Coin Race: Top Winners/Losers of Mixed May; Bitcoin, Ethereum Up Again

Sead Fadilpašić
Last updated: | 4 min read

As June just started, we’ll look back again at May to see how the market finished the month. We have a mixed bag this time. While it was difficult finding a coin in red in April, we have a full list of both winners and losers this time around. However, there are only four coins in the top 10 by market capitalization category whose price appreciated over the course of the last month of this spring.

Source: Adobe/BelliniFrancescoM81

And this comes as no surprise given bitcoin (BTC)’s several up and down trips over the USD 9,000 mark towards the USD 10,000 mark in May. Furthermore, May was the month of its historic, third halving, and in this month, BTC also saw the first twelve-month period since the 2019 rally where investors started to see negative returns.

In May, ethereum (ETH) continued its strong performance from April. Interestingly, Ryan Watkins, an analyst at crypto researcher Messari, warned that this coin may be hurt by the ERC20 tokens taking over the Ethereum network. Meanwhile, Vitalik Buterin confirmed that Phase 0 of the network’s second version is ‘on track,’ though it’ll not launch in July.

That all said, at the very end of the month, both BTC and altcoins trend turned bullish once more.

Top 10 coins

As said, only four coins of the top 10 by market capitalization finished the month of May in green, and these are our winners in this category. At the very top sits cardano (ADA) with an increase of 62% over the course of the past 30 days. Near the end of May, Cardano founder and CEO of Cardano development firm IOHK, Charles Hoskinson, revealed a number of dates related to the platform’s Shelley upgrade. This was accompanied with ADA outperforming nearly all other top 100 cryptoassets by market capitalization.

Both ETH and BTC had seen lower double-digit increases, with Ethereum leading the way, seeing how it has three percentage points over bitcoin. Meanwhile, binance coin (BNB) also finished the month positively, even if recording a smaller rise compared to the other three coins, of less than 2%.

As for the other coins (excluding stablecoin tether (USDT)), bitcoin SV (BSV) (whose backer, Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright found himself in deeper hot water) and XRP dropped the most, both more than 6%, while litecoin (LTC) dropped the least, almost 2%.

Source: Coincodex.com, 04:22 UTC. Note: Some other market data providers give different numbers. For example, according to Coinpaprika.com, BTC and ETH went up 7.6% and 11% respectively.

Top 10 winners in May

We now look into the top 50 coins market capitalization to find our winners and losers. As for the winners, we have a clear top 10 list, at the top of which sits zilliqa (ZIL), which appreciated over 186.5% in the past thirty days. The second-placed theta token (THETA) saw a rise of over 114%, and the third-place omisego (OMG) over 108%. With ADA as the next line, the rest of the coins on this list boast two-digit increases, the lowest of which is NEO’s 29%.

Meanwhile, as reported, major crypto exchange Coinbase is now distributing OMG tokens to everyone who held ETH on the platform as of July 7, 2017.

Source: Coincodex.com, 04:22 UTC

Top 10 losers in May

Though there is a full list of top 10 losers in May, it’s worth noting that their drops aren’t that large, particularly not as large as what we’ve seen in March. Bitcoin gold (BTG) is leading this list with a 8% drop. It’s then followed by four of the top 10 coins by market capitalization, as well as three coins with a 3% fall each. The least to decrease over the course of the past month is cosmos (ATOM) with -2.5%.

Source: Coincodex.com, 04:22 UTC

Winners & losers from top 100/200

ZIL is at the throne even among the top 100 coins by market capitalization. This category, however, has seven coins with a three-digit rise, with solve (SOLVE) in the second place with an increase of 141.5%. THETA and OMG are not far behind either, now in the third and the fifth place respectively. The last of the seven is velas (VLX) with a 102% rise. It’s followed by holo (HOT) with 76%, 0x (ZRX) with 57.5%, and ADA. Of the 100, the least green is qcash (QC) with a 0.8% rise.

There are just nineteen red coins among the top 100, led by hive token (HIVE), one of the top winners last month, with a 48% drop. energi (NRG) and nervos (CKB) follow with -27% and -17%, receptively. The rest have single-digit drops, with kucoin shares (KCS) taking the last spot (-0.4%).

The situation is quite different in the top 200 by market capitalization category. whitecoin (XWC) is on the throne with a 1,937% rise, while the eighteen coins that follow have three-digit rises, VLX being the last among them. xensor (XSR) is in the second place (629.5%), and xinfin (XDCE) in the third (427%).

As for the red coins, cryptoindex (CIX100) is number one, having dropped 44% in a month, followed by hive, and tap (XTP) that fell 36%.