Things to Note
The data is sourced from Coinmarketcap.com using historical snapshots from 7/3/2016 and 7/2/2017.
Qora was by far the best bet, #89 on the 7/3/2016 rankings and that $100 each would now be worth $436,418.
Past performance is not a guarantee or prediction of future performance.
The over total is $546,237, though over 80% of that is Qora gains alone ($463,418).
The volume for Qora is 0.08 BTC ($206) in the past 24 hours, so even if you owned that amount of Qora, you'd only have one option to offload it (OpenLedger).
There were 6 coins that do not have enough volume to establish a current price, were delisted, or have gone away (DAO, SCOT, BILS, RBR, XCR, VOOT). These have been counted as -100% (worth $0), since they are now worthless/nonexistent.
Taking into account that there is no reasonable ability to sell Qora at this price at this time and that it is an outlier, I have also given Qora a -100% (worth $0) for a new total of $109,819, or basically 11x/1100% with the readily available information.
$100 USD on each of the Top 100 on 7/3/2016 would now be worth:
| Number | Coin | Symbol | $100 is Now Worth |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bitcoin | BTC | 351.95 |
| 2 | Ethereum | ETH | 2246.59 |
| 3 | Ripple | XRP | 3786.13 |
| 4 | Litecoin | LTC | 855.876 |
| 5 | The DAO | DAO | 0 |
| 6 | NEM | XEM | 1416.78 |
| 7 | Dash | DASH | 2319.69 |
| 8 | MaidSafeCoin | MAID | 599.144 |
| 9 | DogeCoin | DOGE | 806.419 |
| 10 | Lisk | LISK | 743.637 |
| 11 | NXT | NXT | 600.566 |
| 12 | Monero | XMR | 2323.86 |
| 13 | DigixDAO | DGD | 768.594 |
| 14 | WAVES | WAVES | 2055.64 |
| 15 | Steem | STEEM | 746.691 |
| 16 | Synereo | AMP | 589.994 |
| 17 | Emercoin | EMC | 387.377 |
| 18 | Siacoin | SC | 1523.88 |
| 19 | Factom | FCT | 1556.83 |
| 20 | BitShares | BTS | 4484.07 |
| 21 | Stellar | XLM | 1198.15 |
| 22 | Peercoin | PPC | 529.021 |
| 23 | Bytecoin | BCN | 5560.98 |
| 24 | Counterparty | XCP | 454.508 |
| 25 | Tether | USDT | 102 |
| 26 | Namecoin | NMC | 578.586 |
| 27 | YBCoin | YBC | 403.646 |
| 28 | Storjcoin X | SJCX | 589.783 |
| 29 | Nautilus Coin | NAUT | 92.8187 |
| 30 | Agoras Tokens | AGRS | 495.594 |
| 31 | Decred | DCR | 1462.24 |
| 32 | VPNcoin | VPN | 301.834 |
| 33 | Syscoin | SYS | 1800.29 |
| 34 | GameCredits | GAME | 4956.26 |
| 35 | FedoraCoin | TIPS | 62.50 |
| 36 | ScotCoin | SCOT | 0 |
| 37 | Xaurum | XAU | 0.05494 |
| 38 | SolarCoin | SLR | 211.193 |
| 39 | RubyCoin | RBY | 408.039 |
| 40 | Feathercoin | FTC | 375.809 |
| 41 | Hitcoin | HTC | 23.7705 |
| 42 | Bluecoin | BLU | 26.4021 |
| 43 | Bitcrystals | BCY | 775.439 |
| 44 | Blackcoin | BLK | 1127.63 |
| 45 | BitcoinDark | BTCD | 3438.17 |
| 46 | Digibyte | DGB | 4407.80 |
| 47 | Gridcoin | GRC | 915.879 |
| 48 | Yocoin | YOC | 6.1329 |
| 49 | Earthcoin | EAC | 1166.18 |
| 50 | Voxels | VOX | 109.79 |
| 51 | ShadowCash | SDC | 259.527 |
| 52 | Monacoin | MONA | 1464.95 |
| 53 | Vericoin | VRC | 712.93 |
| 54 | Mintcoin | MINT | 157.746 |
| 55 | Rimbit | RBT | 9.83366 |
| 56 | Vcash | XVC | 294.096 |
| 57 | SuperNET | UNITY | 1270.33 |
| 58 | PrimeCoin | XPM | 629.374 |
| 59 | OMNI | OMNI | 1791.98 |
| 60 | AuroraCoin | AUR | 284.136 |
| 61 | Quark | QRK | 1316.62 |
| 62 | Clams | CLAM | 630.61 |
| 63 | ION | ION | 331.397 |
| 64 | Reddcoin | RDD | 3446.51 |
| 65 | I/Ocoin | IOC | 1424.84 |
| 66 | NovaCoin | NVC | 1118.97 |
| 67 | WorldCoin | WDC | 1506.27 |
| 68 | IX Coin | IXC | 163.177 |
| 69 | Expanse | EXP | 525.972 |
| 70 | Rise | RISE | 544.89 |
| 71 | BoostCoin | BOST | 524.417 |
| 72 | Radium | RADS | 1495.07 |
| 73 | Elcoin | EL | 17.7651 |
| 74 | Gulden | NLG | 3362.03 |
| 75 | Jinn | JINN | 875.354 |
| 76 | Vertcoin | VDN | 1751.66 |
| 77 | DigitalNote | XDN | 197.345 |
| 78 | Bilshares | BILS | 0 |
| 79 | StartCoin | START | 256.112 |
| 80 | NavCoin | NAV | 2720.61 |
| 81 | MegaCoin | MEC | 1272.74 |
| 82 | NuShares | NSR | 60.726 |
| 83 | Hempcoin | HMP | 21.3849 |
| 84 | Obits | OBITS | 2342.86 |
| 85 | Dnotes | NOTE | 1730.04 |
| 86 | Diamond | DMD | 703.62 |
| 87 | ZcCoin | ZCC | 976.814 |
| 88 | Infinite coin | IFC | 2200 |
| 89 | Qora | QORA | 0 |
| 90 | WildBeastBlock | WBB | 241.054 |
| 91 | UnionCoin | UNC | 0.06385 |
| 92 | Zeitcoin | ZEIT | 606.667 |
| 93 | Curecoin | CURE | 845.401 |
| 94 | Digitalcoin | DGC | 523.34 |
| 95 | Nexus | NIRO/NXS | 6998.98 |
| 96 | Global Currency Reserves | GCR | 899.861 |
| 97 | RibbitRewards | RBR | 0 |
| 98 | Crypti | XCR | 0 |
| 99 | Unobtanium | UNO | 1566.54 |
| 100 | VootCoin | VOOT | 0 |
| Total | $109,819 |
Summary
Many people have made better returns over the past year and in crypto, a year is an extremely long time. I generally consider my long term holds to be 2-6 months, midterm 2-8weeks, and short term to be up to 2 weeks, so a year is a particularly long time from my perspective. 1100% is profitable but it's on par with what many people expect in a quarter of that time period. I am impressed with Nexus (NXS) over the course of the year.
More about my trading strategies here:
https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@ashr/4-strategies-i-use-for-a-stronger-cryptocurrency-portfolio
Nice post! Wonder what it'll look like next year...
I think that the best performance will be in those that are truly scalable since there are so many scaling issues in need of resolution and those that won't need scaling because they're so single purpose focused.
Expanse, NEO (with dBFT), many single purpose tokens.
The same experiment but it has started this year. :)
https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@samotonakatoshi/will-the-investment-portfolio-of-the-top-100-cryptocurrencies-succeed-1st-part-2017924t131044708z
haha awesome post! Why didnt i buy some ETH back then =S !!
thanks for info.
Thanks, I think between my research for this post and my occasional visits to cryptoswim I will be saying variations of that sentence for a long time lol
Very impressive and extremely informative. If anything this is precisely the kind of article and information that justifies cryptocurrency investment to those unfamiliar with these virtual assets - especially when compared to the "traditional" stocks, bonds, realty...etc - This makes a great selling point for those still on that proverbial fence for investing in altcoins. Considering the increasing popularity it is entirely possible to go long on some the new coins using this same strategy and viewing the results in July 2018. It would make an interesting follow up for your future article. Perhaps even a series, done every year, 6 months, 3 months...etc - specifically using these top coins and $100 spread.
Thanks, I'm glad you found it valuable. I am actually working on the other direction first, seeing how far the trend holds in reverse and then using that to make some predictions going forward :)
Oh man :( , such lost opportunity.
Do you think this kinda thing will happen again say next year?
Great post by the way
Thanks, it may, it may not. I don't own a crystal ball, unfortunately.
Thanks for putting these numbers together. Interesting to compare an index investment with active trading gains - most people would be quite pleased with 1100% annually.
I think they would, yes, particularly in comparison to aggressive returns on the stock market being 12-15%.
Thanks for the nice study, I wonder how the results will be a year from now, with all the new ICO's popping up here and there we might see less returns on top 100 market cap coins.
Btw followed, upvoted and resteemed
Thanks, I am working on analyzing more information. Based on previous performance, I should have some predictions in a week or two (have to set up some models and gather more data).
