days.

That said, for defensive investors, I think there are three digital assets which really stand out as the stalwarts worth buying. Here’s a list of the three cryptos I think long-term investors can buy and hold and sleep (relatively) well at night.

Bitcoin (BTC)

Surging past $70,000 in early 2024 in tandem with a long-awaited halving and the SEC approval of spot ETFs, Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC) has certainly been a top crypto outperformer this year. One might not necessarily think that, given the fact that Bitcoin has recently dropped below $56,000 per token, and looks poised for further downside from here, given all the recent selling pressure in the market. 

The thing is, a weaker dollar, interest rate cuts, and an eventual resumption of higher multiples and rising asset values should bode well for Bitcoin over the long-term. Indeed, investors who bought previous dips in the world’s largest cryptocurrency have historically not been disappointed. That is, so long as these investors did not sell near market troughs.

I think the long-term outlook for Bitcoin as a digital store of value, and an effective call option on the possibility of digital assets becoming mainstream as payments systems, remains intact. For those looking at a cryptocurrency with strong supply and demand fundamentals (thanks to the aforementioned approval of spot ETFs which encourage institutional investment and a recent halving), there’s a lot to like about where Bitcoin is positioned at its current level.

Ethereum (ETH)

Ethereum (CRYPTO:ETH) is the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency, renowned for its status as the layer 1 network where most decentralized finance applications are built. Ethereum was among the first cryptocurrency to come to market allowing for applications to be built on top of its core infrastructure. This first mover advantage means that much of the utility generation happening on chain takes place on Ethereum.

Like Bitcoin, spot ETFs were also approved by the SEC for Ethereum and have recently begun trading. Of course, this launch coincided with a number of the previously mentioned headwinds investors are currently factoring in. So it’s hard to parse out just how beneficial these catalysts have been, given all the selling pressure of late.

But it’s true that plenty of building continues to take place on the Ethereum network. The Ethereum team launched its first hackathon, the “Attackathon,” with a $2 million reward pool for identifying protocol vulnerabilities. Security researchers had four weeks to find impactful bugs, guided by specific rules. Immunefi will compile a report on the findings after the event. Despite recent challenges, Ethereum’s strong recognition after Bitcoin makes it a solid investment choice, likely to benefit as digital assets gain traction.

Solana (SOL)

As of August 1, Solana (CRYPTO:SOL) has surpassed Ethereum in terms of DEX trading volume and price growth. Solana’s DEX reached $55.876 billion in trading volume, with Ethereum trailing at $53.86 billion. Thus, as far as crypto projects in the “Ethereum killer” bucket are concerned, it’s clear Solana’s recent activity points to an ecosystem that’s growing at light speed, with no signs of slowing.

Much of this has to do with Solana’s core infrastructure, supported by a unique proof-of-history consensus mechanism. This technological setup allows Solana to process thousands of transactions per second at a fraction of the cost of Ethereum. For users looking to make small transactions, that’s a real beneficial upside. No one wants to pay $20 or $50 in transaction fees to purchase an NFT that may be worth far less than that – it’s one of the key reasons Solana continues to take market share in certain pockets of the DeFi market.

I expect this trend to continue over time. And it’s worth noting that while downtime has hampered this project in the past, with various outages spooking investors during the previous “crypto winter,” it’s also true that the Solana Foundation team has done a great job of ironing out previous growing pains. So long as this remains the case, this is a long-term crypto worth considering at current levels, at least in my view.

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