This past week, we saw the entire cryptocurrency market capitalization increase nearly $15 billion to a total of $135 billion. While it’s certainly too early to say the market has bottomed, it’s a promising sign after the market has trended downward for almost a year now. For those that haven’t paid attention during this period, let’s do a recap of what coins have moved into the top market cap positions.
Current Top 10 Cryptocurrencies by Market Cap
These are probably all names that you are familiar with. But let’s see how this same list looked like a year ago today.
During February of 2017, the market capitalization was around $430 billion, and the top 10 on Coinmarketcap consisted of Bitcoin, XRP, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Cardano, Litecoin, IOTA, Neo, Cardano, and Stellar Lumens. This is quite a bit different than our current market cap standings.
Standings 2017
As you can see, the standings change drastically as you go back in time. Now, let’s go even further back to February of 2016 when the market cap was only $22 billion.
Standings 2016
From this, we see some surprising names. MaidSafeCoin had the number 8 spot but is rarely talked about today. Augur had the number 10 spot and just recently finished its token sale. Today, Augur is well out of the top 10, even though they’ve launched their platform successfully.
Conclusion
While individual days can feel like forever in cryptocurrency bear markets, the amount of growth and change the sector sees simply over the course of the year is exciting to watch. While their’s been tons of change, one thing that seems certain is Bitcoin’s place at #1. In the future, it's certainly possible to have some entirely brand new projects in the top spots. By investing in some of the most promising projects that have continued to work in the bear market, you could end up with a future top 10 cryptocurrency.