XRP vs HBAR: Which Altcoin Will Win 2025?

Made in the USA coins continue to shine and are worth almost $500 billion. But most of us are small investors, and we can’t invest in every single US project. So, how do we choose?

Today, we look at two of the top Made in the US projects. Ripple (XRP) and Hedera Hashgraph (HBAR). And we ask the question, which will have a better rest of 2025? Which would you pick? Let’s see which one we picked.

Recent Performance

If we are going to compare Ripple and Hedera, then we should first look at how they’ve done recently. To do that, we will look at 2 time periods. First, we will look at the last year. Then we will look at the returns for 2025 so far. And we’ll compare the performance.

• XRP

Ripple’s $XRP has had a crusher of a last 12 months. It’s up an enormous 401% in that time. Of the coins in the top 300, $XRP is the #8 performer in the market in the last 12 months. Better than Sui. Better than Monero. Even better than Bitcoin, who is up 65% in the last 12 months. Virtuals Protocol is the only non-meme coin with a better performance in the last 12 months.

And we see in the chart that the climb started in mid to late November. Not coincidentally, this is in line with Trump’s clear victory in the election. Along with its correct implications that the next SEC would settle the XRP case and be more friendly to work with in general.  Both are true, by the way. The increasing clarity for $XRP’s future as a result of the upcoming settlement has been a boon for the XRP Army.

Returns over the last 5 months are good but more modest. As I just said, the huge push has been since November. On January 1, the $XRP price was $2.32. At its current price of $2.54, that’s an ROI of 8.6%. That’s still good performance in what’s been an uneven market with lots of chaotic activity like Trump’s tariff policies. So $XRP is in at 450% and 8.6% respectively. Now for Hedera.

• HBAR

Let’s see how Hedera (HBAR) did. We know it did not do as well in the last 12 months. But how well did it do? Hedera’s $HBAR had a very respectable 91% ROI in the last 12 months. It’s huge push happened in mid-late November as well through mid-December. $HBAR is mostly non-trending since that time, moving between 15c and the recent high at 37c. Yes, that’s a big, wide range. But it’s still non-trending. The solid support just under 15c held up, and $HBAR has been on a slow, steady rise since.

For 2025 so far, on January 1st, the $HBAR price was 29.4c. At its current price of 21c, this is a loss of just under 30%. So $HBAR’s returns are 91% and -30%, respectively. This seems like an advantage for Ripple. But is it? Let’s see.

Latest News & Future Prospects

On the XRP front, recent news is mostly around acquisitions. First, it’s a huge acquisition of Hidden Road. This gives them access to a global prime broker for institutional trades.

Second is the offer, not accepted, to buy Circle, the operator of USDC. You could say, as the XRP Army is saying, that this acquisition is to dominate the stablecoin market. Or you could say it’s because Ripple’s RLUSD is a failure. It could still become successful someday. Yet, today it has less than 50 daily users and fewer than 100 transactions a day. It’s failing. And Ripple needs a stablecoin to help implement its CBDC products to emerging market governments.

On the Hedera front, it’s doing a deep dive into RWA with a new permissioned chain so regulated assets can list with compliance from its regulators. It will work well with stablecoins or even CBDCs, too. The full launch is coming sometime next quarter.

Tokenizing is a key feature of its recent partnerships with Tokeny and Kabila, too. These are just two of many working with Hedera.

Tokenomics

Amazingly, even with the consistent dumping on retail that Chris Larsen and other Ripple insiders do, Ripple still controls a huge amount of $XRP. Plus, after all these many years, there’s still only 58.5 billion $XRP in circulation out of just under 100 billion total. That’s 59%. And this number should be much higher.

Hedera, on the other hand, has its holders saying this about it. It has a full 84% of its 50 billion total supply in circulation. This is more of what we are expecting from 2 very long-term projects that have been in the market for years.

Hedera has a fixed token release schedule, so holders know what to expect. Its Governing Council, which manages all the validators as well, manages the emission schedule.

Like $XRP with its history of dumping on retail, $HBAR’s main complaint is that it’s a permissioned chain managed by the validators with permission and not an open, permissionless chain.

So, despite the strengths of both projects, you sort of have to pick your poison.

Conclusion

So, who do we think will have a better 2nd half of 2025? I think without a big catalyst of a huge new partnership or big new government client that Ripple has gotten as much out of the SEC settlement for gains in the $XRP token that it will get. While both Hedera and Ripple work with governments and on CBDCs, they do some of this work together, so I don’t think one gets a big edge over the other.

Its better tokenomics and better positioning for the fast-growing RWA sector give Hedera and its $HBAR token an edge for me. At least for the rest of this year and the current or upcoming alt seasons. Who knows about future cycles? But I am more comfortable buying $HBAR today at these prices than I am with $XRP at today’s prices.

I do expect both projects to be profitable for holders for the rest of this cycle, though. I just think $HBAR has a higher ceiling right now. So that’s my choice. It’s Hedera Hashgraph.

What do you think? Which project do you prefer? Or maybe some other Made in the USA coin? Let us know in the comments below.

Disclaimer

The information discussed by Altcoin Buzz is not financial advice. This is for educational, entertainment, and informational purposes only. Any information or strategies are thoughts and opinions relevant to the accepted risk tolerance levels of the writer/reviewers, and their risk tolerance may differ from yours. We are not responsible for any losses you may incur due to any investments directly or indirectly related to the information provided. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are high-risk investments, so please do your due diligence. Copyright Altcoin Buzz Pte Ltd.