{"id":144434,"date":"2020-12-30T23:27:21","date_gmt":"2020-12-30T20:27:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/bitcoin-stablecoins-and-defi-2020s-top-performing-crypto-assets\/"},"modified":"2020-12-30T23:27:21","modified_gmt":"2020-12-30T20:27:21","slug":"bitcoin-stablecoins-and-defi-2020s-top-performing-crypto-assets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/bitcoin-stablecoins-and-defi-2020s-top-performing-crypto-assets\/","title":{"rendered":"# Bitcoin, stablecoins and DeFi: 2020\u2019s top-performing crypto assets"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_84 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a27e2bfc5323\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a27e2bfc5323\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/bitcoin-stablecoins-and-defi-2020s-top-performing-crypto-assets\/#Bitcoin\" >Bitcoin<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/bitcoin-stablecoins-and-defi-2020s-top-performing-crypto-assets\/#Ethereum\" >Ethereum<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/bitcoin-stablecoins-and-defi-2020s-top-performing-crypto-assets\/#Old_school_altcoins\" >Old school altcoins<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/bitcoin-stablecoins-and-defi-2020s-top-performing-crypto-assets\/#Smart_contract_protocols\" >Smart contract protocols<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<p>&#8220;<strong># Bitcoin, stablecoins and DeFi: 2020\u2019s top-performing crypto assets <\/strong>&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-content\" data-v-5a136f3a>Bitcoin (BTC) has had a stellar 2020, but how are other top crypto assets faring? Let\u2019s take a look at how some of the top cryptocurrencies by market capitalization performed this .\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Bitcoin\"><\/span>Bitcoin<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>First, Bitcoin has seen a massive gain since Jan. 1, as its price soared from $7,195 to as high as $28,422. <\/p>\n<p>Within 12 months, the price of Bitcoin rose by 290%, outperforming all major stock indices and most stocks, apart from a select few including Tesla (TSLA).<\/p>\n<p>The main catalysts behind Bitcoin\u2019s rally have been the increase in institutional demand, favorable financial conditions as a result of central bank liquidity injections, and the decline of the U.S. dollar.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.cointelegraph.com\/uploads\/2020-12\/cb663a2b-9521-4027-b8f9-cd35fae83ccf.png\"><figcaption style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>BTC\/USD monthly chart (Coinbase). Source: TradingView.com<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The combination of the three macro factors fueled Bitcoin\u2019s momentum in October. Eventually, as major institution-focused platforms including CME and Grayscale saw a large spike in volume and inflows, accelerating Bitcoin\u2019s rally.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Ethereum\"><\/span>Ethereum<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Ether (ETH) price performed strongly throughout 2020, despite its recent stagnant phase against Bitcoin. <\/p>\n<p>The Ether price started 2020 at $128 across major exchanges and at its peak on Dec. 30, ETH achieved $748.<\/p>\n<p>The primary driver of Ether\u2019s rally throughout November was the release of Eth2. After reaching a threshold of over 400,000 ETH in deposits, Eth2 commenced.<\/p>\n<p>Eth2 is a major network upgrade for Ethereum as it scales the blockchain exponentially over time. Without Eth2, Ethereum is able to process under 20 transactions per second. With Eth2, this figure increases to potentially thousands of transactions per second.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Old_school_altcoins\"><\/span>Old school altcoins<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>In year-to-date performance, most of the old school altcoins (the one&#8217;s from 2017 and earlier), including XRP, Cadano (ADA), and Stellar (XLM), lagged behind Bitcoin pr.<\/p>\n<p>Out of the original altcoins, XRP initially performed particularly well in November as Bitcoin rallied towards its all-time high.<\/p>\n<p>XRP began the year at $0.1923 and surged to as high as $0.9210, demonstrating a four-fold increase in about 11 months. However, as BTC surged past $20,000, altcoins took a hit, causing XRP to drop to $0.52. After the SEC&#8217;s lawsuit against Ripple, XRP dropped further, declining to as low as $0.17.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Smart_contract_protocols\"><\/span>Smart contract protocols<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Polkadot, Chainlink, EOS, and Tezos have also rallied since the beginning of the year. The four smart contract-related cryptocurrencies each saw considerable catalysts for short-term rallies when BTC rallied towards $20,000.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.cointelegraph.com\/uploads\/2020-12\/f8ebdb66-2df5-4cbd-bc76-563b98f360c6.png\" alt=\"\" title=\"\"><figcaption style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Bitcoin weekly chart versus Chainlink, Polkadot, EOS, and Tezos. Source: TradingView.com<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>For instance, Chainlink benefited from the explosive growth of the decentralized finance (DeFi) space. Chainlink is an oracle-focued blockchain network and the objective of an oracle is to feed data to DeFi protocols.<\/p>\n<p>As such, as the total value locked in DeFi reached $16 billion, Chainlink rallied and so did many other DeFi-linked tokens.<\/p>\n<p>Despite various respective catalysts, Polkadot, EOS, Tezos, and Chainlink lagged behind Bitcoin in year-to-date gains. The main reason behind the muted price action was Bitcoin\u2019s meteoric rally post-$20,000, which caused altcoins to pull back.<\/p>\n<p>Specialized tokens, such as Wr<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>ed Bitcoin, USDC, and Tether also saw significant growth in terms of market cap. These tokens are mainly utilized on DeFi protocols and the rapid increase in user activity made each token endemic to the DeFi ecosystem.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Tether has just surpassed a $20B market capitalization!\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This fantastic milestone is another confirmation for Tether maintaining its number one spot as the most liquid, stable and trusted currency! <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/sorWjzChIo\">pic.twitter.com\/sorWjzChIo<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Tether (@Tether_to) <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Tether_to\/status\/1339871055863791617?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 18, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Tether, in particular, saw a rapid increase in market capitalization in the fourth quarter of 2020. As Cointelegraph reported, Tether, the most used stablecoin in the cryptocurrency market, surpassed $20 billion in valuation.<\/p>\n<p><template data-name=\"subscription_form\" data-type=\"markets_outlook\"><\/template><\/div>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News<\/a> articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/general\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">General category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/news\/bitcoin-stablecoins-and-defi-2020-s-top-performing-crypto-assets\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;# Bitcoin, stablecoins and DeFi: 2020\u2019s top-performing crypto assets &#8221; Bitcoin (BTC) has had a stellar 2020, but how are other top crypto assets faring? Let\u2019s take a look at how some of the top cryptocurrencies by market capitalization performed this .\u00a0 Bitcoin First, Bitcoin has seen a massive gain since Jan. 1, as its&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":144435,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/s3.cointelegraph.com\/uploads\/2020-12\/8f2b526e-79a9-4e71-882f-3486b90aaaae.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[74867,74862,74937,75167,74863,74868,74904,82402,74891,83485,75168,75034,75493,75937,75037,82350,75557,73785,36041],"class_list":["post-144434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-altcoin","tag-bitcoin","tag-bitcoin-price","tag-chainlink","tag-cryptocurrencies","tag-defi","tag-eos","tag-ether-price","tag-ethereum","tag-new-years-special","tag-polkadot","tag-ripple","tag-stablecoin","tag-stellar","tag-tezos","tag-usd-coin","tag-xrp","tag-markets","tag-tether"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}