Tracking 2019 Top Ten Cryptocurrencies – Month Nineteen

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Month Nineteen – UP 72%

It was a welcome reversal of June for the 2019 Top Ten Cryptos. All the cryptos in the red last month ended July solidly in positive territory.

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A) Florida
B) California
C) South Carolina
D) Texas

Scroll down for the answer.

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Ranking and July Winners and Losers

Just a small amount of movement to report this month within the 2019 Top Ten group. Tron climbed one spot and XRP and Tether swapped places, now at #3 and #4 respectively. Always good to see Tether fall in the rankings and a relief to have it solidly out of the Top Three for now (no offense meant, USDT).

Only three cryptos have dropped out of the 2019 Top Ten since January 1st, 2019: Tron, Stellar, and EOS. As of July, they have been replaced by BNB, CRO, and ADA.

July Winners – ETH, up a massive +55% in July. XRP and BSV tied for second place, both up +52% on the month.

July Losers – Tether. The second worst performing crypto, Tron, finished the month up +20%.

For overly competitive nerds, here is tally of which coins have the most monthly wins and loses during the first 19 months of the 2019 Top Ten Experiment: Tether is still in the lead with six monthly victories, twice as much as second place BSV and ETH. BSV also holds the most monthly losses, finishing last in seven out of nineteen months. Pour one out for XRP: even though it gained +52% in July, it still couldn’t take home its first W.

Overall update – BTC with significant lead, followed by ETH and BSV. XRP still worst performing since Jan. 1st, 2019

BTC is the front-runner for the third straight month, followed by ETH, followed by BSV. Although it had a strong July, BSV has had quite a tumble this year: it was ahead until April. Bitcoin is up +208% since January 2019. The initial $100 investment in BTC is currently worth $314.

Nineteen months in to the 2019 Top Ten Index Fund Experiment, 80% of the 2019 Top Ten cryptos are either flat or in the green. The other two cryptos are in negative territory, including last place XRP (down -25% since January 2019). A strong July for these cryptos has made the 2019 Top Ten group the best performing of the three experiments…

Total Market Cap for the entire cryptocurrency sector:

…but nowhere near as strong as the crypto market as a whole. It gained more than $80B in July, now up +171% since January 2019.

Bitcoin dominance:

BitDom wobbled in June, but dropped noticeably in July. It was locked into the 65% range for months, but ended the month close to 62%. For all the press Bitcoin received this month, the dropping dominance signals a greater appetite for altcoins. Taking a wider view, the Bitcoin Dominance range since the beginning of the experiment in January 2019 has ranged between 50%-70%.

Overall return on investment since January 1st, 2019:

The 2019 Top Ten Portfolio gained over $450 in July, more than making up for the losses of June. After the initial $1000 investment, the 2019 group of Top Ten cryptos is worth $1,722. That’s up about +72%. 

Here’s a look at the ROI over the life of the first 19 months of the 2019 Top Ten Index Fund experiment, month by month:

Unlike the completely red table you’ll see in the 2018 Top Ten Experiment, the 2019 crypto table is almost all green. The first month was the lowest point (-9%), and the highest point (+114%) was May 2019.

At +72%, the 2019 Top Ten Portfolio is now the best performing of the three, but just barely.

Let’s look at the figures: how does the 2019 Top Ten Index Fund Portfolio compare to the parallel projects?

• 2018 Top Ten Experiment: down -74% ($260)
• 2020 Top Ten Experiment: up +71% ($1,713)

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

After a $3000 investment in the 2018, 2019, and 2020 Top Ten Cryptocurrencies, my combined portfolios are worth $3,695‬ ($260+ $1,722 +$1,713).

That’s up about +23% for the three combined portfolios, compared to -10% last month. It also marks the highest ROI of the three combined portfolios since I started keeping track in January 2020. The previous high was +13% back in January 2020.

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

Much better than last month’s -10%.

That’s a +23% gain by dropping $1k on whichever cryptos happened to be in the Top Ten on January 1st, 2018, 2019, and 2020.

But what if I’d gone all in on only one Top Ten crypto for the past three years? While most have come and gone over the life of the experiment, five cryptos have remained in Top Ten for all three years: BTC, ETH, XRP, BCH, and LTC.  Let’s take a look at those five:

There you have it: Ethereum (+98%) would have returned the most at this point, followed closely by BTC (+88%). Following this approach with XRP, I would have been down -23%. Many thanks to Reddit user u/sebikun for the idea for a new metric!

Alright, that’s crypto, but how does it 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 more traditional markets. Even with everything that’s going on in the world, the S&P continues adding value: it is now up +31% since January 2019.

The initial $1k investment I put into crypto 19 months ago would be worth $1,310 had it been redirected to the S&P 500 in January 2019.

As a reminder (or just scroll up) the 2019 Top Ten portfolio is returning +72% over last 19 months. The ROI of the 2019 Top Ten crypto portfolio is currently over double that of the S&P 500 since January 1st, 2019. But don’t get cocky, crypto: only last month, the 2019 Top Ten was basically tied with the S&P over the same time period.

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

• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2018: +$220
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2019: +$310
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2020: +$10

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

After three $1,000 investments into an S&P 500 index fund in January 2018, 2019, and 2020, my portfolio would be worth $3,540.

That is up over+18% since January 2018, compared to a +23% gain of the combined Top Ten Crypto Experiment Portfolios.

So we have a first this month: that’s a 5% swing in favor of the Top Ten Crypto Portfolios!

As you’ll see in the table below, this is the first time since I started recording this metric that crypto has outperformed the S&P had I taken a similar investment approach. This is a big turnaround from the 22% difference in favor of the S&P just last month.

Implications/Observations:

Since January 2019, the crypto market as a whole has gained +171% compared to the 2019 Top Ten Crypto Portfolio which has gained +72%. That’s a massive 100% gap.

At this point in the 2019 Experiment, an investor would have done much better picking different cryptos or investing in the entire market instead of focusing only on the 2019 Top Ten. Over the course of the first 19 months of tracking the 2019 Top Ten, there have been instances this was a winning strategy, but the cases have been few and far between.

The 2018 Top Ten portfolio, on the other hand, has never outperformed the overall market, at least not in the first thirty one months of that Experiment. Not even once.

And for the most recent 2020 Top Ten group? It’s been very mixed. The opposite was true the first four months of the year: the 2020 Top Ten had easily outperformed the overall market. But since May, this has no longer been the case.

Conclusion:

In July, we witnessed the biggest month to month increase in the value of the 2019 Top Ten that we’ve seen all year. The 2019 Top Ten is now the best performing of the three experiments. Are we going further up or dropping back down from here? Stay tuned and buckle up.

Final word: Stay safe and be excellent to each other.

Thanks for reading and for supporting the experiment. I hope you’ve found it helpful. I continue to be committed to seeing this process through and reporting along the way. Feel free to reach out with any questions and stay tuned for progress reports. Keep an eye out for the original 2018 Top Ten Crypto Index Fund Experiment and the 2020 Top Ten Experiment.

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And the Answer is…

D) Texas

It’s a Texan man who is in hot water for allegedly misusing COVID-19 relief to purchase crypto.

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