2020’s crypto-market is very different from the one back in 2017. However, while it has changed a lot over the ensuing years, there remain two constants – Bitcoin and Ethereum. In fact, the two cryptocurrencies continue to retain the market’s top two positions.
The constant reshuffling of the pack fuels the question – How will the market look next year? Which cryptos will finally hit the jackpot? Which cryptos will miss out? Well, quite a few traders and analysts seem to be taking a guess, including prominent investor Arthur who recently shared a list of cryptos he expects will be in the top 10 by the end of 2021.
Here's my list of top 10 crypto by the end of 2021 excluding stablecoins:
1. BTC
2. ETH
3. DOT
4. LINK
5. BNB
6. UNI
7. AAVE
8. SNX
9. YFI
10. FTX— Arthur (@Arthur_0x) November 16, 2020
This is an interesting list since it dismisses the possibility of older cryptocurrencies like EOS and Monero finally making it into the top-10, a prediction, which if it were to come to fruition, would birth the question – Why?
Excluding stablecoins (Since they serve a different purpose in the crypto-market), the growth of these cryptocurrencies mostly comes down to the community following behind these individual projects. The same was highlighted by Galaxy Digital’s Mike Novogratz when in a recent interview he commented,
“A lot of smaller cryptos don’t have those communities.”
Bitcoin, undoubtedly, has the largest following, but what is interesting is the fact that it has captured a lot of its value of late after huge institutional investors took sizeable positions in it, more or less confirming the store of value narrative.
One example of an altcoin that does have a sizeable community for not very particular reasons is perhaps Dogecoin. Today, Dogecoin is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, supposedly due to this community backing. According to Novogratz, small communities that don’t have huge mining costs can keep value in their coin in this way.
That doesn’t mean Novogratz is one who’s too optimistic about these alts’ fortunes though. He added,
“I don’t see any of those growing, I see them all slowly shrinking down.”
Instead, the Galaxy Digital exec said he sees value in UNI and YFI, comparing them to synthetic equities and adding that there are dividends and a community, along with governance mechanisms, to change the dividend.
According to Novogratz, five years from now, apart from BTC and ETH, none of the coins in the top 10 today will still be there.
kills off forks coins, not BTC. The low volatility is far more important than low fees for the payments use case. I expect a handful of stable coins will be in the top 10 and the fork coins drop off the first page…
— Leon Fu (@leoncfu) November 13, 2020
Interestingly, another argument that can be made here is that forked coins are the ones that have lost the most value over time. If this holds true, forked coins might be the first to drop off. In light of the price fortunes of BCH and BSV, there is a good case to be made here.
