Tracking 2023 Top Ten Cryptocurrencies – Month One

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Month One – Up +33%

The 2023 Top Ten Crypto Index Fund Portfolio is BTC, ETH, BNB, XRP, BUSD, DOGE, ADA, MATIC, DOT, LTC.

January highlights for the 2023 Top Ten Portfolio:

• All green month
• ADA has a very good start to the year, +55% in January, followed by second place MATIC (+44%).
• 2023 Top Ten Portfolio +32% for the month

January Ranking and Dropouts

Here’s a look at the movement in the ranks one month into the 2023 Top Ten Index Fund Experiment:

A bit of internal shuffling, but not a whole lot of movement in January.

January Winners and Losers

January Winners –  ADA, +55% in January, followed by second place MATIC (+44%)

January Losers – not counting stablecoin BUSD, XRP turned in the worst performance up “only” +24% this month

Overall Update: ADA starts off the year with a bang, all crypto in the green.

In stark contrast to January 2022, 2023 is off to a strong start.  Always a good sign when last place for the month is a stablecoin (BUSD).

ADA is up +55% in one month.  The initial $100 invested in ADA thirty days ago is worth $155 today.

Overall return on $1,000 investment since January 1st, 2023:

The 2023 Top Ten Portfolio gained $329 in January.  The initial $1000 investment on New Year’s Day 2023 is now worth $1,329. 

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

2023 Top Ten Portfolio vs. The Alongside Crypto Market Index Token (AMKT).

New feature this year – The first Top Ten Crypto Experiment was started on 1 January 2018 in an attempt to capture the gains of the entire market. Much has changed in the last 5 years, including the introduction of index products designed to capture segments of the crypto market (Entire Crypto Market, DeFi, the Metaverse, Blue Chips, etc.) instead of manually buying coins and tokens (like I do for my Experiments).

This year’s friendly competition will be between The Top Ten Portfolio and The Alongside Crypto Market Index Token (AMKT).  AMKT is an ERC-20 token that represents a cap weighted index of the Top 25 Cryptocurrencies (minus stablecoins) backed 1:1 by the underlying assets represented within the index.  Since the Top 25 represent approximately 97% of the value within crypto, AMKT should be 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 been tracking this year: would I have been better off going with $1,000 of AMKT instead of going through the effort of creating a homemade $1,000 Top Ten Index Fund?

On 1 January 2023, $1000 was equal to 17.15 AMKT. One month into the Experiment, here’s the AMKT snapshot: 

January Performances:

• The 2023 Top Ten Portfolio: +33% 
• AMKT: +40%.

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

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

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

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

• 2018 Top Ten Experiment: down -44% (total value $562)
• 2019 Top Ten Experiment: up +192% (total value $2,915)
• 2020 Top Ten Experiment: up +354% (total value $4,541) (best performing portfolio)
• 2021 Top Ten Experiment: up +82% (total value $1,822)
• 2022 Top Ten Experiment: down -72% (total value $284) (worst performing portfolio)
• 2023 Top Ten Experiment: up +33% (total value $1,329)

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

After a $6,000 total investment in the 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 Top Ten Cryptocurrencies, the combined portfolios are worth $11,453. 

That’s up +92% on the combined portfolios.  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 for those who do better with visuals:

In summary: That’s a +92% gain by investing $1k on whichever cryptos happened to be in the Top Ten on January 1st (including stablecoins) for six 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 +5% so far in 2023, so the initial $1k investment into crypto on New Year’s Day would be worth $1,050 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 = $1,500 today
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2019 = $1,600 today
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2020 = $1,240 today
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2021 = $1,070 today
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2022 = $840 today
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2023 = $1,050 today

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

After six $1,000 investments into an S&P 500 index fund in January 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 my portfolio would be worth $7,300.

That is up +22% since January 2018 compared to a +92% 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:

A good start to the year for crypto, we’ll see what 2023 holds for the Top Ten Portfolio.  Couldn’t be any worse than last year, right?

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

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