December Rewind: Bitcoin Struggles But Several Altcoins Soar

In this monthly segment we will be looking at the top gainers and losers of the month. This will be done in terms of dollar value with a focus on percentage gains of coins within the top 100 by market capitalization. We will also look at one asset in close detail each month, whether it is the biggest gainer or one to keep an eye on. The fast growth of the crypto and blockchain industry in 2021 means that there are more assets than ever that deserve attention and are experiencing notable gains and losses.

Each month we will also take a look at Bitcoin’s performance, and how it has performed both compared to last year at this time, and its comparative performance to the Dow Jones and S&P 500 Index.

Let us look at the biggest winners and losers of the past month.

Biggest Dollar Increases

We had some altcoins make significant gains in December even while Bitcoin has continued to drop in value. Here are the biggest gainers from the past month:

• Terra (LUNA), ranked 9th, has gained over 40% this month, hitting a new high of $103.33. LUNA is currently trading around $89.27 a piece.
• Polygon (MATIC), ranked 13th, has gained about 30% this month and hit a new high of $2.92. MATIC is currently trading around $2.63 a piece.
• NEAR Protocol (NEAR), ranked 24th, is our biggest gainer of the month with over 70% gained and hit a new high of $16.39. NEAR is currently trading around $15.32 a piece.
• Cosmos (ATOM), ranked 27th, has gained over 15% this month and it is currently trading around $32.44 a piece.
• UNUS SED LEO (LEO), ranked 46th, the native asset of BitFinex exchange has gained over 11% this month. LEO is currently trading around $3.78 a piece.
• OKB (OKB), ranked 73rd, the native asset of OKEx has gained over 14% in December and it is currently trading around $29.58 a piece.
• Oasis Network (ROSE), ranked 77th, has gained over 32% this month and fell just short of its all time high of 46 cents by hitting 44 cents a piece. ROSE is currently trading around 43 cents a piece.
• SushiSwap (SUSHI), ranked 82nd, has gained over 26% this month. The token for SushiSwap Exchance is currently trading around $10.22 a piece.
• Yearn.finance (YFI), ranked 86th, has gained about 10% in December. The yield farming platform asset is currently trading around $32,606.90 a piece.
• Celsius (CEL), ranked 91st, the native asset of Celsius Lending has gained about 10% this month. CEL is currently trading around $4.44 a piece.

Coin of the Month: NEAR

NEAR Protocol (NEAR) was our biggest gainer for December. NEAR is another competitor to Ethereum as a layer one blockchain capable of supporting decentralized apps.

NEAR is a community-run cloud computing platform and uses human-readable account names. NEAR also introduces unique solutions to scaling problems and has its own consensus mechanism called “Doomslug.” NEAR uses Nightshade, a variation of sharding, in which individual sets of validators process transactions in parallel across multiple sharded chains, improving the overall capacity of the blockchain.

Nightshade allows NEAR Protocol to be able to achieve up to 100,000 transactions per second and near-instant transaction finality thanks to a one-second block cadence. This is all while keeping transaction fees at virtually zero. Integration with Terra over the past month along with Nightshade launch in mid-November pushed NEAR up in value greatly and could spur further growth.

Biggest Dollar Decreases

As one might expect with Bitcoin down about 20% for December, there are quite a few assets with notable losses. Here are the biggest losers from the past month:

• Litecoin (LTC), ranked 20th, has lost about 30% this month and it is currently trading around $148.94 a piece.
• Axie Infinity (AXS), ranked 30th, has lost about 30% this month as well and it is currently trading around $95.84 a piece.
• VeChain (VET), ranked 34th, has lost 30% this month too and it is currently trading around 8 cents a piece.
• Filecoin (FIL), ranked 36th, has lost about 36% this month and it is currently trading around $35.11 a piece.
• Internet Computer (ICP), ranked 38th, has lost just under 40% this month and it is currently trading around $25.57 a piece.
• Elrond (EGLD), ranked 40th, has lost about 37% this month and it is currently trading around $243.65 a piece.
• Zcash (ZEC), ranked 68th, has lost just under 35% this month and it is currently trading around $153.50 a piece.
• THORChain (RUNE), ranked 72nd, has lost over 37% this month and it is currently trading around $7.15 a piece.
• Holo (HOT), ranked 83rd, has lost over 38% this month and it is currently trading around $0.007 a piece.
• Qtum (QTUM), ranked 99th, is our biggest loser of the month with over 43% lost and it is currently trading around $8.93 a piece.

Will 2022 Bring Gains Back for Bitcoin?

Uptober is far in the rear-view mirror now, as Bitcoin lost another 18% over the month of December after losing about 5% in November.

The king of crypto is currently trading around $47.4k, down almost $10k from where it ended November. Despite inflation being higher than ever, Bitcoin is not being adopted as a hedge by the masses yet, though more institutions are adding to their stacks during this most recent dip. It will be interesting to see how Bitcoin begins to new year.

Bitcoin Loses to Traditional Markets on Monthly Charts

Bitcoin has lost about 18% this month meaning that for two months in a row now the traditional markets have been performing better than the original crypto. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 Index have both gained over 5% for the month, greatly outperforming Bitcoin.

Both traditional and cryptocurrency markets look to be better investments than any traditional savings options as inflation is higher than any savings account offering being given by banks. 2022 will be an interesting year to watch for all of the markets.