When everyone thought that after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved the Bitcoin spot ETF, the market would reproduce the scene of "all coins rising together" in 2021, the reality gave us a surprise: in addition to Bitcoin continuing to move towards US$100,000, many "altcoins" that performed strongly in the last bull market not only failed to set new highs, but are still hovering at the bottom.
In fact, from a certain perspective, this may be because as cryptocurrency investment gradually becomes mainstream in the United States, the inflow of funds begins to focus on high-quality projects, similar to the situation in the U.S. stock market. In this round of market, some currencies that once reached the top in the 2021 bull market have become the target of investors again.
Keke listed several tokens that reached highs in the last bull market and have set new highs in this round, but due to limited knowledge, might not have covered all similar tokens.
SOL
During the 'Alt L1' craze in 2021, Layer 1 blockchains compatible with EVM like Fantom, NEAR, and Avalanche absorbed a large amount of traffic overflow from Ethereum due to the high Gas fees at that time. However, Solana did not follow suit but instead created its own ecosystem outside of EVM. Thanks to the support of FTX founder SBF, who was riding high at that time, and the team's efforts, the price of Solana (SOL) skyrocketed from less than $1 when it was first listed to over $200.
However, as the market gradually shifted from frenzy to calm, the collapse of FTX and the arrest of SBF caused Solana to lose its most powerful supporter, and the price of SOL once dropped to around $7. Some well-known NFT projects on Solana also migrated, and many investors believe that Solana's story may have come to an end.
What surprised these people is that in the current cycle, Solana has been rejuvenated by the rise of Memes, and additionally, some ecosystem projects like the restaking platform Jito have provided new momentum for Solana. The price of SOL has risen steadily, even breaking through the nearly $260 historical high set in early November 2021 in the past week.
BNB
As the only public chain that has successfully diversified its ecosystem among 'exchange platform tokens', Binance's BNB has left a deep impression with its strong performance in bear markets as well as its robust rise in bull markets. During the bear market of 2022, BNB fell from its peak of $660 in May 2021 and even dropped below $200 at one point. Although the drop was significant, compared to many tokens that fell over 90% or nearly to zero, BNB's 'store of value' is relatively strong.
With the gradual market recovery, Binance has almost launched projects like Launchpool and Launchpad at a frantic pace, and BNB has also welcomed a strong rebound, breaking through the previous bull market price peak on June 24 this year, reaching a high of over $700 at one point. Unlike Huobi's HECO Network, which has quietly retreated, BNB still possesses tremendous potential and further exploitable value, whether within the exchange or in the ecosystem construction on BNB Chain.
TRX
The token TRX of Tron set a new high in this round of cycles, which, while surprising, can also be considered reasonable. With the issuance of USDT approaching 140 billion, Tron has always been the preferred chain for USDT transfers. Although Tron has now been surpassed by Ethereum in terms of USDT issuance and is clearly inferior to Ethereum in practical application scenarios, it cannot be ignored that Tron remains an important choice for USDT holders in terms of capital flow.
According to DefiLlama, as of the writing of this article, the TVL on Tron is approximately $7.555 billion, although this figure once exceeded $10 billion in March this year. The price of TRX reached a peak of $0.18 on April 17, 2021, and three and a half years later, TRX set a new high on November 12, breaking through $0.22 in the following days. This surge demonstrates a certain potential for Tron in the market.
TON
The story of TON can be traced back to the ICO era when Telegram raised $1.7 billion through ICO with the plan to launch The Open Network (TON) and issue its token Grams. However, a lawsuit from the SEC brought everything to a halt, with this typical 'SEC-style' lawsuit claiming that almost all tokens are like securities, and it wasn't until 2020 that a settlement was finally reached, at which point Telegram paid the price of not being able to continue developing TON.
After that, TON continued to operate with community support but never managed to create significant waves in the industry. At the end of 2021, the token price of TON reached a high of $4.4, and then followed the overall market decline.
Entering 2022, the TON Foundation frequently launched ecological funds worth tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars with multiple institutions, sparking a wave of TON ecosystem expansion. As the blockchain behind Telegram with tens of millions of users, TON did not overly focus on user numbers but instead created a smooth process from 0 to 1 through various games and deep integration with Telegram, even achieving a surprising speed from 1 to 100.
With the rise in market heat, the price of TON briefly broke through $8 in June this year, nearly doubling from past highs, showcasing a strong market rebound momentum.
