Tracking 2024 Top Ten Cryptocurrencies – Month One

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Happy HODLING!  

Month One – Down -14%

The 2024 Top Ten Crypto Index Fund Portfolio is BTC, ETH, USDT, BNB, SOL, XRP, ADA, AVAX, DOGE, DOT.

January highlights for the 2024 Top Ten Portfolio:

• All red month
• ETH slips the least (-6%)

January Ranking and Dropouts

Here’s a look at the movement in the ranks one month into the 2024 Top Ten Index Fund Experiment:

January Winners and Losers

January Winners –  None, really. ETH turned in the best performance of the group, falling -6% in January.

January Losers – DOT lost nearly a quarter of its value (-24%) this month, underforming the rest of the Top Ten.

Overall Update: All cryptos in the red, slow start to 2024.

In stark contrast to January 2023, this year is off to a weak start.  Never a good sign when first place for the month is a stablecoin (USDT).

ETH is out to an early lead, down only -6% in January, followed closely by BTC and BNB, both -7% so far in 2024.  The initial $100 invested in first place ETH thirty days ago is worth $94 today.

Overall return on $1,000 investment since January 1st, 2024:

The 2024 Top Ten Portfolio lost $143 in January.  The initial $1000 investment on New Year’s Day 2024 is now worth $857. 

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

2024 Top Ten Portfolio vs. The Alongside Crypto Market Index Token (AMKT).

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 over the last six years, including the introduction of index products designed to capture the entire crypto market (instead of manually buying coins and tokens like I do for my Experiments).

Like last year, I’m running a friendly competition between The 2024 Top Ten Portfolio and The Alongside Crypto Market Index Token (AMKT).  AMKT is an ERC-20 token that represents a cap weighted index of 15 Cryptocurrencies (minus stablecoins) backed 1:1 by the underlying assets represented within the index and completely onchain.  Since the index represents approximately 95% of the value within crypto, AMKT is an excellent proxy for the entire cryptocurrency market – exactly what my Top Ten Portfolios have been trying to recreate from the start.  

To mirror traditional index fund products, AMKT is also currently providing a 5% APR match, essentially creating its own dividend.

Here’s the question I’ll be tracking this year: would I have been better off with $1,000 of AMKT instead of going through the effort of creating a homemade $1,000 Top Ten Index Fund?

On 1 January 2024, $1000 was equal to 7.2 AMKT.  One month into the Experiment, here’s the AMKT snapshot: 

January Performances:

• The 2024 Top Ten Portfolio: -14% 
• AMKT: -5%.

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, 2023, and 2024 Top Ten Crypto Portfolios 

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

• 2018 Top Ten Experiment: down -19% (total value $812)
• 2019 Top Ten Experiment: up +320% (total value $4,202)
• 2020 Top Ten Experiment: up +426% (total value $5,257) (best performing portfolio)
• 2021 Top Ten Experiment: up +112% (total value $2,120)
• 2022 Top Ten Experiment: down -59% (total value $413) (worst performing portfolio)
• 2023 Top Ten Experiment: up +47% (total value $1,471)
• 2024 Top Ten Experiment: down -14% (total value $951)

Taking the seven portfolios together:

After a $7,000 total investment in the 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 Top Ten Cryptocurrencies, the combined portfolios are worth $15,226. 

That’s up +118% 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 +118% gain by investing $1k on whichever cryptos happened to be in the Top Ten on January 1st (including stablecoins) for seven 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 +11% so far in 2024, so the initial $1k investment into crypto on New Year’s Day would be worth $1,110 had it been redirected to the S&P.  Not a bad start to the year.

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 = $1,840 today
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2019 = $1,960 today
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2020 = $1,520 today
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2021 = $1,310 today
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2022 = $1,030 today
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2023 = $1,280 today
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2024 = $1,110 today

Taken together, the results for a similar approach with the S&P: 

After seven $1,000 investments into an S&P 500 index fund in January 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 my portfolio would be worth $10,050.

That is up +44% since January 2018 compared to a +118% 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:

Not the best start to a year for crypto, but there’s an overwhelmingly positive outlook for the year ahead.  We’ll see what 2024 holds for the Top Ten Portfolio.   

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 2024 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 2019 Top Ten Portfolio, which you can access here.  You can check out the latest 2018 Top Ten, 2020 Top Ten, 2021 Top Ten, 2022 Top Ten, and 2023 Top Ten reports as well.

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