When everyone expected that the US Securities and Exchange Commission approved the Bitcoin spot ETF, recreating the scene of 'all coins rising' from 2021, reality dealt a heavy blow: apart from Bitcoin aiming for 100,000 dollars, a large number of 'altcoins' that shone in the previous bull market not only failed to set new highs in this round but are still lingering at the bottom.
To some extent, this may also indicate that as cryptocurrency investment gradually becomes mainstream in the United States, new incoming funds will focus on high-quality assets, just like in the US stock market. In this round of market, some tokens that previously reached peaks in the last bull market have again become favorites for profit-seekers. The author has reviewed some tokens that set phase-highs during the 2021 bull market and have created new highs in this round, but the understanding is limited and may not cover all tokens that meet such criteria.
SOL
During the boom of 'Alt L1' in 2021, EVM-compatible L1s like Fantom, NEAR, and Avalanche absorbed the overflow traffic due to Ethereum's high Gas costs. Among them, Solana did not follow the trend but rebuilt an ecosystem outside of EVM, and under the support of FTX founder SBF, which was thriving at that time, 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 shifted from madness to calm, coupled with the collapse of FTX and the imprisonment of one of Solana's biggest supporters, SBF, SOL fell to a low of around 7 dollars. Many well-known NFT projects on Solana have left, leading many investors to believe that Solana's story might be over.
Unexpectedly for many, during this cycle, Solana regained new vitality due to the rise of Meme and several ecosystem projects like the re-staking project Jito, with the price of SOL climbing steadily and recently breaking through the previous high of nearly 260 dollars set in early November 2021.
BNB
As the only truly diversified public chain among 'exchange platform tokens', Binance's BNB has left a strong impression whether in its 'resilience' during the bear market or its rise in the bull market. In the bear market of 2022, BNB fell from a peak of around 660 dollars in May 2021 to below 200 dollars at one point. Although the decline was significant, compared to many tokens that fell over 90% or nearly to zero, BNB can still be considered a relatively 'high-value' asset.
Subsequently, as the market recovered and Binance launched Launchpool and Launchpad projects at an almost frenzied rate, BNB surged and broke through the price peak of the last bull market on June 24 this year, reaching a high of over 700 dollars. Compared to the dim exit of Huobi's HECO Network, BNB still has a lot of potential value to explore within the exchange and on the BNB Chain.
TRX
The rise of Tron token TRX in this cycle can be said to be both unexpected and expected. The issuance of USDT has approached 140 billion, and Tron, as the preferred choice for USDT transfers for a considerable time, while it has been surpassed by Ethereum in USDT issuance, and in practical application scenarios, Tron is clearly inferior to Ethereum, it must be admitted that at least in terms of fund circulation, Tron remains the top choice for USDT holders.
According to DefiLlama data, as of the writing of this article, the TVL on Tron is about 7.555 billion dollars, having once exceeded 10 billion dollars in March of this year. The price of TRX reached a high of 0.18 dollars on April 17, 2021, and three and a half years later, on November 12 two weeks ago, TRX set a new high and subsequently rose above 0.22 dollars.
TON
The emergence of TON dates back to the ICO era when Telegram raised 1.7 billion dollars through an ICO for its token Grams and planned to launch The Open Network (TON), but a lawsuit from the SEC put everything on hold. This typical case of SEC treating everything as securities was only resolved in 2020, and Telegram paid the price of being unable to continue developing TON.
Subsequently, TON continued to operate with community support, but it never generated significant waves in the industry. Its token price set a high of 4.4 dollars at the end of 2021 and then continued to decline with the market.
As we reach 2022, between April and July, the TON Foundation frequently launched ecological funds worth tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars in collaboration with several institutions, signaling the rapid expansion of the TON ecosystem. As a blockchain under Telegram with tens of millions of users, TON did not put much effort into user acquisition; the various games they launched and the interactive experience integrated with Telegram made their journey from 0 to 1 very smooth, and their speed from 1 to 100 is also astonishing.
Accompanied by the market's enthusiasm, the price of TON also briefly exceeded 8 dollars in June this year, nearly doubling from its former 'peak'.
