Tracking 2021 Top Ten Cryptocurrencies – Month Eight

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Month Eight – UP 422%

The 2021 Top Ten Crypto Index Fund consists of: BTC, ETH, USDT, XRP, Litecoin, DOT, BCH, ADA, BNB, and LINK.  

August highlights for the 2021 Top Ten Portfolio: 

• First all green month since February 2021.
• 2021 total ROI hit an all time high this month
• Led by first-place ADA, all cryptos posted double digit gains this month.

August Movement Report, Ranking, and Dropouts

Mostly downward movement this month within the 2021 Top Ten Portfolio:

Ups:

• ADA – up two places (#5–>#3)
• LINK – up one place (#13–>#12)

Downs:

• Bitcoin Cash – down two places (#12–>#14)
• Tether – down two places (#3–>#5)
• Litecoin – down one place (#15–>#16)

Top Ten dropouts since January 2021:  Eight months into the 2021 Top Ten Experiment, three cryptos have dropped out: Chainlink, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash.  They have been replaced by SOL, DOGE, and USDC.

August Winners and Losers

August Winners – ADA, hands down wins the month, +130% in August.  Second place DOT had a very strong month as well, +82%.

August Losers –  Besides Tether, Bitcoin cash (+24%) underperformed compared to the rest of the 2021 Top Ten field.

Tally of Monthly Winners and Losers

Eight months into the Experiment, here’s where we stand in terms of the 2021 Top Ten Portfolio’s monthly winners and losers: 

ADA is in the lead with three monthly victories and UST has chalked up three months in the loss column.

Overall Update – ADA flips BNB for the lead, all cryptos in green, Litecoin lagging in 2021.

The 2021 flip-fest between Cardano and Binance Coin continued this month, with ADA flipping BNB a month after being flipped by BNB for first place. They are up +1,583 and +1182% respectively.

The $100 investment into first place ADA eight months ago is now worth $1,682.

Besides Tether, Litecoin is the worst performing cryptocurrency of the 2021 Top Ten Portfolio, up +43% in 2021. 

Total Market Cap for the Entire Cryptocurrency Sector:

The total market finished August at $2.2T, picking up about $623B during the month.  As a sector, crypto is up +187% in the eight month lifespan of the 2021 Top Ten Experiment. 

You may notice that the 2021 Top Ten Portfolio is returning over double the overall crypto market cap (+422% vs. +187%) so far in 2021.  

This is a bit of an outlier: the rest of the Top Ten Experiments are well behind what the overall market has returned in their respective time frames.  Although the 2021 Top Ten approach has held up quite well compared to the overall market so far, I expect to see it fall behind eventually, like the other experiments.

Crypto Market Cap Low Point in the 2021 Top Ten Crypto Index Experiment: $775B in January 2021.

Crypto Market Cap High Point in the 2021 Top Ten Crypto Index Experiment: now and in May 2021.

Bitcoin Dominance:

BitDom dropped to 42% in August.  It was at 46.6% just last month.  

BitDom Low Point in the 2021 Top Ten Crypto Index Experiment: 41.9% in May 2021.

BitDom High Point in the 2020 Top Ten Crypto Index Experiment: 70.4% in  January 2021.

Overall return on $1,000 investment since January 1st, 2021:

The 2021 Portfolio gained nearly $2,087 in August.  Overall, the 2021 Top Ten Portfolio is up +422%, the initial $1000 investment on New Year’s Day 2021 worth $5,224. 

Here’s the month by month ROI of the 2021 Top Ten Experiment, to give you a sense of perspective and provide an overview as we go along:

The 2021 Top Ten Portfolio has had the best start, by far, of any of the four Top Ten Crypto Experiments.  And after three downward months, this portfolio has hit an All Time High.

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

As most readers are aware, this is the fourth year of an Experiment I started back in January of 2018, at the height of the last bull run.  Where do we stand if we combine four years of the Top Ten Crypto Index Fund Experiments?

• 2018 Top Ten Experiment: up 71% (total value $1,708)
• 2019 Top Ten Experiment: up +585% (total value $6,846)
• 2020 Top Ten Experiment: up +847% (total value $9,471)
• 2021 Top Ten Experiment: up +422% (total value $5,224)

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 $23,249 ($1,708 + $6,846 + $9,471 + $5,224).

That’s up +481% when you put all four Top Tens together.

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

That’s a +481% gain by investing $1k into the cryptos that happened to be in the Top Ten on January 1st, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021.

Comparison to S&P 500

I’m also tracking the S&P 500 as part of my experiment to have a comparison point to traditional markets. Yet another all time high for the S&P in August:

The S&P 500 Index is up 20% in 2021.  The initial $1k investment I put into crypto seven months ago would be worth $1,200 had it been redirected to the S&P 500.

The 2021 Top Ten Crypto Portfolio is up +422% over the same time period.  Just over a half a year in, the initial $1k investment in crypto is now worth $5,224.

That’s a difference of $4,024 on a $1k investment in eight months.

What about in the longer term? What if I invested in the S&P 500 the same way I did during the first four years of the Top Ten Crypto Index Fund Experiments? What I like to call the world’s slowest dollar cost averaging method?  Here are the figures:

• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2018 = $1,690 today
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2019 = $1,810 today
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2020 = $1,400 today
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2021 = $1,200 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 $6,100 ($1,690 + $1,810 + $1,400 + $1,200).

That is up +50% since January 2018 compared to a +294% compared to a +481% gain of the combined Top Ten Crypto Experiment Portfolios, a difference of 431% in favor of crypto.

To help provide perspective, here’s a quick look at the combined four year ROI for crypto vs. the S&P up to this point.

Conclusion:

The newest group of Top Ten cryptos continues to impress, up +422% since the beginning of the year and the only Top Ten Portfolio to outperform the overall market. Looks like we’re back on track and headed in the right direction, but still a long way to go in 2021…anything can and will happen in crypto.

To the long time followers of the Top Ten Experiments, thank you so much for sticking around so long. For those just getting into crypto, I hope these reports will help prepare you for the highs and lows that await on your crypto adventures.  Buckle up, go with the flow, think long term, don’t invest what you can’t afford to lose, and most importantly, try to enjoy the ride!  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, 2019, and January 1st, 2020.

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