One of the greatest appeals of cryptocurrencies is their massive potential. That market can be very challenging, and investors are often swept away by some of the sudden, huge gains they read about each year. There are dozens of cryptocurrencies with more than a 100% gain in the last seven days.
However, chasing these kinds of gains can be frustrating, as for every success story, there are digital coins that fade away just as quickly, leaving investors with a proverbial pile of dust. It’s impossible to predict which cryptocurrencies will be the next big winners and which will vanish into obscurity.
However, you don’t need to chase crypto to build wealth. You can find some great companies in the stock market that will give you outsize gains and make crypto investors green with envy. Tech stocks have been some of the best investments you can make in the last year, and I’m expecting that to continue in 2026.
If you want explosive growth potential, I’d wager that these four tech stocks are great possibilities — and all of them have a compelling growth story that makes them superior to cryptocurrencies.
Image source: Getty Images.
It’s true that Palantir Technologies(NASDAQ: PLTR) isn’t a perfect company. Its valuation is a major concern, with a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 267 and a forward price-to-sales (P/S) ratio of 104 at the time of this writing. Those numbers indicate that for a typical company, these shares are extraordinarily expensive and the stock could be ripe for a correction.
But Palantir isn’t a typical company. The data analytics company is growing fast thanks to its Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP), which allows users to access Palantir’s powerful network with minimal training. Palantir saw 63% revenue growth in the third quarter as it closed 204 deals valued at more than $1 million each. It’s in high demand among both military and commercial clients.
Palantir stock is up 155% so far this year — the third-best performance in the Nasdaq-100 — and that follows gains of 167% in 2023 and 340% in 2024.
I would be shocked if Palantir stock doesn’t grow another 100% or more in 2026.
Semiconductor maker Nvidia(NASDAQ: NVDA) has been slowing down as of late — but who can really expect the stock price to maintain its torrid pace? Nvidia shares rose 819% from 2023 to 2024, and followed that up with a 37% gain in 2025.
Nvidia is best known for its graphics processing units (GPUs), which are bundled by the thousands in data centers to train and run high-level artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning programs. Nvidia holds a substantial lead in the data center chip market, with estimates ranging from 86% to 92% of its market share. Its huge advantage stems from chip superiority as well as its CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) parallel computing architecture that allows developers to write and develop code on Nvidia GPUs.
Nvidia reported in its last quarter that it sold out of data center GPUs, and its Blackwell line is flying off the proverbial shelves. When Nvidia rolls out its next-generation architecture Rubin line in 2026, I’m expecting equally strong demand.
We’re seeing incredible growth in data centers, and that’s going to continue through 2026 and beyond. As more companies develop AI products to help manage their businesses or draw in new customers, there’s an increasing demand for data centers to cluster GPUs and run AI programs. Researchers at BloombergNEF estimate that at least 150 data center projects have been announced in the U.S. over the last year, and data center power demand in the U.S. is expected to grow from 25 gigawatts to 106 gigawatts by 2035.
Iren Limited(NASDAQ: IREN) has six data centers in Texas and Canada with 2.9 GW of capacity. And it has a new $9.7 billion deal with Microsoft to provide cloud computing capacity using Nvidia GPUs.
Building data centers is really expensive, but Iren has an advantage because it makes most of its money from Bitcoin mining, which allows it to operate at a profit while other data center companies are operating in the red. It made $232.9 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2026 from Bitcoin mining, accounting for nearly all of its $240.3 million of total revenue.
Iren gives you the advantage of Bitcoin — the most stable cryptocurrency — without holding the coins yourself. And you also get to invest in a tech stock that has its fingers in data center expansion.
This one may sound a little out of left field, as Credo Technology(NASDAQ: CRDO) is down 21% since Dec. 22. But I’m confident that this is just temporary weakness, as Credo is an indispensable company for the data center expansion already discussed.
Credo makes the wiring that links GPUs together in data centers. Instead of traditional wiring, Credo’s active electrical cables (AECs) include signal processors that help the data move faster and more efficiently. Management says they are 1,000 times more reliable and consume half the power as optical wiring.
Credo’s revenue in the second quarter of fiscal 2026 (ending Nov. 1, 2025) was $268 million, up 272% from a year ago. Income of $82.6 million resulted in earnings of $0.44 per share.
Despite the recent pullback, Credo stock is up 121% this year and has a strong runway ahead of it.
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Patrick Sanders has positions in Nvidia and Palantir Technologies. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Microsoft, Nvidia, and Palantir Technologies. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
