If you judge the cryptocurrency market by Bitcoin’s (BTC-USD) performance in 2023, it might be seemingly easy to suggest three cryptos to buy for the long term. 

However, something tells me that even though Sam Bankman-Fried has been convicted of massive crypto fraud and will spend many years behind bars, I don’t get the sense that all is well in crypto land. 

Let me be clear, I am not an expert in all things crypto, and even when I wrote more often about the industry, I always maintained that only the cryptos providing actual utility through blockchain technology and decentralized finance would have any chance of long-term success. 

As I write my first article in a long time about cryptos to buy and hold, I have no doubt that nothing has changed in that regard. I see most of the top 10 by market capitalization are the same as they were 12 to 24 months ago.   

So, with this in mind, here are three long-term cryptos for those willing to risk it all for fame and fortune. 

Bitcoin (BTC-USD)

I know I said in the introduction that I’m all about utility — and I am — but it’s hard to bet against the biggest player in the industry. As InvestorPlace’s Chris MacDonald said recently, it is, and will remain, the King of Crypto. 

As my colleague points out, it doesn’t hurt that Bitcoin is the most liquid cryptocurrency. Just as stock investors look for liquidity in their investments, so too do crypto owners. That makes total sense. 

Bitcoin is up more than 120% in 2023, about 9x the return of the S&P 500. Has it become the buy-and-hold investment of the next decade? Maybe.

However, JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) analysts believe the recent crypto rally is overdone, suggesting that supposed catalysts like spot ETFs and the coin’s halving in April 2024 will likely have almost no effect on its price.  

Essentially, the analysts feel that current Bitcoin investors in various ETF products will merely move over to the spot ETFs, shuffling the deck shares without adding to the size of the party. As for the halving effect, they feel it’s already priced in. 

It appears not much has changed in crypto land, making Bitcoin the best bet for the long term.    

XRP (XRP-USD)

Ripple, the crypto-based money transfer and payments network, recently said it was working with African fintech Onafriq to expand the blockchain-based payments corridor between Africa, the Middle East, the U.K. and Australia.

“Three new blockchain-based payments corridors will open between Onafriq users in Africa and customers of PayAngel in the U.K., Pyypl in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), and Zazi Transfer in Australia, according to an announcement Wednesday at Swell, Ripple’s annual conference, in Dubai,” Coindesk reported.

Onafriq serves more than 400 million mobile wallets in Africa, making it a major player on the continent. Everything Ripple does in this arena trickles down to XRP (XRP-USD) by demonstrating that its use cases involve actual utility. That will get me every time; I don’t care how volatile the coin is. 

XRP is up over 95% in 2023, so it has benefited from the crypto rally too. It certainly didn’t hurt that the Dubai Financial Services Authority approved the token for use in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), allowing firms operating in the DIFC to use XRP for their virtual asset services. 

Compared to the other imposter cryptos, this news ought to be encouraging to XRP boosters. 

Solana (SOL-USD)

Solana (SOL-USD) is the smallest of my three cryptos by market cap at $21.6 billion. According to CoinMarketCap.com, it’s the seventh-largest cryptocurrency. 

Coindesk.com reported that Solana-based products had assets under management of $140 million at the end of October, growing by 74.1% from September. DeFi and Blockchain news is always good to hear. 

InvestorPlace contributor Matthew Farley wrote on Nov. 1 that ETF provider VanEck is very high on Solana. It thinks Solana could appreciate by 10,000% over the next seven years. That’s a pretty decent compound annual growth rate. It feels Solana has “unmatched data throughput,” making NFT minting more affordable. 

I did not realize NFTs were still a thing. I’m only half facetious about my comment.

Former Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) executive Raoul Pal recently said that Solana could become the third-largest crypto behind Bitcoin and Ethereum (ETH-USD). In a bit of hyperbole, Pal apparently said that Solana’s strong fundamentals make it a leader in the blockchain and DeFi field. 

While it sounds like the usual B.S. that’s been thrown about since the crypto boom in 2021, I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. 

On the date of publication, Will Ashworth did not hold (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.

Will Ashworth has written about investments full-time since 2008. Publications where he’s appeared include InvestorPlace, The Motley Fool Canada, Investopedia, Kiplinger, and several others in both the U.S. and Canada. He particularly enjoys creating model portfolios that stand the test of time. He lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia.