Tracking 2024 Top Ten Cryptocurrencies – Month Five

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Month Five – Up +24%

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

May highlights for the 2024 Top Ten Portfolio:

• The portfolio makes a nice comeback after an All Red April
• ETH (+28%) performs best this month on ETF news
• BNB (+87%) is still well in the overall lead with DOGE (+71%) in second place

May Ranking and Dropouts

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

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

May Winners and Losers

May Winners – ETH (+28%) performs best this month on ETF news, followed closely by SOL and DOGE.

May Losers – ADA and XRP underperformed, both essentially ending the month at the same place they started.

Overall Update: BNB still in the lead, but DOGE is closing the gap, 60% of cryptos in positive territory.

60% of the Top Ten are in positive territory so far this year, down from 90% in the green just a few months ago.

In May BNB (+87%) saw its lead over second place DOGE (+71%) shrink as the dog coin tries to reclaim the lead it had earlier in the year.  The initial $100 invested in first place BNB five months ago is worth $187 today.

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

The 2024 Top Ten Portfolio gained $138 in May.  The initial $1000 investment on New Year’s Day 2024 is now worth $1,237. 

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, 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.  

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.  Five  months into the Experiment, here’s the AMKT snapshot: 

May Performances:

• The 2024 Top Ten Portfolio: +13% 
• AMKT: +15%.

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

Overall since January 1st, 2024: 

• The 2024 Top Ten Portfolio: +24%
•  AMKT: +48%

Overall lead: The Alongside Crypto Market Index Token (AMKT), with exactly double the ROI of the Top Ten Portfolio.

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 +23% (total value $1,234)
• 2019 Top Ten Experiment: up +526% (total value $6,263)
• 2020 Top Ten Experiment: up +813% (total value $9,130) (best performing portfolio)
• 2021 Top Ten Experiment: up +230% (total value $3,287)
• 2022 Top Ten Experiment: down -39% (total value $615) (worst performing portfolio)
• 2023 Top Ten Experiment: up +101% (total value $2,014)
• 2024 Top Ten Experiment: up +24% (total value $1,237)

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 $23,780. 

That’s up +240% 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:

In summary: That’s a +240% 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.

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 = $1,970 today
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2019 = $2,110 today
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2020 = $1,630 today
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2021 = $1,410 today
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2022 = $1,110 today
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2023 = $1,370 today
• $1000 investment in S&P 500 on January 1st, 2024 = $1,110 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 $10,710.

That is up +53% since January 2018 compared to a +240% 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.  May’s extended report is on the 2023 Top Ten Portfolio, which you can access here.  You can check out the latest 2018 Top Ten, 2019 Top Ten, 2020 Top Ten, 2021 Top Ten, and 2022 Top Ten reports as well.

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