Looking forward to it
Followed, resteemed, and checking back for those predictions. I don't know where I'm going to find 10k, but I really want to try this for the coming year.
Percents are percents, they work on small numbers as well as large. It's important to remember that just because this worked in the past year, doesnt mean it will this year.
It's also important to note that from looking at other data, the 3 month method might be more lucrative than the 1 year method.
@ashr I'm curious about the data you have for a 3 month method. While I would love the ability to make 1100% gains in 3 months vs 1 year, I wonder how much more active one would need to be using the 3 month system? There is also the issue of taxes whereas the 1 year method allows for capitol gains only.
Even with the year system, what criteria does one use to exit certain coins and put new ones in?
Whether they fell out of the top 100 or not, rebalancing to the current top 100. You have impeccable timing, I'm posting 1 month and 3 month data tomorrow. Waiting on a graphic :)
Great. Looking forward to it.
that is great
Technically The DAO was quite profitable - all ETH plus some ETC returned. Many DAO investors expected to get their ETH back, although they also nearly lost it all. On balance, a nil score seems fair, and I'm boring myself.
lol I weighed that one out and decided that getting into the ETH/ETC saga was too much for this post and to keep it straightforward, "if you had walked away one year ago, where would you be".
Great post!
Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
In one year a $10,000 investment gets you $109,819 Very impressive!
Yep, not bad by any measure :)
It is quite a shame seeing this total so damn close to $110,000... You should have been waiting a few minutes until the total was exactly $110,000, just for the idea your profits would have been exactly $100,000. :) However, very nice post, thank you!
I actually used the data from 7/2/17 since that is the most recent weekly snapshot from coinmarketcap and the corresponding one available was 7/3/16. Yes it's very close to $110,000 though and that's pretty much what i was thinking about as I was writing lol
Nice haha! By the way, I thought you made the snapshot by yourself a year ago but I see now you can take this info from Coinmarketcap (what I would have seen right away if I had read your first sentence carefully - oops). Interesting to see these snapshots from years ago. Also thank you for that yeey.
I didn't know WAVES was that old. As for Bitshares competitor of old, NuShares...
Yep, many projects that have recently picked up steam have been around for a while.
meep
The total gave to me
$111.673,10
Did you manually type it in? I double checked it, it's using a sum function in a spreadsheet so it's pretty accurate.
Promoted! Great analysis. Thanks for sharing @ashr
Gosh this article is so good I am going to promote it again. People need to read this!
Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it
Love to see the same kind of (or more) returns for the next year. Investing anf holding good tokens or coins is the way to go.
diversifying into legitimate projects is definitely a good bet. :)
4.5x Returns in a Year, are not Big but if someone was playing the Passive Investment Game, It's Cool.
It's 11x returns, which isn't bad.
This post has been ranked within the top 50 most undervalued posts in the first half of Jul 05. We estimate that this post is undervalued by $25.21 as compared to a scenario in which every voter had an equal say.
See the full rankings and details in The Daily Tribune: Jul 05 - Part I. You can also read about some of our methodology, data analysis and technical details in our initial post.
If you are the author and would prefer not to receive these comments, simply reply "Stop" to this comment.
Nexus (NXS) is one of the most impressive, long-term alt coins I've seen. They have an active community, and a bunch of solid development in process. The new wallet, and the T,A,O releases look interesting too.
I agree, I think the pivx is pretty impressive too, though not included in these rankings.
Great post Ash. Do you happen to have the Raw Data anywhere for those of us too lazy to get it ourselves but perhaps interested to see where perhaps 3-6 months would have taken that $100 in each coin instead of 12 months?
Hi David, I am working on a follow up post that goes into data a bit more indepth. From cursory examinations of the data, it appears the optimum length of time for this strategy is in the 3 month range. I'm glad you enjoyed this post and look forward to your thoughts on the next one.
Very good ... I like this post :)
Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it :)
It is ok :)
Hindsight is depressing as hell. Glad I put $1000+ in DASH, upsetting I didn't put more in!
Sorry! Between this and my visits to cryptoswim, there is some definite, "I wish I had..."
Great post ashr 😎. Check out some of my Cryptocurrency recommendations!
https://steemit.com/steem/@crypto-expo/cryptocurrency-altcoins-top-20-to-invest-in-2017
nice way to diversify :-)
Good post. I was about to post a similair post. No matter how populair a coin is. People should always do a proper background check. It surprises me how many coins are out there that don't have their basics right. This is quite an interesting website I found: https://www.coincheckup.com They seem to give this complete indepth analysis of all cryptocoins. On: https://www.coincheckup.com/coins/Emercoin#analysis To see the: Emercoin Detailed analysis.