The 10 Best and Worst Performing Cryptocurrencies of 2018

It’s been a painful year for almost every digital currency, with the overall market down over 84%.

2018 has officially come to an end, capping off one of the most difficult and frustrating years for cryptocurrency bulls to date.

After hitting a peak market cap of $812 billion in the first month of the year, the crypto market has plunged more than 84% to finish the year around $125 billion. With the two largest cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin (BTC) and XRP, down around 75% on the year, it’s easy to see why only one altcoin is currently positive in 2018.

Based on data from Messari, Bitcoin SV (BSV) is the only cryptocurrency in positive territory this year, and that’s only because it forked a few weeks ago at an exceptionally low price. The rest of the crypto market is in the red.

While still mostly underwater on the 1-year, the following coins and tokens have outperformed, relative to the rest of the market.

Interestingly, the top-2 altcoins after BSV turned out to be exchange tokens, Huobi Token (HT) and Binance Coin (BNB). In August, our analysis found BNB had a lower beta than Bitcoin, suggesting BNB was the less-risky choice at the time.

Three of the top ten cryptocurrencies have a strong focus on blockchain gaming applications — with Loom Network (LOOM) and Decentraland (MANA) solely focused on gaming and TRON (TRX) recently adopting an aggressive strategy to onboard game developers with a $100 million fund.

Conversely, the worst cryptocurrencies to HODL in 2018 turned out to be less-reputable forks and several projects that experienced setbacks during the year, like SALT (SALT).

Perhaps surprisingly, the three worst-performing cryptocurrencies this year aren’t the biggest shitcoins in the world, but rather, coins that were drastically overvalued during January’s peak prices until rationality set back in as the year progressed.

While it’s difficult to predict where the crypto market will go in 2019 (seriously; it’s difficult), investors may be wise to wait for technical confirmation of a crypto market breakout before investing. The year may be ending, but the crypto bear market is entering its thirteenth month.