Tracking 2021 Top Ten Cryptocurrencies – Month Sixteen

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Month Sixteen – UP 177%

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

April highlights for the 2021 Top Ten Portfolio: 

• Every crypto in the 2021 Portfolio in the red
• BNB continues to maintain a strong overall lead
• 2021 Top Ten Portfolio is up +177% in sixteen months

April Ranking and Dropout Report

Top Ten dropouts since January 2021:  sixteen months into the 2021 Top Ten Experiment, four cryptos have dropped out: Chainlink, Litecoin, Polkadot and Bitcoin Cash.  They have been replaced by SOL, Luna, UST, and USDC.

April Winners and Losers

April Winners –  None, unless you count USDT

April Losers –   LINK lost more than a third of its value, down -35% in April. ADA didn’t fare much better, dropping -32%, the second worst performer this month.

Overall Update – BNB far head, 70% of cryptos in green, Litecoin at the bottom

As has largely been the case, BNB remains the crypto to beat in the 2021 Top Ten Portfolio.  It is up +913%, the $100 investment into BNB sixteen months ago is now worth $1,016.

Litecoin is the worst performing of the 2021 Top Ten Portfolio cryptos at this point in the Experiment, down -21% since January, 2021. 

Total Market Cap for the Entire Cryptocurrency Sector:

As a sector, crypto is up +126% since January 2021.

You may notice that the 2021 Top Ten Portfolio has produced better returns than the overall crypto market cap (+177% vs. +126%) over the sixteen month life of the 2021 Portfolio.

This is a bit of an outlier and the gap is closing fast: the rest of the Top Ten Experiments are well behind over their respective market caps in their respective time frames.  Here are the latest figures:

Buying the Top Ten at equal weight in Jan 2018: down -1% vs. +205% for the total crypto market cap. 

Starting in Jan 2019? +368% for the Top Ten vs. +1,277% for the total market cap. 

Starting in Jan 2020? +574% for the Top Ten vs. +824% for the total Market Cap. 

Starting in Jan 2022? -24% for the Top Ten vs. -21% total market cap.  

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 in October 2021.

Bitcoin Dominance:

BitDom ticked up in April, ending the month at 42.3%.  

BitDom Low Point in the 2021 Top Ten Crypto Index Experiment: 40.2% in December 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:

Overall, the 2021 Top Ten Portfolio is up +177%.  The initial $1000 investment sixteen months ago, on New Year’s Day, 2021, is worth $2,771. 

Here’s the month by month ROI of the 2021 Top Ten Experiment, to give you a sense of perspective as we go along:

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

As most readers are aware, this is the fifth 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 five years of the Top Ten Crypto Index Fund Experiments?

• 2018 Top Ten Experiment: down -1% (total value $986)
• 2019 Top Ten Experiment: up +368% (total value $4,684)
• 2020 Top Ten Experiment: up +574% (total value $6,735) (best performing portfolio)
• 2021 Top Ten Experiment: up +177% (total value $2,771)
• 2022 Top Ten Experiment: down -24% (total value $762)

So overall? Taking the five portfolios together, here’s the bottom bottom bottom bottom bottom line: 

After five annual $1k investments ($5,000 total) in the 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 Top Ten Cryptocurrencies, the combined portfolios are worth $15,938.

That’s up +219% on the combined portfolios. The peak  for the combined Top Ten Index Fund Experiment Portfolios was November 2021’s all time high of +533%

To visualize the progress of the combined portfolios:

In summary: That’s a +219% gain by investing $1k on whichever cryptos happened to be in the Top Ten on January 1st (including stablecoins) for five 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 Index is up +10% since January 1st, 2021.  The initial $1k investment I put into crypto sixteen months ago would be worth $1,100 had it been redirected to the S&P 500.

The 2021 Top Ten Crypto Portfolio is up +177% over the same time period – the initial $1k investment in crypto sixteen months ago is now worth $2,771.

That’s a difference of $1,671 on a $1k investment in sixteen months.

What about in the longer term? What if I invested in the S&P 500 the same way I did during the first five years of the Top Top 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 = $1,550 today
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2019 = $1,650 today
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2020 = $1,280 today
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2021 = $1,100 today
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2022 = $870 today

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

After five $1,000 investments into an S&P 500 index fund in January 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 my portfolio would be worth $6,450.

That is up +29% since January 2018 compared to a +219% gain of the combined Top Ten Crypto Experiment Portfolios.

To help provide perspective, here’s a chart showing the combined five year ROI for the Crypto Top Ten Experiment 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. A reporting note: I’ll focus on 2022 Top Ten Portfolio reports + one other portfolio on a rotating basis this year, so expect only two reports from me per month.  April’s extended report is the one you’re reading now (the 2021 Top Ten Portfolio). You can check out the latest 2018 Top Ten (the OG Experiment), 2019 Top Ten, and 2020 Top Ten reports as well.

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