Original title: Bigger Gains Than Bitcoin: Top-Performing Crypto Assets of 2024
Original author: Mat Di Salvo
Original source: https://decrypt.co/
Compiled by: Daisy, Mars Finance
Bitcoin reached a historic high this year, boosted by the approval of the U.S. spot ETF and Trump's election—though some assets performed even better.
Bitcoin reached a historic high this year, largely due to the approval of the U.S. spot ETF, along with the subsequent election of Donald Trump as president—despite other assets performing even better.
Decrypt analyzed data from CoinGecko and Nasdaq to identify the top-performing cryptocurrencies. Eligible assets must have a starting market cap of at least $500 million between January 1 and December 17.
Other digital asset-related investments, including those from major companies, also performed well. Here’s a look at this year's top-performing assets.
PEPE—The Winning Meme Coin of the Year
PEPE is one of the newer meme coin tokens that has entered the market, launched last year. This token is based on Pepe the Frog, an internet cartoon character that has been labeled a hate symbol by the Anti-Defamation League due to its unusual adoption by far-right groups.
Pepe set a new historical high in December. The Ethereum-based token had a market cap of $590.8 million at the beginning of the year and reached $9.4 billion by December 17, an increase of 1,492%.
Pepe has made headlines—typical of meme coins—due to its absurd value increase and the fortunes made by a few traders. However, unlike many strange assets in the meme coin space, Pepe has continued to rise and is now the 28th largest cryptocurrency by market cap.
Sui (SUI)—The King of Altcoins
Not long ago, the little-known Sui (SUI) emerged: this blockchain launched in May 2023, developed by former Meta (formerly Facebook) engineers, and now boasts an active DeFi community utilizing its fast network.
The native token SUI of the fast blockchain Sui has surged significantly this year. In January, SUI's market cap was $925 million. After a 1,193% increase, by December, its market cap approached $12 billion. SUI is now the 18th largest cryptocurrency by market cap.
MicroStrategy (MSTR)—Winning Bitcoin Stock
Michael Saylor's software company has fully bet on Bitcoin this year—its stock showed that the share price was less than $70 at the beginning of the year.
By December, the stock price had nearly quintupled to $386. This is a 464% increase, outperforming all other stocks on Nasdaq, including Nvidia.
MicroStrategy was once an obscure software company. Since 2020, the company has begun purchasing Bitcoin and has rebranded itself as a 'Bitcoin Treasury Company.' This year, the Virginia-based company accelerated its Bitcoin purchases, pledging to provide the best Bitcoin investment opportunities for speculators.
Investors—including hedge funds seeking volatile returns—have flocked to this stock.
Dogecoin (Dogecoin)
The original meme coin. Dogecoin (DOGE) was initially created as a joke to mock the proliferation of altcoins and has now become the seventh largest cryptocurrency by market cap.
This year, its market cap has grown by 342%, currently standing at $45.9 billion. The rise of Bitcoin has undoubtedly played a driving role.
This is mainly thanks to Tesla CEO Elon Musk: the world's richest person frequently tweeted about Dogecoin during 2020 to 2021, and this year, amid speculation that the coin would be used on his social platform X (formerly Twitter), he mentioned Dogecoin again.
XRP—The Comeback Kid
XRP performed strongly this year. This token supports transactions on the Ripple network, which provides blockchain solutions for cross-border payments to institutions.
The market cap of this token has skyrocketed, now becoming the fourth largest cryptocurrency by market cap, growing from $34 billion to $131.2 billion, an increase of 286%. This month, it briefly surpassed Tether to become the third largest cryptocurrency by market cap; at the beginning of the year, it was the sixth largest cryptocurrency.
The coin made headlines due to its disputes with regulators. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a $1.3 billion lawsuit against Ripple in 2020, accusing the company of selling unregistered securities to raise funds.
But last year, in a lawsuit against regulators, Ripple won a partial victory when a judge ruled that the programmatic sale of XRP to retail investors on cryptocurrency exchanges did not constitute a security.
Despite a judge ruling that the $728 million token was an unregistered securities sale for institutional sales, this ruling has still been interpreted as a victory for Ripple and the entire cryptocurrency industry.
BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT)
Given the title of this article, we can consider it an honorary nomination. This year has been incredible for Bitcoin, and the world's largest asset management firm has contributed to making Bitcoin, the largest and oldest cryptocurrency, accessible to everyone by launching an ETF.
The iShares Bitcoin Trust is a traditional investment tool that allows investors to buy and sell shares that track the price of Bitcoin. These shares are traded on Nasdaq.
When it began trading in January, IBIT broke records with unprecedented trading volumes and capital inflows: by December, its assets under management had exceeded $50 billion, reaching this milestone in just 228 days, faster than any other ETF in history.
Several other top asset management companies have also launched Bitcoin ETFs, but BlackRock's product has been the most successful.