LEO
To be honest, if I hadn't checked the data website, I wouldn't have known about the existence of this token. LEO is a token issued by the established exchange Bitfinex, and its functions include fee reductions, etc. I have not found any convincing news regarding why this token set a new high; the only possibility is that the sentencing of the hacker who stole 120,000 bitcoins from Bitfinex might be seen as a positive factor to some extent.
LEO briefly surpassed 8 dollars in early February 2022, and a week ago on November 20, LEO set a new high and once rose to nearly 9 dollars.
FET
Fetch.ai, as a product born before the previous bull market, has managed to survive until AI became the 'current hot topic.' The early 'blockchain +' concept was popular, and many related projects were established, but by today, the vast majority have become dust of history. However, some projects have persevered until today, welcoming a true second spring, among which besides Fetch.ai, there are also projects like IoTeX.
In the first half of this year, SingularityNET, Fetch.ai, and Ocean Protocol proposed to form a super artificial intelligence alliance and merge tokens, and this plan has now been completed. The significant impact of AI on human societal development is already beyond doubt, but whether Crypto can truly drive this process still requires time to observe.
In early September 2021, FET reached a phase-high of nearly 1.2 dollars, while this year the artificial intelligence wave led by OpenAI brought FET's price to a high of around 3.5 dollars, nearly doubling from the previous bull market's peak.
OKB
As one of the former three giants of domestic exchanges, OKX has performed notably in the past two years. On one hand, OKX has optimized a series of trading-related functions and user experiences, allowing traders to personalize their trading plans more effectively. This has also led other exchanges to follow suit; on the other hand, the Web3 wallet launched by OKX may even be regarded as a phenomenal product, becoming the top choice for many treasure hunters during the peak of inscriptions.
As for the price of OKB, it actually set a historical high as early as the beginning of last year, synchronized with OKX's major reforms. In March of this year, OKB reached a historical high of nearly 74 dollars, more than 70% higher than the peak of around 44 dollars in early May 2021.
STX
It must be said that some projects whose token prices set new highs in this round are not the favorites of the last bull market but have existed for many years and have 'found their audience' in this cycle.
Stacks can be considered an early attempt in Web3 to establish a smart contract platform utilizing the Bitcoin network. Its design is quite interesting; simply put, Bitcoin holders use Bitcoin to bid for block rewards and transaction fees from new Stacks blocks, while the block packaging is performed by STX stakers. After the block is added to the chain, they can receive the Bitcoin previously used for bidding. Since it also uploads state information to the Bitcoin network to achieve finality confirmation, Stacks is regarded as a kind of 'Bitcoin L2' to some extent.
The wind from the inscriptions has revitalized this project that has been cultivating in the Bitcoin ecosystem for many years, and the price of STX also rose to a high of around 3.85 dollars this April, surpassing the previous phase-high of around 3.6 dollars set in November 2021.
INJ
The Cosmos ecosystem must be an indelible shadow in the minds of many investors, possessing a unique style and technical strength in the cross-chain field like Polkadot, but failing to spark a trend similar to DeFi. According to token price information websites, Injective was also a project that emerged before the last bull market, but it may not have been widely recognized until it raised 40 million dollars in funding in August 2022.
From the perspective of investors and participants of its launched ecological funds, including market makers, hedge funds, etc., Injective seems to want to establish a DeFi liquidity center. This plan is not unique and at first glance does not appear special, but the price of INJ has been rising steadily. In mid-March of this year, the price of INJ rose above 52 dollars, more than doubling from its phase-high of around 25 dollars on April 2021.
BGB
If the rise in prices of BNB and OKB is 'expected', then the emergence of Bitget must have been beyond most people's expectations. From my perspective, it is hard to imagine a new player making strides in a market already dominated by giants, but Bitget has indeed achieved that. Aggressive market strategies, a crazy yet efficient culture, wallet products, and various investment assistance must have led Bitget to design a comprehensive plan before officially launching the market competition, successfully seizing the opportunity brought by the last bull market and the influx of new users into Web3.
Compared to the previously introduced tokens that set new highs in 2021 and then fell with the market before reaching new highs again, BGB has been in a climbing phase since its inception in 2021 and recently set a high of 1.7 dollars.
