The cryptocurrency industry suffered broad losses during 2025, with some of the largest coins and the most speculative tokens alike ending the year in the red. In fact, the combined value of all cryptocurrencies in circulation currently stands at $3.1 trillion, which is down 28% from its all-time high. Bitcoin (BTC), XRP, and Dogecoin are three of the industry’s most popular cryptocurrencies, but they moved lower in 2025. We’re only a week into 2026, but all three of those cryptocurrencies are comfortably in the green already.
Ripple is the company behind the Ripple Payments network, which allows global banks to settle cross-border transfers with one another directly and instantly, and it created XRP to standardize each transaction, cutting out costly foreign exchange fees. For example, a British bank might send XRP to an American bank instead of sending British pounds, incurring a transaction cost of just 0.00001 XRP tokens. In 2025, XRP benefited from the SEC settlement and the approval of the first spot XRP exchange-traded funds, fueling a new high, but it ended the year in the red due to structural issues. Banks aren’t required to use XRP to enable instant cross-border payments, so the network’s success won’t necessarily boost XRP’s value, and Ripple also launched Ripple USD, a stablecoin designed for payments, reducing volatility.
Dogecoin was created in 2013 by two friends who felt the cryptocurrency industry was taking itself too seriously, and it became the industry’s original meme-token. It never found a widespread real-world use case, and only about 2,141 businesses accept it worldwide, according to Cryptwerk, making it one of the biggest losers in 2025. It isn’t a reliable store of value either, having not set a new high since 2021, and its rallies have historically depended on speculative hype. Speculative investors have driven rallies, notably with Elon Musk’s promotion, but without a concrete plan to create real value, Dogecoin is likely to keep sinking.
Bitcoin’s $1.8 trillion market cap accounts for more than half of the total value of all cryptocurrencies in circulation, and it remains one of the few coins that consistently climbs to new highs. It is widely viewed as a store of value due to its decentralization, a capped supply of 21 million coins, and a transparent blockchain. It’s hard to predict how high Bitcoin will go in the long term, with some comparisons to gold and ambitious price targets, but near-term gains depend on broader market sentiment. The verdict is that Bitcoin has the best chance of delivering a positive return in 2026, as XRP and Dogecoin face ongoing structural challenges and BTC maintains a growing store-of-value narrative.
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