Tracking 2021 Top Ten Cryptocurrencies – Month Ten

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Month Ten – UP 399%

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

October highlights for the 2021 Top Ten Portfolio: 

• Except for ADA, October was an all-green month

• BNB flips ADA for overall lead
• After 10 months, 2021 Top Ten Portfolio is up +400%

October Ranking and Dropout Report

Top Ten dropouts since January 2021:  Nine 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  They have been replaced by SOL, DOGE, and SHIB.

October Winners and Losers

October Winners –  DOT had the best month, by far, finishing October +53%.

October Losers –  For the second month in a row, ADA had the worst month, falling -13%.

Tally of Monthly Winners and Losers

Ten 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.  ADA also has the most losses.  Swing trade anyone?

Overall Update – BNB flips ADA for the lead, all cryptos in green, Litecoin worst performing

As we’ve seen all year, the tug of war between BNB and ADA continued in October, with yet another flip, this time in favor of Binance Coin.  

The $100 investment into first place BNB ten months ago is now worth $1,402.

Besides Tether, Litecoin is the worst performing cryptocurrency of the 2021 Top Ten Portfolio, up only +54% in 2021. 

Total Market Cap for the Entire Cryptocurrency Sector:

The total crypto market gained over a half a trillion USD in October and is now at an all time monthly closing high of $2.6T.  As a sector, crypto is up +243% in the ten month lifespan of the 2021 Top Ten Experiment. 

You may notice that the 2021 Top Ten Portfolio has produced better returns than the overall crypto market cap (+399% vs. +243%) so far in 2021.  

This is a bit of an outlier and the gap is closing: the rest of the Top Ten Experiments are well behind over 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: $2.6T this month.

Bitcoin Dominance:

BitDom inched up in October, ending the month at 43.7% (compared to 43.2% in September).  This is still at the low end of the range when looking at the 2021 timeframe as a whole. 

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

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

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

The 2021 Portfolio gained $657 in October.  Overall, the 2021 Top Ten Portfolio is up +399%, the initial $1000 investment on New Year’s Day 2021 worth $4,987. 

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.  

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 crypto bull run.  Where do we stand if we combine four years of the Top Ten Crypto Index Fund Experiments?

• 2018 Top Ten Experiment: up +72% (total value $1,719)
• 2019 Top Ten Experiment: up +658% (total value $7,580)
• 2020 Top Ten Experiment: up +937% (total value $10,370)
• 2021 Top Ten Experiment: up +399% (total value $4,987)

So overall? 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 $24,656 ($1,719 + $7,580 + $10,370 + $4,987).

That’s up +514% on the combined portfolios, an all time high for the Top Ten Index Fund Experiment.  

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

In summary: That’s a +514% gain by investing $1k on whichever cryptos happened to be in the Top Ten on January 1st (including stablecoins) for four straight years.

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. For the first time in nearly a year, the S&P 500 did not reach another month end all time high in September:

The S&P 500 Index is up 23% in 2021.  The initial $1k investment I put into crypto nine months ago would be worth $1,230 had it been redirected to the S&P 500.

The 2021 Top Ten Crypto Portfolio is up +399% over the same time period – the initial $1k investment in crypto nine months ago is now worth $4,987.

That’s a difference of $3,757 on a $1k investment in ten 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 = $1,730 today
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2019 = $1,840 today
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2020 = $1,430 today
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2021 = $1,230 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 $6,230 ($1,730 + $1,840 + $1,430 + $1,230)

That is up +56% since January 2018 compared to a +514% gain of the combined Top Ten Crypto Experiment Portfolios, a difference of over nearly 458 percentage points 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:

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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