LEO
To be honest, if it weren't for checking the data website, Keke might not even know of the existence of the LEO token. LEO is a token issued by the long-established exchange Bitfinex, mainly used for fee reductions and other purposes. As for why it was able to reach a new high, the author did not find particularly convincing reasons. The only possible explanation is that the hacker who once stole 120,000 bitcoins from Bitfinex was sentenced, which might be seen as a positive factor to some extent.
The price of LEO briefly broke through $8 in early February 2022, and just a week ago on November 20, LEO set a new high, rising to nearly $9.
FET
Fetch.ai, a project that was born before the previous bull market, has endured to today and finally caught up with the AI craze. The early 'blockchain+' concept was widely popular, with many related projects emerging one after another, but most ultimately became dust in history. However, some projects persisted and welcomed their 'second spring', and Fetch.ai is one of them, with IoTeX being a similar example.
In the first half of this year, SingularityNET, Fetch.ai, and Ocean Protocol proposed plans to establish a super artificial intelligence alliance and merge tokens, which has now been completed. The profound impact of AI on human social development is undeniable, but whether cryptocurrencies can truly drive this process still needs time to verify.
The price of FET reached a peak of nearly $1.2 in September 2021, and with the rise of AI technologies like OpenAI, the price of FET has surpassed $3.5 this year, almost doubling the previous bull market peak, demonstrating the strong driving force of the AI trend on its price.
OKB
As one of the former top three domestic exchanges, OKX's performance over the past two years has been outstanding. On one hand, OKX has made significant optimizations in trading functions and user experience, especially in personalized trading settings, allowing traders to formulate more flexible trading plans based on their needs. This has also led to other exchanges following suit. On the other hand, the Web3 wallet launched by OKX can be considered a phenomenal product, especially at the time when inscriptions were all the rage, becoming the preferred tool for many treasure hunters.
As for the price of OKB, it actually set a historic high as early as the beginning of last year, coinciding with a series of reforms and innovations from OKX. In March of this year, the price of OKB broke through $74, setting a historic high, which is over 70% higher than the peak of around $44 in early May 2021. This increase fully reflects OKX's influence in the industry and the market recognition brought by its product innovations.
STX
One cannot help but marvel that many tokens that set new highs in this round of market are not the darlings of the previous bull market, but projects that existed many years ago, which finally found the right opportunity in this cycle and encountered 'like-minded partners'.
Stacks is such a typical example. It is a platform that was one of the early attempts to utilize the Bitcoin network to build smart contracts, with a very unique design. In simple terms, Stacks allows Bitcoin holders to bid to earn block rewards and transaction fees for new Stacks blocks, while the block packaging work is completed by STX stakers. After the block is chained, the stakers can receive the Bitcoin they used for bidding earlier. Since Stacks uploads state information to the Bitcoin network for final confirmation, it can be seen to some extent as a 'Layer 2' solution for Bitcoin.
With the rise of inscription fever, Stacks, a project that has been deeply rooted in the Bitcoin ecosystem for many years, has revitalized. In April this year, the price of STX soared to $3.85, breaking through the previous peak of $3.6 set in November 2021, demonstrating strong market response and potential.
INJ
The Cosmos ecosystem is undoubtedly a 'shadow' in the hearts of many investors. Like Polkadot, it has unique technology and strength in the cross-chain field, but it has not triggered a widespread trend like DeFi. From the token price information, Injective is actually a project that was born before the last bull market, and it wasn't until August 2022 when it secured a $40 million funding that it became widely known.
From the perspective of investment parties and ecosystem fund participants, including market makers, hedge funds, etc., Injective seems to aim to establish a DeFi liquidity center. On the surface, this plan may not seem very innovative, but in fact, the price of INJ has been climbing steadily. In mid-March this year, the price of INJ broke through $52, more than doubling from around $25 in April 2021, showcasing strong market demand and investor confidence.
BGB
If the price rise of BNB and OKB is deemed 'reasonable', then the emergence of Bitget undoubtedly exceeded most people's expectations.
As an emerging exchange, Bitget has successfully emerged in a market already occupied by numerous giants, which is truly unimaginable. With aggressive market strategies, a crazy yet efficient culture, and continuously launching wallet products and various investment tools, Bitget quickly secured a place in market competition.
Clearly, they had already made thorough plans for this market competition and cleverly seized the residual heat of the previous bull market and the timing of the new influx of Web3 users.
Unlike those tokens that set new highs after a price drop in 2021 and then reached new highs again, BGB has been steadily rising since its inception in 2021. A few days ago, its price broke through $1.7, setting a new high and showing its continuous growth momentum in the market.