Tracking 2019 Top Ten Cryptocurrencies – Month Thirty - Top Ten Crypto Index Fund Experiments

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Month Thirty – UP 341%

While not quite as bad as last month, June was still very bloody for the 2019 Top Ten. Despite a rough couple of months (May was all-red as well), the 2019 Top Ten Crypto Index Fund portfolio is up +341% since its inception.

June Movement Report, Ranking, and Dropouts

Not a ton of movement this month for the 2019 Top Ten Portfolio:

Ups:

BSV – up 3 places (#34–>#31)
Bitcoin Cash – up one place (#13–>#12)

Downs:

Tron – down one place (#24–>#25)
EOS – down 4 places (#23–>#27)
Stellar – down 5 places (#16–>#21) and now out of the Top Twenty

Top Ten dropouts since January 2019: After thirty months, 60% of the cryptos that started in the Top Ten in January 2019 have been knocked out. EOS, Litecoin, BSV, Stellar, Bitcoin Cash, and Tron have been replaced by Binance Coin, Doge, Cardano, UNI, USDC, and Polkadot.

Although it gained some ground in June, BSV is the only one of the 2019 Top Ten cryptos that has dropped out of the Top Thirty.

June Winners and Losers

June Winners – Besides Tether, Bitcoin had the least bad month, finishing June down -9%.

June Losers – down -38% in June, EOS was handed its first monthly loss since the 2019 Experiment began thirty months ago. Close behind, Stellar is the second worst performer of June, down -37%.

Tally of Monthly Winners and Losers

Which crypto holds the most wins or losses over the life of the project? Here’s a snapshot of the winners and losers over the first thirty months of the 2019 Top Ten Experiment:

By a large margin, Tether still has the greatest number of monthly victories (9) followed by BTC with five. In other words, 30% of the time (nine times out of thirty months) every crypto in the 2019 Top Ten Portfolio has finished the month in the red.

Every crypto has won at least one month since January 2019. After thirty months, EOS notched its first monthly loss in June.

Overall Update – ETH still way ahead, all cryptos in positive territory, EOS worst performing

Have a time machine? Go back to the start of the 2019 Experiment and pick yourself up some Ethereum. ETH is easily the best performer of this group and has nearly doubled the return of BTC (1,438% vs 784%) as of this report.

The $100 investment into first place ETH on January 1st, 2019 is currently worth $1,579. Not bad.

After thirty months, 100% of the cryptos in the 2019 Top Ten Portfolio are in positive territory. Not counting stablecoin Tether, the worst performing crypto is EOS, which is still up +55%.

Although the 2019 Top Ten Portfolio is up an impressive +341%, it is still second place behind the best performing of the four Experiments: the 2020 Top Ten is up +469%.

Total Market Cap for the Entire Cryptocurrency Sector:

The entire cryptocurrency sector is up +982% since January 2019. That’s still well behind first place ETH (+1,438%) but much better than the rest of the cryptos (including second place Bitcoin’s +784%) and much, much better than the Top Ten approach.

After reaching $2T a few months ago, the total market cap lost $265 billion in June. In terms of crypto market cap value, we’re back near where we were in February.

Bitcoin Dominance:

A bounce in June helped lift the BitDom from last month’s 2019 Top Ten Index Fund Experiment record low. For context, the table above shows the progression over the last thirty months with BTC domination ranging between 42% last month to a 70% high way back in August of 2019.

If you’re curious as to what happened last time Bitcoin Dominance fell into the low 40s and 30s, check out the 2018 Top Ten Experiment.

Overall return on $1,000 investment since January 1st, 2019:

The 2019 Top Ten Cryptos Portfolio lost $1,180 in June. A big drop, but not quite as bad as the $1933 it lost in May. After thirty months the value of the initial $1000 investment is $4,414, up +341%. The 2019 Portfolio is back to where it was in February 2021.

Here’s a table summarizing the monthly ROI over the life of the 2019 Top Ten Index Fund experiment, which provides a pretty good sense of the journey to this point:

Fairly steady upward movements punctuated by some very big dips. During the Zombie Apocalypse, for example, the 2019 Top Ten Portfolio was returning only +6%.

