Coin Race: Top Winners/Losers of April 2021; The Month of Dogecoin

Sead Fadilpašić
Last updated: | 5 min read

Happy crypto May everybody! Welcome to another month that’s starting off green, but to see how we got here, we need to go back and take a look at what happened in the month before. April was by no means an unsuccessful month (price appreciation-wise) for either the top 10 coins by market capitalization, or the majority of the top 100. Nonetheless, it wasn’t as green as March, likely caused by certain bumps on the bull’s road.

Source: iStock/36clicks

Looking at the top two coins, overall, ethereum (ETH) had a much better month percentage wise than bitcoin (BTC), with the former increasing 59 percentage points more than the latter.

This comes after ETH has been outperforming BTC consistently over the month of April. Bitcoin saw its all-time high on April 14, of almost USD 65,000, and it hasn’t reached it again since. Instead, it saw a couple of drops, touching the USD 47,000 level, then hovering around USD 54,000 before climbing to the USD 57,000 level on the last day of the month. On the other hand, ethereum kept on rising following its April all-time highs, despite the crypto-characteristic minor dips and volatility, closing the month with USD 2,770, before it would surpass USD 3,000 at the beginning of May.

(Some percentages in the tables below might slightly differ due to the market fluctuations at the time of taking data.)

Top 10 Coins in April

Source: coincodex.com, May 1, 03:20 UTC

Many of the top ten coins by market capitalization recorded substantial increases over the previous month, but the same can’t be said for the world’s most well-known crypto – bitcoin, though ending the month in green, had the lowest increase among its peers by far, rising 2%.

On the other end is the world’s most well-known meme crypto, dogecoin (DOGE), which appreciated around 530% in a single month. DOGE started leading the market already in mid-April, with the Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and Tesla chief Elon Musk soon adding the fuel to the fire again, combined with DogeDay’s ‘celebration’. Meanwhile, crypto payment processor BitPay‘s Sonny Singh reported that the share of bitcoin in their payments was the lowest near the end of April, as altcoins such as dogecoin gained traction.

The distant second place is taken by XRP and its 185% rise. As reported, Ripple‘s executives have been on an interview ‘tour’, criticising the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)’s treatment of the company and XRP in the ongoing legal case. This follows the SEC’s failed attempt to secure the personal financial records of CEO Brad Garlinghouse and Executive Chairman Chris Larsen, but also financial giant / long-time Ripple partner SBI alleging that Larsen is eyeing a Coinbase-style stock market listing.

Binance coin (BNB) also recorded a three-digit percentage, of 128%. These are followed by bitcoin cash (BCH)‘s almost 100%, ethereum’s 61%, and uniswap (UNI)‘s 43%.

The remaining coins, cardano (ADA) and polkadot (DOT), saw smaller increases compared to these mentioned above: 13.5% and 11%, respectively. This is good news for ADA which had found itself on the red list in March.

Top winners in April

Source: coincodex.com, May 1, 03:20 UTC

All ten winners among the top 50 coins by market capitalization saw triple-digit increases over the month of April.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Cryptoverse’s pet DOGE leads this list as well. But perhaps somewhat surprisingly, ethereum classic (ETC) follows it, having appreciated nearly 220% in April. It has been a while since ETC was mentioned on either the winners or the losers lists. Development update has been provided from the ETC Mantis project – the only client written natively for Ethereum Classic. Development firm IOHK, which stands behind Cardano, has a dedicated Mantis team for this project, who have already deployed a fully supported testnet ‘Sagano’.

The third-placed XRP is followed by a decentralized finance (DeFi) token, pancakeswasp (CAKE), which went up 186%. Thorchain (RUNE)‘s 141.5% comes next, as well as polygon (MATIC)‘s 131% and the mentioned BNB.

The last three spots on the winners list are taken by solana (SOL), vechain thor (VET), and NEO, which increased between 124% and 128%.

Top losers in April

Source: coincodex.com, May 1, 03:21 UTC

Out of the top 50, only 6 ended the month in red – which is still two more than in March. Also, the percentages are relatively high, particularly when compared to the March ones.

Klaytn (KLAY) sits at the top here with a drop of 38%. The relatively distant second is kusama (KSM) with 21%.

The two are followed by terra (LUNA) and theta token (THETA), which dropped 11% and 10.5%, respectively. Crypto com chain token (CRO) comes next, having fallen nearly 7%, while nem (XEM) – which had seen the largest drop in March – now takes the last place on the red list with a nearly 5% decrease.

Interestingly, the coin with the smallest rise that follows the lowest drop as the next on the list – is bitcoin.

Winners & losers from top 100

For the majority of the top 100 coins by market capitalization, the last 30 days have been successful. The top here has been taken by private chain (ARRR) and its 2,103% rise. Then come the three mentioned coins: DOGE, ETC, and XRP. Kucoin token (KCS) is next with a rise of 160%, followed by SOL, bitcoin gold (BTG), and OKB, the last of which was on the top losers list in March. Together with VET and maker (MKR), they all appreciated between 142% and 154%. The last spot on this list is taken by MATIC.

The red list is shorter, counting only 22 out of the 100. It is led by KLAY, followed by bridge oracale (BRG) and orbit chain (ORC), both dropping around 31.5%. The rest of the list’s prices decreased less than 20%. This includes DENT‘s 17%, harmony (ONE)‘s 17%, filecoin (FIL)‘s 13%, as well as the mentioned CRO. Icon (ICX), holo (HOT), and near protocol (NEAR) all fell a bit more than 10%.

Top NFTs

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) continue capturing the world’s attention, both those of crypto and of the mainstream.

When it comes to the top NFT-based tokens, in the past 30 days, five have appreciated, while the price of three has dropped.

Among the green ones, axie infinity (AXS) takes the winning spot, after it went up 73%. In April, Axie Infinity announced that phase two of their Ethereum sidechain, Ronin, is live, calling for migration of Axies and enabling deposits of ETH, AXS, and SLP to Ronin.

Decentraland (MANA) also recorded a substantial rise compared to its peers on this list, of 43%. Chiliz (CHZ) is up 11%, followed by enjin coin (ENJ)‘s 9% and lastly origin protocol (OGN)’s 2%.

On the other side stand the reds, with the sandbox (SAND) leading the list, having dropped 15%. THETA is in the second place, while wax (WAXP) dropped the least, 2%.

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Learn more:
Bitcoin’s Correlation with Altcoins is Declining Again. What Does it Mean?
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