The $100 Crypto Play You Can’t Afford to Miss in 2025

Forget waiting for the perfect entry—sometimes the best moves start small. While Wall Street hedgies debate their next yacht purchase, a crisp Benjamin can still position you for serious crypto upside if you know where to look.

Spotting Hidden Gems

Micro-cap tokens continue outperforming blue-chips during recovery phases. Recent data shows assets under $500M market cap pumping 3-4x faster than top ten cryptos after market corrections. That $100 could become $300 faster than your traditional savings account earns interest in a decade.

Infrastructure Plays Printing

Layer-2 scaling solutions and AI-driven protocols ate everyone's lunch this cycle. Projects solving actual throughput issues saw 900%+ growth while legacy chains flatlined. The narrative shifted from 'number go up' to 'utility actually matters'—and smart money noticed.

Timing Beats Perfection

Dollar-cost averaging into fundamentally sound projects beats trying to nail absolute bottoms. Historical patterns suggest current levels offer 2021-esque opportunities before the next mania phase hits. Just don't expect your bank's financial advisor to tell you that—they're still trying to figure out how to short Bitcoin with your 401(k).

DeFi's Silent Comeback

Yield farming protocols quietly hit new ATHs while NFT markets collapsed. Real yield generation outperformed speculative JPEG flipping by 8:1 last quarter. The lesson? Cash flow still king, even in crypto.

Bottom line: That hundred bucks gathering dust? It's either future gains or another mediocre dinner out. Your move.

Image source: Getty Images

1. Regulatory tailwinds

To start, look no further than the regulatory tides lifting all the cryptocurrency boats. The TRUMP administration has been a tremendous ally to the cryptocurrency industry by:

• Peeling back regulatory scrutiny and litigation against companies in the industry.
• Planning to establish a federal Bitcoin reserve and digital asset stockpile via executive order.
• Helping to pass the Genius Act, which is aimed at establishing clearer regulatory frameworks for digital currencies and their real-world applications.

These moves are a step toward making cryptocurrencies a mainstream asset.

2. Institutional money flowing in

Institutional interest is gaining steam as the regulatory climate thaws. Corporations, banks, and investment funds have substantial buying power.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved the creation of spot Ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs) last summer. These ETFs hold Ether on behalf of the fund's investors, giving people a simple way to invest without having actual custody of the tokens. That means no need to fuss with wallets or seed phrases. Since then, more $12 billion has flowed into U.S. spot Ether ETFs.

Additionally, President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order that WOULD pave the way for retirement accounts like 401(k)s to have access to alternative assets, such as cryptocurrencies. With time, this could spark further interest in Ether and other cryptocurrencies. There are more than $40 trillion in total U.S. retirement assets, and even a tiny fraction of that going into digital assets could mean a massive inflow of funds.

3. The Ethereum network is evolving

Smart contracts could eventually play a significant role in society. A smart contract is a digitally coded agreement that automatically executes an action under the specified conditions. A blockchain is a decentralized and secure ledger system, an ideal avenue for smart contracts. The Ethereum blockchain is currently the largest, by a wide margin, based on its total locked value, with more than $121 billion in smart contracts. The next closest areand, with just over $8 billion and $6 billion, respectively.

To stay on top, the Ethereum network has a roadmap for upgrades. Previously, the Merge transitioned Ethereum from a proof-of-work system to a proof-of-stake system. This reduced the network's energy consumption, improved its security, and set the stage for several planned upgrades.

Those upgrades include the Verge, Purge, and Splurge, which will make the network more efficient, lower transaction fees, and enhance scalability, enabling nodes to run on smaller hardware devices, such as smartphones. While there is competition from other blockchains, and Ethereum isn't the best at everything, its current size and continuous improvements bode well for its future as a pillar of the digital economy.

Ether's price outlook looks promising

It's anyone's guess how high Ether's price will go, and it's bound to be volatile. That said, Ethereum looks like a strong buy for long-term investors. The token's price still hasn't cleared its all-time high from back in 2021, somethingdid at the beginning of last year. Additionally, its fully diluted market value is still just a quarter of Bitcoin's.

That doesn't mean that Ether is bound to catch Bitcoin, but Ethereum is the world's largest blockchain, and its valuation doesn't reflect that yet. Smart contracts could see increased adoption during the next several years as regulatory barriers fall, which, along with continued inflows from investors and institutions, could drive Ethereum's usage and Ether's price higher over time.