Bitcoin (BTC) has started this week on a positive note, recovering somewhat from a nearly seven-day sell-off and finally trading above $112,000.

Despite the renewed momentum, however, the asset now faces stiff competition as a number of altcoins are also posting gains ahead of potential exchange-traded fund (ETF) releases in the following weeks. 

With that in mind, Finbold turned to OpenAI’s latest artificial intelligence (AI) model, ChatGPT-5, to identify two cryptocurrencies most likely to give Bitcoin a run for its money in 2026

Ethereum (ETH)

The AI’s first pick was Ethereum (ETH), the most widely used smart contract network spanning decentralized finance (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and tokenization.

Its main threat to Bitcoin, however, is the fact that it doubles down as a store of value (via staking) and a utility token, something its counterpart doesn’t offer, ChatGPT argued.

While Ethereum might be down on the monthly chart at the time of writing, unlike its rival, it’s actually the better performer year to date (YtD), having gained around 25% as opposed to 20% delivered by “digital gold.”

Although there’s no telling whether ETH can outperform BTC in the long run, the AI suggests a fairly strong case for it, given how far the asset has come in the past months, especially in terms of regulatory clarity.

This sentiment is also shared by analysts such as Fundstrat’s Tom Lee, who predicted the cryptocurrency price could hit $10,000–$12,000 by year-end, implying a 200% upside.

At press time, Ethereum was trading at $4,171, up 3.76% on the day.

Solana (SOL)

The second place was reserved for Solana (SOL), which the AI says has proven itself in high-speed, low-fee execution despite major network hiccups.

At the time of writing, SOL was trading at $210.93, up 4.67% over the past 24 hours after plunging 20% last week.

Adding to the positive sentiment, more than 1.5 million SOL, worth more than $315 million, has been bought in the past 72 hours as the price hovered below $200, showing clear signs of institutional and whale confidence at the close of the quarter. 

However, new ETF approvals in October would give SOL the biggest boost and ensure more substantial mainstream inflows.

Still, the language learning model (LLM) noted that the crypto is not really a monetary competitor to Bitcoin, but rather a preferred transactional blockchain that could outshine it in real-world payments and adoption.

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