Tracking 2024 Top Ten Cryptocurrencies – Month Nine

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Month Nine – Up +8%

The 2024 Top Ten Crypto Index Fund Portfolio is BTC, ETH, USDT, BNB, SOL, XRP, ADA, AVAX, DOGE, DOT.

September highlights for the 2024 Top Ten Portfolio:

• First all-green month since May
• The 2024 Top Ten Portfolio is back above break even point
• BNB still enjoying a large lead followed by second place BTC and third place SOL 
• The S&P 500 is +20% YTD, pulling well ahead of the 2024 Top Ten Crypto Portfolio (although the seven combined crypto portfolios are outperforming the S&P significantly)

September Ranking and Dropouts

Here’s a look at the movement in the ranks nine months into the 2024 Top Ten Index Fund Experiment:

Other than DOT’s significant fall, not a ton of movement in the Top Ten.

September Winners and Losers

September Winners – AVAX (+34%) and DOGE (+24%) performed the best this month.

September Losers – ETH (+8%) and DOT (+10%) gained the least in September.

Overall Update: BNB retains strong lead followed by BTC and SOL.  60% of cryptos in positive territory.  DOT in last place.

60% of the Top Ten are in positive territory so far this year, down from 90% in the green in March.

BNB (+82%) remains in the overall lead, nearly doubling second place BTC (+42%).  Third place SOL made up a lot of ground in September and is now +40% YTD.

Nine months into the 2024 Experiment DOT is in last place, down -48% since New Year’s Day.

The initial $100 invested in first place BNB nine months ago is worth $182 today.

Overall return on $1,000 investment since January 1st, 2024

The 2024 Top Ten Portfolio gained $134 in September.  The initial $1000 investment on New Year’s Day 2024 is now worth $1080.  

Here’s a visual summary of the progress so far:

2024 Top Ten Portfolio vs. The Alongside Crypto Market Index Token (AMKT)

The first Top Ten Crypto Experiment was started on 1 January 2018 in an attempt to capture the gains of the entire market, similar to the “lazy” approach of the Bogleheads in traditional markets. Much has changed over the last 6.5 years, including the introduction of index products designed to capture the entire crypto market (instead of manually buying coins and tokens like I do for my Experiments).

Like last year, I’m running a friendly competition between The 2024 Top Ten Portfolio and The Alongside Crypto Market Index Token (AMKT).  AMKT is an ERC-20 token that represents a cap weighted index of 15 Cryptocurrencies (minus stablecoins) backed 1:1 by the underlying assets represented within the index and completely onchain.  Similar to the Boglehead Community, a Do Nothing Club has emerged encouraging a long-term “lazy” crypto investing approach.  Since the index represents approximately 95% of the value within crypto, AMKT is an excellent proxy for the entire cryptocurrency market – exactly what my Top Ten Portfolios have been trying to recreate from the start.  

Here’s the question I’ll be tracking this year: would I have been better off with $1,000 of AMKT instead of going through the effort of creating a homemade $1,000 Top Ten Index Fund?

On 1 January 2024, $1000 was equal to 7.2 AMKT.  Nine  months into the Experiment, here’s the AMKT snapshot: 

September Performances:

• The 2024 Top Ten Portfolio: +14% 
• AMKT: +23%

The September monthly victory goes to: The Alongside Crypto Market Index Token (AMKT)

Overall since January 1st, 2024: 

• The 2024 Top Ten Portfolio: +8%
•  AMKT: +33%

Overall lead: The Alongside Crypto Market Index Token (AMKT).

For the more visual, here’s the table I’m using to track the friendly Top Ten vs. AMKT competition this year:

Combining the 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 Top Ten Crypto Portfolios 

So, where do we stand if we combine seven years of the Top Ten Crypto Index Fund Experiments?

• 2018 Top Ten Experiment: up +2% (total value $1,021)
• 2019 Top Ten Experiment: up +440% (total value $5,401)
• 2020 Top Ten Experiment: up +697% (total value $7,967) (best performing portfolio)
• 2021 Top Ten Experiment: up +196% (total value $2,962)
• 2022 Top Ten Experiment: down -44% (total value $558) (worst performing portfolio)
• 2023 Top Ten Experiment: up +71% (total value $1,714)
• 2024 Top Ten Experiment: up +8% (total value $1,080)

Taking the seven portfolios together:

After a $7,000 total investment in the 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 Top Ten Cryptocurrencies, the combined portfolios are worth $20,703

That’s up +196% on the combined portfolio. The peak for the combined Top Ten Index Fund Experiment Portfolios was November 2021’s all time high of +533%.  Here’s the combined monthly ROI since I started tracking the metric in January 2020:

In summary: That’s a +196% gain by investing $1k on whichever cryptos happened to be in the Top Ten on January 1st (including stablecoins) for seven 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.

The S&P 500 is up +20% so far in 2024, so the initial $1k investment into crypto on New Year’s Day would be worth $1,197 had it been redirected to the S&P.

Taking the same invest-$1,000-on-January-1st-of-each-year approach with the S&P 500 that I’ve been documenting through the Top Ten Crypto Experiments, the yields are the following:

• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2018 = $2,136 today
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2019 = $2,278 today
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2020 = $1,767 today
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2021 = $1,520 today
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2022 = $1,198 today
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2023 = $1,487 today
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2024 = $1,197 today

Taken together, the results for a similar approach with the S&P: 

After seven $1,000 investments into an S&P 500 index fund in January 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 my portfolio would be worth $11,460.

That is up +65% since January 2018 compared to a +196% gain of the combined Top Ten Crypto Experiment Portfolios.  

The visual below shows a comparison on ROI between a Top Ten Crypto approach and the S&P as per the rules of the Top Ten Experiments: 

Conclusion:

To the long time followers of the Top Ten Experiments, thank you 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, and truly don’t invest what you can’t afford to lose.  Most importantly, try to enjoy the ride. 

A reporting note: I’ll focus on 2024 Top Ten Portfolio reports + one other portfolio on a rotating basis this year, so expect two reports from me per month.  September’s extended report is on the 2021 Top Ten Portfolio, which you can access here.  You can check out the latest 2018 Top Ten, 2019 Top Ten, 2020 Top Ten, 2022 Top Ten, and 2023 Top Ten reports as well. and 2023 Top Ten reports as well.

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