Tracking 2024 Top Ten Cryptocurrencies – Month Three

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Month Three – Up +42%

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

March highlights for the 2024 Top Ten Portfolio:

• Most cryptos have a green month, SOL performs best in March
• DOGE claims Q1 lead

March Ranking and Dropouts

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

Fairly steady so far in 2024, with only DOT dropping out of the Top Ten.

March Winners and Losers

March Winners – SOL performed the best, +52% in March. DOGE came in second at +46% this month.  

March Losers – ADA underperformed this month, falling -17% in March.

Q1 Update: 90% of cryptos in green, DOGE takes a commanding lead.

Every Top Ten crypto but one is in positive territory so far this year: XRP is the exception, down -4% so far in 2024.

DOGE, up +124% already in 2024, has taken a commanding lead.  BNB is the next best performing (+86%) followed by SOL (+77%).  The initial $100 invested in first place DOGE three months ago is worth $224 today.

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

The 2024 Top Ten Portfolio gained $213 in March.  The initial $1000 investment on New Year’s Day 2024 is now worth $1,420. 

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

2024 Top Ten Portfolio vs. The Alongside Crypto Market Index Token (AMKT) DONE – NEXT MONTH – mention bogleheads in my intro and work in the Do Nothing Club into the narrative.

The first Top Ten Crypto Experiment was started on 1 January 2018 in an attempt to capture the gains of the entire market, similar to the “lazy” approach of the Bogleheads in traditional markets. 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.  Similar to the Boglehead Community, a Do Nothing Club has emerged encouraging a long-term “lazy” crypto investing approach.  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.  Three months into the Experiment, here’s the AMKT snapshot: 

March Performances:

• The 2024 Top Ten Portfolio: +18% 
• AMKT: +8%.

The March monthly victory goes to: The 2024 Top Ten Portfolio

Overall since January 1st, 2024: 

• The 2024 Top Ten Portfolio: +42%
•  AMKT: +58%

Overall lead: 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: up +28% (total value $1,282)
• 2019 Top Ten Experiment: up +549% (total value $6,492)
• 2020 Top Ten Experiment: up +822% (total value $9,222) (best performing portfolio)
• 2021 Top Ten Experiment: up +250% (total value $3,500)
• 2022 Top Ten Experiment: down -32% (total value $678) (worst performing portfolio)
• 2023 Top Ten Experiment: up +129% (total value $2,293)
• 2024 Top Ten Experiment: down +42% (total value $1,420)

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 $24,887. 

That’s up +256% 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 +256% 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 +10% so far in 2024, so the initial $1k investment into crypto on New Year’s Day would be worth $1,100 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 = $1,960 today
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2019 = $2,090 today
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2020 = $1,620 today
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2021 = $1,400 today
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2022 = $1,100 today
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2023 = $1,370 today
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2024 = $1,100 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 $10,640.

That is up +52% since January 2018 compared to a +256% 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:

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.  March’s extended report is on the 2021 Top Ten Portfolio, which you can access here.  You can check out the latest 2018 Top Ten, 2019 Top Ten, 2020 Top Ten, 2022 Top Ten, and 2023 Top Ten reports as well.

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