At +341%, the 2019 Top Ten Portfolio is the second best performing out of the four Experiments. First place is the 2020 Top Ten group of cryptos, up +469% as of this report.

Combining the 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021 Top Ten Crypto Portfolios

Speaking of other Top Ten Portfolios, let’s put them all together now:

2018 Top Ten Experiment: down -1% (total value $989)
2019 Top Ten Experiment: up +341% (total value $4,414)
2020 Top Ten Experiment: up +469% (total value $5,688)
2021 Top Ten Experiment: up +184% (total value $2,840)

Taking the four portfolios together, here’s the bottom bottom bottom bottom line:

After a $4,000 investment in the 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021 Top Ten Cryptocurrencies, the combined portfolios are worth $13,931 ($989 + $4,414 + $5,688 + $2,840).

That’s up +248% on the combined portfolio. Two big monthly drops in a row: the combined portfolios are back to where they were in February.

Here’s a table to help visualize the progress of the combined portfolios:

In summary: That’s an +248% gain by investing $1k on whichever cryptos happened to be in the Top Ten on January 1st for four straight years.

Top Ten Index vs. Top Five Index

Inspired by a suggestion from one of our blog readers, let’s take a look at how the 2019 Top Ten approach would compare to a hypothetical Top Five Index.

A Top Five 2019 Index would mean investing $200 into BTC, XRP, ETH, BCH, and EOS.

After thirty months, a Top Five Index would be worth $6,260, returning 526%. That’s compared to the $4,414 (+341%) returns of the 2019 Top Ten.

Once again, it is very clear that going with the five largest caps on January 1st, 2019 would have been the much better approach.

Alright, that’s crypto. How does crypto compare to the stock market?

Comparison to S&P 500:

I’m also tracking the S&P 500 as part of the experiments to have a comparison point with traditional markets. A solid month for the stock market and yet another all time high for the S&P:

Because the S&P 500 Index is up 71% since January 2019, the initial $1k investment I put into crypto 2.5 years ago would be worth $1,720 had it been redirected to the S&P 500 in January 2019.

Even though an extremely solid return for traditional markets, that +72% return is nearly two hundred and seventy percentage points behind the return of the 2019 Top Ten Portfolio over the same time period.

But what if I took the same world’s-slowest-dollar-cost-averaging $1,000-per-year-on-January-1st-Crypto-Index-Fund-Experiment approach with the S&P 500? It would yield the following:

$1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2018 = $1620 today
$1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2019 = $1720 today
$1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2020 = $1340 today
$1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2021 = $1150 today

Taken together, here’s the bottom bottom bottom bottom line for a similar approach with the S&P:

After four $1,000 investments into an S&P 500 index fund in January 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021, my portfolio would be worth $5,830 ($1,620 + $1,720 + $1,340 + $1,150)

That is up +46% since January 2018 compared to a +248% gain of the combined Top Ten Crypto Experiment Portfolios, a difference of over 200 percentage points in favor of crypto.

Here’s a table providing an overview of the four year ROI comparison between a Top Ten Crypto approach and the S&P:

That’s a nine month streak and a 202% lead for crypto, about the same as a few months ago in February.

Conclusion:

Two straight red months, where do we go from here? Are the crypto bears or the crypto bulls right? No one knows: anyone who says they do is selling you something. Hopefully these numbers help provide a bit of perspective as you, dear reader, are trying to make an informed decision. Be careful out there and don’t put your mental, physical, or financial health at risk chasing the gainz. If crypto is causing you to lose sleep at night, chances are you have too much in crypto: try to think long term, don’t invest what you can’t afford to lose. Gosh, crypto can be nuts: if you do decide to jump in, buckle up and enjoy the ride.

To both old-timers and newcomers: thanks so much for taking the time to read and for supporting the Top Ten Crypto Index Fund Experiments. I hope you find the updates helpful in terms of perspective as you navigate this strange and exciting crypto landscape.

Feel free to reach out with any questions and stay tuned for progress reports. Keep an eye out for my parallel projects tracking the Top Ten cryptos as of January 1st, 2018 (the OG experiment), January 1st, 2020, and most recently, January 1st, 2021.

This article contains affiliate links. If you click on a link in this article, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

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Tracking 2019 Top Ten Cryptocurrencies – Month Thirty