Coinmarketcap has this awesome tool, the "historical snapshot", which you can find here. Its like a window to way back when the crypto markets were very, very different. This is NOT financial analysis or anything similar, this is just a look at what once was.
In this post I'll be looking at the changes in the top 10 coins since May 2013, all the way to today. I'll be looking February, May, August and November of each year, and I'll be screenshotting at the latest date available for each month.
2013
!! There isnt any data for 2013 until end of April, which means there is no screenshot of February this year.
May 26th - 2013
August 25th - 2013
November 24th - 2013
An intresting thing to notice here is how the three biggest coins by the end of 2013 are btc, ltc and xrp, which still are some of the biggest coins around, 5 years later. Besides this, I actually personally haven't heard of any other coins here except Feathercoin, which I don't know much about.
Also interesting to note, look at BTC's jump in market cap between August and November, thats almost 9x as high!
Btc price only $131 early 2013, imagine being an early adopter with a price like that.
2014
February 23rd - 2014
May 25th - 2014
August 31st - 2014
November 30th - 2014
2014 is one of my favorites, because it introduced the lovely thing called Dogecoin. While Dogecoin isnt even close to top 10 these days, in 2014 it was a force to be reckoned with, even though it was just a meme coin back then as well.
Ripple overtakes Litecoin for the first time, which is historically pretty big when you see how Litecoin is still behind in terms of market cap.
Peercoin, which was going fairly strong, is now falling behind in market cap and slowly fading away.
Dash is now entering the space, dipping barely into the top 10.
2015
February 22nd - 2015
May 31st - 2015
August 30th - 2015
November 29th - 2015
Ethereums rise is very prominent. While its still quite a bit behind Ripple and Litecoin by end of November, its still ways ahead of Dogecoin, Dash etc.
Peercoin is absent from top 10 most of the year.
Dogecoin still middle of the pack amongst the top 10.
Nxt, which has been around for a long time by now, is slowly going away.
2016
February 28th - 2016
May 29th - 2016
August 28th - 2016
November 27th - 2016
Wow Ethereum rose by a lot since November previous year. Is now the definite second largest coin, way behind btc, way ahead of ltc/xrp.
Ripple and Litecoin battling for that third spot.
Monero, the #1 privacy coin, finally finding its way into the top 10, and slowly into top 5.
Dogecoin disappearing from top 10 entirely by the end of the year.
Our beloved Steem makes an appearance in the top 10, going as high as 6th place.
2017
February 26th 2017
May 28th - 2017
August 27th - 2017
November 26th - 2017
Ripple completely outrunning Litecoin, rising way ahead in market cap.
Bitcoin Cash forks from btc and outta nowhere takes 3rd spot.
Steem disappears entirely from top 10.
IOTA dipping into top 10 by the end.
2018
February
Today, March 7th 2018
Bitcoin cash falling behind Ripple, but still ahead of Litecoin.
And in the end, we can see that Monero is back in the top 10, still doing well thanks to an upcoming fork.