Tracking 2020 Top Ten Cryptocurrencies – Month Six

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Month Six – UP 26%

While technically still the best performing of the Top Ten “Index Fund” Experiments for the fifth straight month, this month the 2020 Top Ten cut it close. Very close. How close? The 2020 Top Ten is up +26.6% compared to the 2019 Top Ten’s +25.9%.

Watch your back, 2020 Top Ten.

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Question of the month:

Which country trialed Bitcoin payments for passports in June?

A) Costa Rica
B) Venezuela
C) Mongolia
D) Eritrea

Scroll down for the answer.

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Ranking and June Winners and Losers

After a very strange zero movement May, we saw some ups and down with the 2020 Top Ten in June. Okay, mostly downs: XRP fell one, dropping it’s long-held #3 slot. Both EOS and Tezos struggled in June: both lost two places in the rankings and both dropped out of the Top Ten. Tether is the only crypto to make a positive move in June, never a good sign.

June Winners – Just Tether. The rest of the field struggled in June. ETH finished in second place, ending the month down -7%.

June Losers – BSV under-performed its peers for the second straight month, losing almost a quarter of its value (-23%) in June. Tezos also struggled, down -18% since the beginning of June.

For those keeping score, I also keep a tally of which coins have the most monthly wins and losses. Tether and Tezos have won two months each. BSV has finished in last place three out of the first six months of the 2020 Top Ten Experiment.

Overall update – Tezos in lead, ETH takes second place from BSV, and 80% of Top Ten are in positive territory.

Despite a bad month, Tezos (+88% since January 2020) maintained its lead. Ethereum (+79%) isn’t far behind in second place and has overtaken third place BSV (+59%). The worst performing crypto is XRP, down -7% on the year.

Total Market Cap for the cryptocurrency sector:

The overall crypto market lost over $20B in June but is still up +38% since the beginning this year’s experiment in January 2020.

Bitcoin dominance:

Bitcoin dominance fell a tiny bit, but hasn’t really made a significant move all year.

Overall return on investment since January 1st, 2020:

After an initial $1000 investment, the 2020 Top Ten Portfolio is now worth $1,264, up +26.4%. It is the best performing of the three Top Ten Crypto Index Fund Portfolio, but just barely: the 2019 group came in at +25.9% in June.

Here’s the month by month ROI of the 2020 Top Ten Experiment, hopefully helpful to maintain perspective and provide an overview as we go along:

Besides the zombie apocalypse blip in March, so far so good: all green is good to see and a nice change from the all red table you’ll see in the 2018 experiment. The range of monthly ROI for the 2020 Top Ten has been between +7% and +55%.

So, how does the 2020 Top Ten Experiment compare to the parallel projects?

• 2018 Top Ten Experiment: down -81% (total value $187)
• 2019 Top Ten Experiment: up +25.9% (total value $1,259)

Taken 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 $2,710‬.

That’s down about -10% for the three combined portfolios. That’s compared to about +4% last month.

Better than a few months ago (aka the zombie apocalypse) where it was down -24%, but not yet back at January (+13%) or February (+6%) levels.

Lost in the numbers? Here’s a new table to help visualize the progress of the combined portfolios:

So that’s the Top Ten Crypto Index Fund Experiments snapshot. Let’s take a look at how traditional markets are doing.

Comparison to S&P 500

I’m also tracking the S&P 500 as part of my experiment to have a comparison point with other popular investments options. Even with COVID and protests in the US, stocks continued to tick up. The S&P is now down just -4% since the beginning of the year.

Over the same time period, the 2020 Top Ten Crypto Portfolio is returning about +26%. The initial $1k investment now worth about $1,264.

The money I put into crypto in January 2020 would be worth $960 had it been redirected to the S&P 500. That’s a $304 difference on a $1k investment. Not bad, but not as impressive as last month’s $517 swing.

And what if I invested in the S&P 500 the same way I did during the first three years of the Top Ten Crypto Index Fund Experiments? You know, the world’s slowest dollar cost averaging/$1k on January 1st approach? Here are the figures:

• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2018: +$170
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2019: +$240
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2020: -$40

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 $3,370.

That $3,370 is up over+12% since January 2018, compared to the $2,710 value (-10%) of the combined Top Ten Crypto Experiment Portfolios.

Here’s another new table to help visualize the difference in ROI of the combined crypto portfolios vs. a hypothetical identical approach with the S&P 500:

The new table makes it easy to see that crypto and the markets went in opposite directions in June. This has produced the largest difference in favor of the S&P since the beginning of 2020: a 22% gap. Compare that February, when there was only a 1% difference in ROI.

Implications/Observations:

The crypto market as a whole is up +38% since the beginning of the year compared to the 2020 Top Ten cryptos which have gained +26%. For the second month in a row, and the only two times since the Top Ten 2020 began, the cryptos in this group have under-performed the overall market.

Up until the last two months, focusing on the 2020 Top Ten has been a solid approach, but it has not worked so well in the other experiment years. Although there are a few examples of the Top Ten strategy outperforming the overall market in the 2019 Top Ten Experiment, it’s interesting to note at no point in the first thirty months of the Top Ten 2018 Experiment has the approach of focusing on the Top Ten cryptos outperformed the overall market. Not even once.

Conclusion:

The world continues to struggle with a global pandemic and traditional markets have nearly bounced back. Although up since the beginning of the year, Crypto did not keep pace with US stocks in June. Will crypto reassert itself in the second half of the year?

Final word: Please take care of yourselves and your neighbors. FYI – everyone is your neighbor.

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 2019 Top Ten Experiment follow up experiment.

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And the Answer is…

B) Venezuela

According to multiple sources, a Bitcoin payment option was available when paying online for passport services in Venezuela. It didn’t last long though: just hours later, the option disappeared, according to user reports.

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