With 2024 already here, all eyes are now focused on the upcoming 12 months, with the potential approval of a spot Bitcoin ETF in the States, the fourth BTC halving, which is less than half a year away, and numerous altcoin-related developments and activities.
Nevertheless, it’s worth exploring the overall market performance for the largest and most popular cryptocurrencies in 2023, as some, such as Solana’s native token, really made a name for themselves.
CryptoPotato‘s general Market Watches focus on the short-term price movements, but in this special January 1st one, we decided to overview how the entire 2023 went and, perhaps most importantly, how it ended. Being the largest and first cryptocurrency, Bitcoin led the charge in terms of price gains for most of the year.
It started 2023 below $17,000 but quickly started soaring in price and had reclaimed $20,000 by mid-January. Aside from a few retracements toward that coveted line, BTC hadn’t slipped below it even once since then.
Trying to take down $30,000 was harder, and it actually took months until Bitcoin was finally able to do so. Once it put it in the rear-view mirror, though, the uphill battle continued with great success, and BTC even soared past $42,000 at the end of the year. The culmination came in early December when the asset pumped to a 19-month peak at almost $45,000.
Despite retracing since that local high, BTC still ended 2023 with a 156% surge. This meant that Bitcoin outperformed almost all traditional finance assets, such as the S&P 500, the NASDAQ, and gold, by a significant margin.
There’re numerous indicators that suggest a similarly, if not even more, bullish 2024. For now, though, let’s focus on the moment and inform that BTC’s price at the start of 2024 is around $42,500, its market cap is just north of $830 billion, and its dominance over the alts stands inches above 50% on CMC.
Although the year was at one point dominated by the Bitcoin bulls, many altcoins finished 2023 strong, with substantial gains. None was more impressive than Solana’s native token, though. Despite the fears that FTX and Alameda might dispose of billions of dollars worth of SOL, the layer 1 blockchain became the center of the recent meme coin rally, and the token ended the year at above $100. This meant a yearly surge of more than 900%!
The other impressive yearly gainers include Avalanche (257%), Chainlink (170%), Bitcoin Cash (171%), ICP (240%), OP (291%), and Cardano (142%). From the mid-cap alts, STX, driven by the Ordinals mania, stands tall with a 600% yearly surge.
Other larger-cap altcoins, such as ETH, XRP, DOGE, MATIC, and DOT, couldn’t outperform BTC, and their yearly gains are under 100%. Still impressive, though. BNB went up by 27% in 2023, which is still worth mentioning, given Binance’s regulatory woes and CZ’s stepping down.
The total crypto market cap more than doubled in 2023 from under $800 billion to over $1.6 trillion as of the end of it.
