Coin Race: Top Winners/Losers of October; BTC, ETH All-Time Highs, Meme Rally Continues
November is here, and our monthly overview of the crypto market shows that October on the whole has been a good month for investors. Most coins are up, some are up massively, and a few have seen falling prices.
Compared to September, October – already dubbed “Uptober” – was a far better month. Helped by the launch of the first bitcoin futures-backed exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the US, the likes of bitcoin (BTC) and ethereum (ETH) both reached fresh all-time highs during the month, with bitcoin briefly touching the USD 67,000 mark for the first time ever, and ETH nearing USD 4,500.
Noteworthy is also that BTC and ETH not only saw single-day all-time highs in October, but that the month also marked both coins’ highest monthly close ever on all major exchanges.
Top 10 coins in October
In October, nearly all of the top 10 coins by market capitalization had a good month, with many of the major coins seeing gains of around 30% for the month.
The only coin from the top 10 list that did not rise over the course of October was cardano (ADA), which instead fell by just over 11%. The losses for ADA in October came after another weak month in September, when the coin fell by 26%. To be fair, however, ADA has seen good performance if we look further back, with the coin more than doubling in price in August and it’s still up by more than 2,000% in a year.
In terms of other coins from the top 10 list by market capitalization, there’s no way around mentioning shiba inu (SHIB). The self-proclaimed “dogecoin killer” has climbed from being essentially worthless at the beginning of the year, to entering the top 10 list of the most valuable cryptoassets and flipping the original dogecoin (DOGE) in October.
Over the course of the month, SHIB, now ranked as the 8th most valuable cryptoasset, rose by 870%.
Lastly from the top 10 list, it’s also worth noting the performance of the major smart contract and DeFi-focused assets ethereum, solana (SOL), and polkadot (DOT), which all rose by 30%-40%.
Best from the top 50 in October
Taking a look at the broader crypto space by expanding our scope to the top performers from the 50 largest coins by market capitalization shows that the new meme coin king, SHIB, still ranks on top. However, many other coins also saw outstanding performance, with 4 of them more than doubling in price.
In addition to SHIB, however, MANA, the token affiliated with the virtual reality world Decentraland, also saw strong performance in October, rising by nearly 285%. The large gains were quickly attributed to Facebook’s plan to rebrand itself as Meta, a reference to the metaverse, which Decentraland and other virtual reality worlds can be considered a part of.
Similarly, Facebook’s stronger emphasis on the metaverse also fueled the play-to-earn token axie infinity (AXS) higher, with a rise of nearly 47% for the month.
In terms of other notable coins from the top 50, RUNE, the native token of the decentralized liquidity network THORChain, more than doubled in price over the month. The surge in price is believed to have been fueled by a move to reactivate ETH pools on the protocol after an exploit earlier this year that halted the entire network.
Worst from the top 50 in October
Switching gears to look at the worst performers from the top 50 coins by market capitalization reveals how strong of a month “Uptober” really was. While the two best-performing coins for the month were up 870% and 285%, respectively, the two worst performers were “only” down by 20% and 11%, respectively.
Most notable among these coins was FLOW, the native token of the blockchain network with the same name designed especially for games and social networks. Despite strong backers such as Andreessen Horowitz, Warner Music Group, Union Square Ventures, however, the price of the FLOW token has struggled since reaching an all-time high of almost USD 60 in March this year.
Also worth mentioning from this group of coins is CAKE, the governance token of Binance Chain’s popular decentralized exchange PancakeSwap. Ranked as the 46th most valuable cryptoasset, CAKE fell by nearly 9% over the month of October.
The CAKE token has been in a consistent downtrend since late August, and remains down by almost 60% from its all-time high of around USD 44 from April 30 this year.
Winners & losers from the top 100 & 200
Zooming out even further to cover all coins in the top 100, a number of highly speculative meme coins shows just how powerful social media-fueled efforts to pump certain coins can be.
The top coin from this group was a largely unknown Ethereum-based token called dogeleon mars (ELON), rising by more than 3,600%. In the next three places on the list came the already mentioned shiba inu and decentraland, followed by safemoon, the token that promises to take holders “Safely to the moon.”
Meanwhile, some coins from the top 200 should also be mentioned, with game-like tokens such as UFO gaming (UFO) and spell token (SPELL) seeing massive gains of 712% and 605%, respectively.
Among the worst performers from the top 200 list was DYDX, the governance token of the dYdX decentralized exchange, which fell by 33% after strong performance in September when the DEX recorded trading volumes that even surpassed Coinbase.
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Learn more:
– USD 20,000 Weekly Moves in Bitcoin’s Price Likely This Year, Author Says
– Ethereum Tests All-Time High as On-Chain Activity Grows, SHIB Burns ETH
– Bitcoin’s ‘Shocktober,’ New Crypto ATHs
– Other Dog (and Cat)-Themed Coins Pump as Shiba Inu and Dogecoin Keep Fighting
