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CoinGecko Yearly Report: An overview of the crypto market throughout the entirety of 2019

The latest press release of CoinGecko, a cryptocurrency market ranking website that provides a 360-degree overview of the standing of digital currencies, brought out the “CoinGecko’s 2019 Year-End Cryptocurrency Report” included 50-page provide an overview of the cryptocurrency market 2019.

According to that 2019 was a successful year in the cryptocurrency industry when seeing Bitcoin reached its 10-year milestone and beginning to gain attention from politicians. BTC saw a 95% gain in value, from $3,693 to $7,195, which far outpace those of the other top 5 cryptocurrencies. Further, BTC also saw its market dominance increase from 56.3% to 71.5% amongst the top 30 cryptocurrencies.

Besides, blockchain technology developed strongly and applied in most areas such as finance, bank, education, agriculture,…Especially, it becomes center during a U.S. Senate hearing in July and was also endorsed by Chinese President Xi Jinping in October.

Moreover, BigTech companies like Facebook also more take part in this technology. Facebook launched its own crypto named Libra. Notably, central banks worldwide are actively thinking about how blockchain can solve the current monetary system. China’s Central Bank has the most advanced plans, in the form of its Central Bank Digital Currency.

Furthermore, this year, crypto derivatives became mainstream with many new and existing exchanges that launched derivative products – a trend may continue in 2020.

On the other hand, the decentralized finance (DeFi) space also witness many developments and expected to continue growing in 2020 but believe that caution should be exercised regarding smart contract risks. It is believed that this decade will see the blockchain industry mature and that more blockchain products will gain mainstream adoption.

2019 Market Overview

CoinGecko Yearly Report An overview of the crypto market throughout the entirety of 2019..1

Both Market Cap & Trading Volume were on an upward trend.
Market capitalization reached highest at $350 billion in late June when Bitcoin rallied to $13,000+ and closed the year at $180 billion.
Trading volume far outpaced market capitalization, gaining nearly 600% throughout 2019.

2019 Top 5 Coins Returns

CoinGecko Yearly Report: An overview of the crypto market throughout the entirety of 2019

Among the top 5 coins (the price of the top 5 coins by market capitalization, excluding stable coins like USDT), Bitcoin had the best performance in 2019 with a 95% increase at the end of the year.

XRP is the biggest loser in 2019 with a loss of 45%. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Litecoin (LTC) both performed well, increasing by ~ 40%. However, ETH performed poorly at the end of the year with a small loss of 2%.

BTC compare with S&P 500, Gold, Silver

Although Bitcoin was highly volatile (2019 trading range from ~$3,500 to ~$13,000), it was one of 2019’s a best-performing asset class.
Year-on-year, Bitcoin saw a 95% appreciation, far outpacing S&P 500 (+29%), Gold (+19%), and Silver (+16%).

 

 

2019 Bitcoin Overview

During 2019, BTC increased $13,000, then gradually adjusted to about $7,000 at the end of the year.

Bitcoin’s price movement was mainly news-driven. It reacted violently when Chinese President, Xi Jinping issued a notice that China would be embracing blockchain even though BTC or cryptocurrencies were never mentioned. In general, 2019 was a good year for Bitcoin, rising nearly 100% after a bearish 2018 when the coin saw a 73% drop in value.

2019 Market Dominance Overview

CoinGecko Yearly Report An overview of the crypto market throughout the entirety of 2019..1

Bitcoin’s year as its market dominance increased from 56.3% to 71.5% (+15.2%) amongst the top-30 crypto.

Among top-30 coins, XRP was squeezed the most from 12.5% to 4.6% (-7.9%), followed by ETH which decreased from 12.0% to 7.7% (-4.3%). Third, in place would be Others (top 8 – 30) which decreased 10.6% to 7.9% (-2.7%).

USDT started 2019 ranked #6 and closed the year ranked #4, largely due to an increase in supply coupled with the reduction in the value of other crypto assets.

Exchanges – Spot & Derivatives

In 2019, crypto derivative tools exploded. The number of derivatives exchanges have increased more than 12x. It was interesting to see many of the new players are existing large players in the crypto space (eg. Binance, Kraken, Bitflyer, etc.).

That said, spot exchanges have increased significantly as well – over 130 exchanges were added on CoinGecko in 2019.

BTC Perpetual Swaps – Star of the show

Derivatives in the crypto space arguably started with BitMEX’s Bitcoin perpetual swaps trading pairs. Averaging around $1.3B daily Open Interest (OI)[1] and $10B volume throughout Dec 2019, BTC perpetual swaps remain as the most popular product for derivative traders.

In terms of Open Interest, BitMEX remains as the leader (52%) while the nearest contender, Bybit still has a lot of catching up to do with only 12% dominance. It also takes the lead when it comes to trading volume, with over 30% dominance followed by Binance with 17% dominance.

Stablecoin: Top 5 Supply Dominance & Peg Status

Tether continues to dominate the stablecoin market in 2019, despite media arguments about it not backed 1: 1 with USD. This is the only stablecoin that increased its dominance (in terms of supply/issue) in this year. Further, Tether saw strong growth in its Ethereum ERC-20 and Tron TRC-20 token usage.

True USD (TUSD) suffered the largest loss of supply dominance and was overtaken by Paxos Standard (PAX) in August.

Among all stablecoins, DAI is the most volatile with 111 daily counts, while USDT was the most stable with only 3 daily counts.

Crypto Acquisitions & Investments

The crypto industry has made over $4 billion1 worth of acquisitions across 350 deals since 2013. Three of the largest acquirers in the crypto space: Coinbase, Kraken & Binance.

The hottest sector for the acquisition was crypto data services (44%), then crypto exchanges & custodial/wallet services (20%), and lastly financial services (16%). Especially, an interesting trend was also the acquisitions of derivatives exchanges, such as JEX by Binance and Crypto Facilities by Kraken.

Aside from acquisitions, Coinbase & Binance also strategically invests in many areas of the crypto. Coinbase has investments in more than 40 different blockchain companies including almost all aspects of the blockchain economy. Binance has a hand in almost all aspects as well, from projects supported by Binance Labs, investments into FTX (derivatives), Mars Finance & Zhi Dian (social media) and more.

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