How many times has the cryptocurrency with the largest increase in 2023 increased?

Bonk (BONK) is the cryptocurrency with the largest gain in 2023, growing by 7,302.9% from $0.0000002 on January 1 to $0.0000146 on December 28, 2023. Bonk’s return is 2.5 times that of Injective, the second largest cryptocurrency gainer in 2023. Bonk’s airdrop marks a turnaround for Solana, which has attracted the attention of traders and investors.

Injective (INJ) became the second largest cryptocurrency in 2023, growing from $1.27 to $39.07, an increase of 2976.4%. Injective's rise began with the launch of pre-launched token futures on its decentralized exchange (DEX) Helix. In addition, Injective established a $150 million ecological fund at the beginning of the year to accelerate the adoption of interoperable infrastructure and DeFi.

CorgiAI (CORGIAI) is the third largest cryptocurrency in 2023, growing from $0.00014 to $0.00282, an increase of 1959.7%. As the main meme coin on the Cronos blockchain, CorgiAI has achieved good momentum, which is in line with the trend of each blockchain having its own "meme coin".

The returns of the top 10 cryptocurrencies with the largest gains range from 632.8% to 7302.9%. Holding any of these cryptocurrencies at the beginning of the year would have allowed investors to return at least 3.9 times more than Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Top Crypto Winners Have Popular Narratives

The top 10 cryptocurrencies with the largest gains in 2023 are all based on one of the most popular narratives, namely memecoins, layer 1 protocols, artificial intelligence, and layer 2 solutions.

Bonk, the top gainer cryptocurrency, has multiple narratives for 2023. The popularity of memecoins and the resurgence of the Solana ecosystem are both the most popular narratives for 2023 and play a major role in its success.

8 of the top 100 cryptocurrencies to see price drops by 2023

Eight of the top 100 cryptocurrencies have seen price declines between the beginning of 2023 and December 28. This group includes Tether (USDT), USD Coin (USDC), Dai (DAI), Binance USD (BUSD), TrueUSD (TUSD), Toncoin (TON), Chiliz (CHZ), and Sui (SUI).

Five of these eight are stablecoins, which saw their prices fall slightly below their $1.00 pegged value, resulting in price drops of up to 0.3%.

TON, CHZ, and SUI were the only three non-stablecoin losers in 2023, with price declines ranging from 0.6% to 40.6%. But note that Sui was only launched on May 3, 2023, and its price closed at a high of $1.40 before reaching $0.83 on December 28, 2023.

Bitcoin performance in 2023

Bitcoin (BTC) has outperformed 65 of the top 100 cryptocurrencies, growing 162.5% from $16,540 to $43,418 since the beginning of the year to December 28, 2023. This suggests that one could randomly pick a cryptocurrency from this group and beat Bitcoin’s growth rate in 2023 by about a third.

In 2023, Bitcoin has attracted attention due to the spot ETF applications of giants such as BlackRock and Fidelity. Approval can significantly expand investor access and increase the value of Bitcoin.

Bitcoin performance compared to Layer 1

Bitcoin outperformed Ethereum (ETH) by 1.7 times in 2023. Bitcoin’s price return of 162.5% was higher than Ethereum’s 98.6% price return in 2023.

Bitcoin also outperformed 18 of the 30 Layer 1s in the top 100 cryptocurrencies in 2023. However, Bitcoin lagged behind the remaining 11 Layer 1s, four of which were among the top 10 cryptocurrency gainers.

Holding INJ, KAS, SOL, or CFX would have yielded at least 4.8x higher returns than holding Bitcoin and Ethereum at the beginning of the year. However, it is worth noting that smaller Layer 1s carry higher risks as they compete to gain market share from the more established cryptocurrencies Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Statistics on the top ten cryptocurrency gains in 2023

The price returns of the top 10 cryptocurrencies gainers (Bitcoin and Ethereum) in 2023 are: