Article source: Techub News
Author: Babywhale, Techub News
When everyone thought that the SEC would approve the Bitcoin spot ETF, leading to a repeat of the 2021 'all coins rise' scene, reality dealt a heavy blow: aside from Bitcoin aiming for 100,000 dollars, many 'altcoins' that shined in the last bull market not only failed to set new highs in this round but are still hovering at the bottom.
To some extent, this may also indicate that as cryptocurrency investment gradually becomes mainstream in the U.S., new funds entering the market will concentrate on quality targets, similar to U.S. stocks. In this round, some tokens that reached their peaks in the last bull market have once again become favorites of profit-seekers. The author has reviewed some tokens that set phase highs in the 2021 bull market and have reached new highs in this round, but the understanding is limited and may not cover all tokens that fit this situation.
SOL
In the hot year of 2021, when 'Alt L1' was all the rage, EVM-compatible L1s such as Fantom, NEAR, Avalanche, etc., absorbed the overflow traffic caused by the high gas costs of Ethereum. Among them, Solana did not follow the trend but instead rebuilt its own ecosystem outside of EVM. With support from SBF, the founder of FTX, who was at the height of his power at that time, and the team's own operations, the price of SOL skyrocketed from less than 1 dollar when it was first listed on exchanges to over 200 dollars.
However, as the overall market transitioned from a frenzy to calm, coupled with the downfall of FTX and the incarceration of one of Solana's biggest supporters, SBF, SOL fell to a low of around 7 dollars. Notable NFT projects on Solana successively departed, and many investors believed that Solana's story might come to an end.
Surprisingly to many, in this cycle, Solana has revitalized itself with the sudden rise of Meme, coupled with the emergence of several ecological projects such as the re-staking project Jito. The price of SOL has risen steadily and broke through the nearly 260 dollars peak set in early November 2021 about a week ago.
BNB
As the only public chain that has truly achieved ecological diversification among 'exchange platform tokens', BNB issued by Binance has left a deep impression in both its ability to 'weather storms' during bear markets and its rise in bull markets. During the bear market of 2022, BNB fell from a peak of about 660 dollars in May 2021 to below 200 dollars. Although the decline was significant, compared to many tokens that fell over 90% or nearly went to zero, BNB can be considered an asset with a relatively high 'retention rate'.
Afterwards, with the recovery of the market and Binance launching Launchpool and Launchpad projects at an almost frenzied pace, BNB surged and broke through the price high of the last bull market on June 24 this year, reaching a maximum of over 700 dollars. Compared to the quiet exit of Huobi's HECO Network, BNB still has a wealth of potential value to be further explored both inside the exchange and on the BNB Chain.
TRX
The new high of the Tron token TRX in this cycle can be said to be an unexpected yet logical outcome. The issuance of USDT has already approached 140 billion, and Tron, which has been the preferred choice for USDT transfers for a long time, has now been surpassed by Ethereum in terms of USDT issuance. Although Tron is clearly inferior to Ethereum in practical application scenarios, it must be acknowledged that at least in terms of capital circulation, Tron remains the top choice for USDT holders.
According to DefiLlama data, at the time of writing, Tron has a TVL of about 7.555 billion dollars, which once exceeded 10 billion dollars in March this year. The price of TRX reached a peak of 0.18 dollars on April 17, 2021. Three and a half years later, on November 12, two weeks ago, TRX set a new high and subsequently surged to over 0.22 dollars.
TON
The emergence of TON can be traced back to the ICO era. At that time, Telegram raised 1.7 billion dollars for its token Grams through an ICO and planned to launch The Open Network (TON), but a lawsuit from the SEC pressed the pause button on everything. This typical SEC-style lawsuit, which treats everything like securities, did not settle until 2020, and Telegram also paid the price of not being able to continue the development of TON.
Afterwards, TON has been continuously operating with community support, but it has never made a significant splash in the industry. Its token price continued to decline after reaching a peak of 4.4 dollars at the end of 2021.
In 2022, during the months from April to July, the TON Foundation, along with several institutions, frequently launched ecosystem funds amounting to tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars, sounding the horn for the rapid expansion of the TON ecosystem. As a blockchain under Telegram, which has tens of millions of users, TON did not spend much effort on user quantity issues. The various games it launched and the integration with Telegram's interactive experience made its process from 0 to 1 very smooth, and its speed from 1 to 100 is astonishing.
Accompanied by the market heat, the price of TON also briefly broke through 8 dollars this June, nearly doubling from its previous 'peak'.
LEO
To be honest, if I hadn't checked the data site, I wouldn't have known about the existence of this token. LEO is a token issued by the old exchange Bitfinex, and its functions include fee reductions, etc. I couldn't find any convincing news on why this token set a new high; the only possibility is that the hacker who stole 120,000 bitcoins from Bitfinex was sentenced, which may be regarded as a positive signal to some extent.
LEO briefly broke through 8 dollars in early February 2022. On November 20, just a week ago, LEO set a new high and once surged close to 9 dollars.
FET
Fetch.ai, born before the last bull market, has endured until AI became the 'hot topic' today. The 'blockchain+' concept was very popular in its early years, and many related projects were established. However, the vast majority have become historical dust, but some projects have persevered until today, welcoming a true second spring. Besides Fetch.ai, there are also projects like IoTeX.
In the first half of this year, SingularityNET, Fetch.ai, and Ocean Protocol proposed the establishment of a super artificial intelligence alliance and merged their tokens. This plan has now been completed. The significant impact of AI on the development of human society is already beyond doubt, but whether crypto can truly drive this process still requires time for observation.
In early September 2021, FET reached a phase high of nearly 1.2 dollars, and this year, spurred by the AI boom led by OpenAI, the price of FET soared to about 3.5 dollars, nearly doubling from the previous bull market peak.
OKB
As one of the once three giants of domestic exchanges, OKX's performance in the past two years has been noteworthy. On one hand, OKX has made a series of optimizations in trading-related functions and user experience, allowing traders to personalize their trading plans. This has led other exchanges to follow suit; on the other hand, OKX's launched Web3 wallet could even be considered a phenomenal product, becoming the top choice for many treasure seekers during the boom of inscriptions.
As for the price of OKB, it actually set a historical high as early as the beginning of last year, coinciding with OKX's bold reforms. In March this year, OKB reached nearly 74 dollars, over 70% higher than the peak of about 44 dollars in early May 2021.
STX
It must be noted that some projects that set new highs in this round are not the favorites of the last bull market but have existed for many years and 'found their kindred spirits' in this cycle.
Stacks can be considered an early attempt in Web3 to utilize the Bitcoin network to establish a smart contract platform. Its design is interesting; simply put, Bitcoin holders bid using Bitcoin to obtain block rewards and transaction fees for new Stacks blocks, while the packaging of blocks is conducted by STX stakers. After completing the on-chain process, they can receive back the Bitcoin used for bidding. Since it also uploads state information to the Bitcoin network for final confirmation, Stacks can be seen as a kind of 'Bitcoin L2' to some extent.
The favorable winds brought by inscriptions have revitalized this project, which has been cultivating in the Bitcoin ecosystem for many years. The price of STX also rose to a high of about 3.85 dollars in April this year, surpassing the phase high of about 3.6 dollars set in November 2021.
INJ
The Cosmos ecosystem must be an indelible shadow in the hearts of many investors. Like Polkadot, it has a unique style and technical strength in the cross-chain field, but it has not sparked a trend similar to DeFi. According to token price information websites, Injective is also a project that was born before the last bull market, but it may not have gained widespread recognition until it secured 40 million dollars in funding in August 2022.
From the perspective of investors and the participants of the ecosystem fund it launched, including market makers, hedge funds, and other roles, Injective seems to want to establish a DeFi liquidity center. This plan is not unique, and on the surface, it seems there is nothing particularly special, but the price of INJ has risen sharply. In mid-March this year, the price of INJ surged over 52 dollars, more than doubling from the phase high of about 25 dollars on April 2021.
BGB
If the price increase of BNB and OKB is 'natural', then Bitget's emergence must be beyond most people's expectations. From the author's perspective, it is hard to imagine that new players can still conquer in the already crowded exchange field, but Bitget has indeed done it. With aggressive market strategies, a crazy yet efficient culture, wallet products, and various investment support, Bitget must have designed a comprehensive plan long before the market competition began, capturing the residual heat of the last bull market and seizing the opportunity of new users flooding into Web3.
In contrast to the previously mentioned tokens, which set new highs after following the market down in 2021, BGB has been in a climbing phase since its birth in 2021 and recently reached a high of 1.7 dollars.
