Following the fourth Bitcoin (BTC-USD) halving on Apr. 19, we arent seeing the explosive growth promised by many experts in the field, which is why investors are now looking for cryptos to avoid rather than buy.

Experts agree that Bitcoins halving will raise prices. The slower number of new coins entering circulation after previous halvings caused Bitcoin prices to rise significantly higher.

SkyBridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci predicts Bitcoin might reach $200,000 within a year following the split. Ark Invests Cathie Wood is even more bullish. She believes Bitcoin may reach $1 million and alter wealth management. So does Jack Dorsey, CEO of Square (NYSE:SQ).

Yet Bitcoin might not be alone. Although it is a store of value, Ethereum (ETH-USD) might rise in value because it boasts upgrades such as Dencun, which introduces proto-danksharding with EIP-4844. According to Ethereum, it is a way for rollups to add cheaper data to blocks.

No such luck when it comes to the cryptos to avoid we will explore. The first name is in a legal battle with a key U.S. regulator, which could affect the sector. The second is the largest exchange but is in legal trouble in many countries. Well conclude with a meme coin to profit from.

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Ripple (XRP-USD) makes it easier to exchange cash and digital currencies. It is targeting a total addressable market projected to grow at 7.3% annually between 2023 and 2032 and eventually reach $356.5 trillion, according to Allied Market Research.

However, despite its potential, a long-burning issue investors need to take into account when dealing with XRP is the case between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Ripple Labs.

Last year saw a big development when Judge Analisa Torres ruled that Ripple did not break securities laws when it sold XRP to exchanges and let regular people invest, but did break the law when it sold tokens directly to institutions. As it was a partial win, Ripple gained 96% after the decision. Unfortunately, those wins were lost on Dec. 20 as Solana (SOL-USD) passed XRP to become the fifth-largest cryptocurrency on the crypto market.

Whats more, as a part of the final decision in the SEC case, Ripple can potentially suffer a $1.95 billion fine. That could result in a drop from its current price of $0.5051, which is up a modest 18% in 2024.

Stuart Alderoty, Ripples top legal officer, says the issue could be resolved in 2024, making it one of the cryptos to avoid right now.

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Over 170 million people use Binance (BNB-USD), the biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the world. However, its legal issues, especially in the U.S., put pressure on BNB, the cryptocurrency coin used to trade and pay fees on the exchange.

As part of its deal with the Justice Dept., Binance left the U.S. market and paid off big debts to FinCEN, OFAC, and foreign asset tracking agencies.

So far, Binance is also unable to reenter the U.K. market due to regulatory issues. Meanwhile, a Binance executive arrested in Nigeria is now on trial after reports of involvement in major crimes.

In Canada, Binance has been fined many times for breaking anti-money laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism rules. This includes a $4.4 million fine for helping with many big acquisitions without being registered.

However, Binance is still coming up with new ideas in the coin area. Binance Wallet has recently started to accept Bitcoin Atomic ARC-20 assets, which will make it easier to do NFT deals.

Nevertheless, the court battles, especially in the U.S., will continue to dampen BNBs outlook.

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Shiba Inu (SHIB-USD) finishes off our discussion on cryptos to avoid, and it might seem strange, considering, the 166% gain this year. But this is one of the biggest meme coins around, which means its time to take profits.

The meme coin is mostly appealing because of its community and the possibility of future gains. It doesnt have a strong use case or value outside of the speculative market, which sometimes will rally for the odd Elon Musk tweet. For risk-averse investors, its better to invest in Ethereum and Solana instead.

Ethereum has integrated proto-dank sharding with EIP-4844 to Dencun. Less data to analyze and regular memory deletion to clear up space make transactions more efficient. The network should eventually handle 100,000 transactions per second. Meanwhile, the Scourge phase addresses Ethereum network control and economic inequality. MEV (Maximal Extractable Value) Burn in ePBS and Proposer-Builder Separation decentralizes transaction addition and reduces validators influence on transaction selection.

Solana has been enhancing its infrastructure to streamline transactions and stabilize the network. Firedancer, a new validation client, should speed up network transactions. Tests showed it could handle 0.6 million to 1 million transactions per second.

SHIB did power the CoinDesk 20 index to major gains this year. However, investors might want to wait for a tweet from Elon Musk about his next Shiba Inu puppy for the next bump in price, and thats something no one can predict.

On the date of publication, Faizan Farooque did not have (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.comPublishing Guidelines.

Faizan Farooque is a contributing author for InvestorPlace.com and numerous other financial sites. Faizan has several years of experience in analyzing the stock market and was a former data journalist at S&P Global Market Intelligence. His passion is to help the average investor make more informed decisions regarding their portfolio.

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Cryptocurrency Warning: Avoid These 3 Failing Names - InvestorPlace