Digital Assets have had a roaring start to the year, with the overall market reaching a market cap of $1 tillion, and Defi tokens achieving new price highs. We Review Q1 of 2021, in terms of crypto market performance.
Although 2021 opened with a flash Bitcoin market crash around the 4th of January, the death of the lead digital asset – by market capitalization – was, yet again, not to be. While Bitcoin dumped about $5,000 in value on the day, it went on to rally past the $35,000 about 48 hours later. The big rally in prices, across the board, coincided with announcements by large institutional firms, PayPal, MasterCard, and Tesla – to name a few – assuming sizable positions in Bitcoin. Inflation related concerns, as well as, fears of a weakening dollar may have also played into the equation.
The overall digital asset market’s market cap – in Q1 – dropped about 5% however, mostly due to a 10% drop in Bitcoin’s value over the first quarter, following the initial +$35,000 push in January. Despite the overall grim picture painted by Bitcoin, there were still great profits to be had by traders, as many-a-coin continuously broke through new price levels as the first quarter wore on.
Everybody’s favorite data oracle token, ChainLink (LINK), saw a 32% jump in value over the quarter, while Dash (DASH) saw a 61% price increase in the first quarter of 2019. The privacy token is currently positioned 16th in terms of market capitalization, a fall from top 10 position a few years ago, but still quite significantly capitalized.
With the overall cryptocurrency market’s market cap’ currently sitting at over $2 trillion, the market still rose to make tremendous gains towards the close of Q1, 2021. Bitcoin still went on to log three All-time-highs, and second in command (market capitalization-wise,) Ethereum went on to set five new all-time-highs above $2,000.
Embattled real-time settlement platform token, Ripple (XRP) – despite all it’s SEC woes, managed to scrape together an impressive 170% price jump. While once virtually dead, Litecoin pumped 69% during the quarter.
Digital asset exchange, Binance’s native platform token, Binance Coin (BNB) must be one of the stars of the opening quarter of 2021, as the Exchange Token – possibly attesting to rampant retail trader adoption – saw a whopping 709% gain in value. Smart contract platforms, Cardano (ADA,) and Polkadot (DOT) initiated upgrades to their technology in Q1, which seems to have gone down well speculators, as the coins each recorded price swells of about 557%, and 300%, respectively.
While most Defi tokens inched their way to an average of 500% gains throughout the quarter, it is CAKE, and Galaxy Digital Backed Terraform’s LUNA that stole the show last quarter. Both Defi coins closed Q1 having made gains of 3000%, and 2800%, respectively.
