Best and Worst Cryptocurrencies in 2021
02JAN
In 2021, the world witnessed the explosion of the value of digital currencies. The total market capital of the crypto market , which was about 775 billion dollars on January 1 , 2021, jumped 275 percent to a record 3 trillion dollars in mid-November. Bitcoin and Ethereum performed well and went up 68% and 436%, respectively, over the past year. However, in terms of market growth, these two giants do not even catch up with some meme coins, such as Shiba Inu or Axie Infinity and Sand, with five-digit growth rates. In addition, countless new coins and tokens were introduced to the market, and some of them were able to strengthen their position well. As of May 2021, the total number of digital assets was 10,115 coins and tokens, up from 15,309 in early December, according to the CoinMarketCap.com . In the meantime, some of these projects, such as Safe Moon, Internet of Things (ICP) and Chia Network, also gained considerable popularity after their launch.
Altcoins in 2021
2021 was also the year of the coins, and the different breeds of “dogs” entered the digital currency market. Among the most significant and newsworthy meme coins of this year, we can mention Dogecoin, Shiba Inu and Floki Inu.
In addition, a rare increase in NFTs and blockchain-based games happened last year. According to DappRadar, NFT trading volume reached more than $23 billion, which is a staggering figure compared to the $100 million volume in 2020. The official announcement of the renaming of Facebook to Meta in late October boosted Metawares-based projects, generating $3.6 billion in their capital. Although things did not go well for all the coins and tokens, and a number of digital currencies failed to reach their expected prices, overall we can consider 2021 as a fruitful year for the digital currency industry.
In this article, we are going to look at the best and worst performances in the digital currency market and examine the factors influencing this process.
The most profitable crypto assets in 2021
Our selection criteria is based on the year to date (YTD) performance of the coins based on the CoinMarketCap data. In addition, these digital assets have been selected from the top 100 coins in the market.
Shiba Inu (SHIB)
Well, we can call this the strangest token on this list. Although SHIB is not having a good day now and is still in the throes of market turmoil, the token was able to experience tremendous growth from late last year until around November.
Shiba Inu
What makes Shiba’s story even more interesting is the story of the formation of this token as the “Dodgecoin killer” in the form of a meme coin. Shiba was able to reach the top of digital currencies in terms of total market value from an internet joke.
Listed at Binance Exchange, Ilan Mask’s tweets about buying a Shiba Inu dog and burning $6.7 billion of Vitalik Buterin’s Shiba were among the main reasons for its surprise climb.
The coin’s next leap occurred in the last quarter of the year, which gained new strength by being listed in other exchanges such as Kraken, collaborating with stores such as Newegg, and again Elon Musk tweets about purchasing a Shiba Inu dog. It is interesting to know that Ilan Mask announced that he had not even bought a single Shiba token in October!
Shiba tokens grew by almost 600% in October alone and are traded about 105% less than their ATH (all times high).
GALA
Gala is a functional token of the Gala Games ecosystem, a platform for creating blockchain-based games and unique tokens.
Gala
The Gala Token did not show any extraordinary movement until the fourth quarter of the year. The token market exploded at a 260% price when on September 13, Binance Exchange announced that it would list the token. In just 24 hours, the news raised the price of this token from about 2 cents to 7 cents.
The next gala jump took place in November, coinciding with an increase in users’ interest in Metaverse and gaming tokens. At this time, the gala was up about 930 percent in two weeks, rising from 8 cents to 83 cents. Currently, this token is 40% away from its ATH.
Axie Infinity
The AXS token is the functional and governing token of the “Axie Infinity” game, which is based on blockchain and unique tokens.
Axie
Axie Infinity started 2021 migrating from the Loom network to one of Ethereum’s side chains called Ronin to reduce traffic and fees. Following this change, the AXS token saw an 80% price increase from $6 to $11 in the last week of April. With the increase in network capacity and the exponential growth of the game’s users, the token market gained new strength in July and grew by 300% to $45.
The announcement of Airdrop and the AXS token share program in late September was met with more interest from users of the platform, so that the price of this token will eventually reach three digits. In October and November, as bitcoin rose to revive its price and set a new record, the Axie Infinity token set its record high above $165.
The current distance of this token to its ATH is about 34%.
The most loss-making crypto assets in 2021
As we mentioned above, 2021 was a happy year for most digital currencies. In fact, with the exception of stable coins and according to CoinMarketCap, only the tokens Nem, Bitcoin Sue, Cell and Zilliqa ended the year in red.
Examining the general trend of ICP and Flow tokens also showed the weakness of these tokens. It is understood that the 2021 blooming made even these tokens have a small profit.
Internet Computer (ICP)
The ICP token is a functional token for the Internet of Things, the first blockchain to operate at unlimited web speed and capacity.
The token started operating in May this year and was one of the few tokens that many reputable exchanges listed it at once. The fundamentals of the network and its advertising led small investors and even organizations such as Polychain Capital to invest large sums of money in the token in the hope of making a profit.
ICP
The sudden increase in demand at the beginning of the token’s listing pushed the price up to $750. The move went so far that the ICP briefly sat between the top 10 coins on the market above Ripple, Dodge and Cardano. However, the token fell sharply after the incident and reached $24 by December 4.
The ICP token is currently trading at around $25 with a slight improvement; yet it is still a long way from its ATH.
NEM (XEM)
The XEM token is a native NEM token that uses blockchain and encryption to help different businesses. XEM in this list of ICP is the worst market performance in 2021 and is more than 93% away from its ATH on $2.09 in January 2018. In fact, NEM never crossed the $1 mark during those four years.
NEM/XEM
In 2021, the token spent more than two-thirds of the year lower than its original price. Even the Altcoins’ follow-up to the bitcoin’s uptrend at the beginning of the year, which led to a 200% price increase, failed to give the token the strength it needed to climb again.
Celsius Network (CEL)
The cell token is native to the Celsius platform; a platform that provides financial, banking and lending services to digital currency users. However, according to August statistics, the value of assets under the management of this platform was estimated at $20 billion, and the financing event 750 could not help the growth of this network. The price of this token at the end of 2021 shows a 30% drop compared to the beginning of the year.
Celsius Network
It should also be noted that the Celsius Lending Platform faces legal issues regarding the breach of securities laws by four US states (Texas, Alabama, Kentucky and New Jersey). In addition, the loss of $120 million in the Badger DAO platform hack and legal problems with the Argo blockchain in December caused the network token price to fall.
In Conclusion
In this article from Coinmarketsig, we named some fruitful tokens were named as the top assets of the digital currency market, according to the statistics of the CoinMarketCap website. We also mentioned the strange growth of Shiba Inu; a currency that in 2021 put many on the sidelines.
In addition, we saw that among the top 100 assets on the market, only NEM tokens, Internet Computer, Celsius, Bitcoin Sue and Zilliqa ended 2021 with poor performance and even unexpected. Fortunately, in 2021 we saw less digital currencies. While many hoped that major currencies could reach several price peaks, instead of setting multiple historical records for large currencies, a larger number of quieter assets were able to attract large numbers of investors by displaying their features and capabilities. This year should be considered as one of the most fruitful in history for digital currencies. An opportunity that could be a powerful launching pad for the further development and adoption of these digital assets in the years to come.
