Coin Race: Top Winners/Losers of October 2020; Bitcoin Reigns the List

While not many coins had seen their prices increase in September, October brought a mini spring to the market. This was bitcoin (BTC)‘s month. It took the first spot among the top 10 coins by market capitalization, as well as the seventh among the top 50 coins. And as the winds of decentralized finance (DeFi) seem to have calmed down in October, some of its major projects ended the month in red.

Top 10 coins

October was a completely green month for the top 10 coins by market capitalization. Excluding the stablecoin tether (USDT), all coins have seen their prices appreciate over the course of the past month.

And at the very top, as the October winner sits the number one coin, bitcoin. And though the attention it’s gaining is constant, it has been a while since the world’s most popular coin was actually the winner in its category. However, it saw a significant rally last month, pushing its price over USD 13,000 and towards the USD 14,000 level. Now we see that bitcoin’s nearly 31% rise was high enough to beat the rest of the green list. Furthermore, the monthly candle, which shows price differences on a monthly basis, has closed above USD 13,000 for the first time since December 2017.

There have been speculations and analyses suggesting that bitcoin is set to go even higher soon. Meanwhile, it’s fees were rising, while some transactions reportedly took days to confirm. Additionally, per the tools provided by blockchain analytics firm Into The Block, even though bitcoin was outperformed by several major coins in the past year, including ethereum (ETH), there are still more BTC holders ‘in the money.’

The second place is taken by another coin who’s rarely at the very top of the list – litecoin (LTC), with a 21% rise. And this victory comes after the coin had fallen out of the top 10 ranking near the end of September. In the first week of October, Litecoin developers revealed that a long-awaited testnet with new privacy features, called Litecoin MimbleWimble (MW), has been launched.

Several other coins have appreciated significantly as well, these being chainlink (LINK) with nearly 21%, continuing its rise, as well as bitcoin cash (BCH) with 18.5%.

The only other coin with a double-digit rise was ethereum (ETH), whose price increased 13% in October. When it comes to the second coin by market capitalization, the Cryptoverse was still focused on “when ETH 2.0,” with the official date for Phase O of the network’s second version still being up in the air, despite certain predictions.

The least to appreciate was polkadot (DOT) with less than a 1% rise, but it’s still good news for the coin as it dropped the most in September.

Top winners in October

Unlike September, October has given us a full list of top 10 winners among the top 50 coins by market capitalization. According to Coinpaprika, the first two coins have both appreciated over 250%, these being SEELE and HEX, the latter of which made a comeback after having the second largest drop in September, right after polkadot. However, some crypto market data providers do not rank HEX by market capitaliztion or rank this controversial coin much lower.

Compared to these two, the third-placed thorecoin (THR) went up almost 74%. It’s followed by the filecoin (FIL) token. This one made a splash in October, with its creators finally releasing the much-anticipated mainnet launch, and the coin experiencing wild swings less than 24 hours later. Overall, during this month, it appreciated more than 61%, making it one of the 4th best performer in the top 50 category.

Half of this list saw increases to their respective prices between 30% and 36%. The two coins to appreciate the least, but still showing double-digit increases, are monero (XMR) and litecoin, respectively.

Top losers in October

Last month has seen it’s fair share of red too. Yearn.finance (YFI) is at the top of this list, with a drop above 50%. This DeFi darling was beating out BTC for the top spot as the most valuable crypto on the market, reaching a value of almost USD 44,000 soon after its listing. It has, however, lost its crown to BTC since.

Another much-discussed DeFi project’s newly issued coin, uniswap (UNI) follows with a fall of almost 44%, while crypto.com chain (CRO) takes the third sport as the only other coins with a drop over 40%.

Two coins with the smallest drops in October – among the top 10 largest drops, that is – are vechain (VET) and NEM (XEM), both decreasing more than 17%.

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Among the best performers in the top 100 club we also find SEELE, HEX, and FIL, while YFI, UNI, and CRO are among the worst performers here too.

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This article was updated at 11:36 UTC to add more details on the HEX coin.