Tracking 2020 Top Ten Cryptocurrencies – Month Seven

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For crypto storage, my recommended hardware wallet is the Ledger Nano X.

Recommended Exchange:

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Month Seven – UP 71%

Last month, I warned the 2020 Top Ten to watch its back. After being ahead most of the year, the 2020 Top Ten has officially lost its status as the best performing of the Top Ten “Index Fund” Experiments. Up +71% as of July, the 2019 Top Ten is now second to the 2019 Top Ten, which is up…. +72%.

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Question of the month:

Which cryptocurrency surged in value after a TikTok challenge that encouraged users to buy went viral?

A) Dogecoin
B) Chainlink
C) Bitcoin
D) Ethereum

Scroll down for the answer.

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Ranking and July Winners and Losers

Another month of mostly downward movement: the “T”s (Tether and Tezos) both fell one spot. BNB dropped two spots and now is at the very edge of the Top Ten. XRP climbed one in the rankings, taking back third place from Tether. Regardless of how you feel about XRP, it was a bad sign to many crypto observers to find a stablecoin in the Top Three last month (no offense meant, USDT).

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, Tezos, finished the month up +19%.

Since COVID has hammered the sporting world, let’s be overly competitive and pit these cryptos against themselves, shall we? Here’s a table showing which cryptos have the most monthly wins and losses at this point in the experiment. In a three way tie for first place we have ETH, Tether, and Tezos, each with two Ws. BSV and Tether have the most Ls – both have finished in last place three out of the first seven months of the 2020 Top Ten Experiment.

Overall update – ETH moves into first place, followed by BSV. 100% of Top Ten are in positive territory.

Ethereum has moved into a commanding lead, up +177% on the year, followed by BSV, up +141%. After three straight months in the lead, Tezos fell hard in July, now sitting in third place (although still up an impressive +124% in 2020). Discounting Tether (again, no offense Big-T), EOS (+27%) is the worst performing cryptocurrency of the 2020 Top Ten portfolio. 100% of the cryptos in this group are either flat or in positive territory.

Total Market Cap for the cryptocurrency sector:

The overall crypto market gained more than $80B in July, and is now up over +80% since the beginning of this year’s experiment in January 2020.

Bitcoin dominance:

BitDom finally budged: it fell about 2.5% percent to land at 62.3%, signaling a greater appetite for altcoins this month. The range up to this point in the year has been roughly 62% to 68%.

Overall return on investment since January 1st, 2020:

After an initial $1000 investment, the 2020 Top Ten Portfolio is now worth $1,713, up +71%. It is no longer the best performing of the three Top Ten Crypto Index Fund Portfolios, but isn’t too far behind: the 2019 group came in at +72% in July.

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% in March and +71% in July.

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

• 2018 Top Ten Experiment: down -74% (total value $260)
• 2019 Top Ten Experiment: up +72% (total value $1,722)

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 $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.

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

That’s a +23% gain by buying $1k of the cryptos that 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!

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 to traditional markets. Even with no end to the COVID pandemic in sight, the S&P continued its recovery. In July it moved into positive territory for the year.

Over the same time period, the 2020 Top Ten Crypto Portfolio is returning about +71%. The initial $1k investment in crypto is now worth about $1,713.

The money I put into crypto in January 2020 would be worth $1010 had it been redirected to the S&P 500. That’s a $703 difference on a $1k investment, the largest gap in favor of crypto all year.

But that’s just 2020. 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? 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: +$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 $3,540 is up over +18% since January 2018, compared to a +23% gain of the combined Top Ten Crypto Experiment Portfolios over the same period of time.

Do you know what that means? That means we have a first this month: 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 a hypothetical identical investment in the S&P. This is a big turnaround from the 22% difference in favor of the S&P just last month.

Implications/Observations:

The crypto market as a whole is up +81% since the beginning of the year compared to the 2020 Top Ten Portfolio which has gained +71%. For the third month in a row, focusing on the Top Ten cryptos has yielded less than the overall market.

This approach has seen mixed results with the 2020 group. For the first four months, the Top Ten outperformed the market as a whole. This was a bit of a surprise, as this strategy did not work out very 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-one 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:

July was undoubtedly a strong month in crypto. Where do we go from here? Do we consolidate for a time, fall back down, or continue the ascent? Will Bitcoin dominance continue to decline as altcoins receive more attention?

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…

A) Dogecoin

Much wow. A TikTok viral challenge drove up the price of Doge nearly 100% in early July.

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