Happy New Year to you from WealthWithCrypto! If you joined us in 2021 in your crypto journey, then you have experienced all the highs and lows of crypto and we hope you are as excited as we are to see what's in store for 2022. A lot can change over the span of a year, and that holds true especially for crypto. Looking back at the historical snapshot for the first week of Jan 2021 compared to the snapshot on the last week of 2021, we can see a lot has changed.
The OGs of Crypto
In terms of market cap, only Bitcoin and Ethereum remained the same rank, securing the top first and second spot respectively. Bitcoin grew 56% from a CAD $775b to a $1.23t market cap, seeing its price rise to $65,118.49 from $41,711.19 at the start of the year. Ethereum on the other hand, experienced an impressive rise of 320% as its price climbed from $1,241.22 to $5,212.77, pushing its market cap from $141.6b to $619.8b.
Out With the Old
The noticeable changes in the top 10 2021 recap is the exit of three cryptos: Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Chainlink and the welcoming of Solana, USDC, and Terra (Luna) to the list. Litecoin who ranked in 4th at the start of the year fell to the 19th spot despite not much change in its price or market cap. Bitcoin Cash fell the hardest, sliding 18 spots from 7th place down to the 25th, again with not much price action. Chainlink surprisingly dropped from the 10th spot down to the 20th, despite a 70% increase in the token price from $17.37 to $29.49 a token.
In With the New
The three spots were replaced by 2 explosive coins Solana and Terra, which saw tremendous growth in 2021, and a stable-coin USDC which is pegged to the US Dollar. Solana which jumped up the ranks from 112th to the top 5 spot on the list saw it's price increase over 9000% as it started the year at $2.75 and exploded up to $253.76, pushing its market cap from just $128m to $78b. Terra (Luna), the other star of the year, although did not leap as many spots as Solana, did see even more growth in its coin price as it amassed a 15,000% increase from $0.84 to $127.8.
Remaining in the Top 10
With the remaining five that stayed on the list (Tether, Ripple XRP, Polkadot, Cardano, and Binance Coin), Binance Coin showed the most strength as it charged to the 3rd spot from the 9th with a 1,239% gain from $52.35 to $701.04 a coin. Cardano jumped into the 6th spot, up from the 8th as it enjoyed a 617% increase in price from $0.26 to $1.87. Ripple XRP dropped 2 spots down to 7th and Polkadot slid 4 spots down to the last place although both appreciated 311% and 214% respectively.
The crypto space evolved rapidly in a years time, as 2021 marked a major milestone in terms of adoption. El Salvador became the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender, Openseas recorded over $15 billion USD in NFT trading volume compared to $24million in 2020, and Facebook's transformation to Meta is just the tip of the iceberg in 2021. The money and demand flowing into crypto exploded in 2021 as evident from the total market cap for the top 10 coins, as the value more than doubled from $1trillion to $2.4trillion by the end of the year. There is no doubt that the interest is there, and 2022 will bring exciting things in the world of crypto. I'm curious to see what the top 10 will look like as we recap again a year from now.
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