Top performing cryptocurrencies in February were DigixDAO, OmiseGO, Ethereum Classic and Litecoin. The biggest losers were Nem, Cardano, Stellar Lumens and EOS.
Another month has passed in crypto land and it is time to review the winners and losers over the past four weeks. A lot has happened in February and looking back at the top performing cryptocurrencies plus those that have lost out may give us an indication of what is to come in March.
Looking at the bigger picture the entire market capacity for all crypto currencies on the first of February was around $510 billion. At the end of the month it has fallen by almost 9% to $465 billion. The big slump of February 6 created the lowest point crypto market capacity has been since November 26 when it fell below $280 billion. On the up side since then it has climbed back 66% to its current level but not all altcoins have benefited, in fact most of them have lost ground.
The big daddy of cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin, has had a very flat month starting out at $10,300 on the first and ending the month around the same level, just a few hundred dollars higher. The lowest point, again on the 6th, was a dip to just over $6,100 but it has regained all of its losses since, indicating that altcoins have shed the remaining $45 billion from the total market cap.
February Crypto Winners
Litecoin has enjoyed a very productive month beginning at around $150 and jumping over 20% to end closer to $221. The Litecoin Cash fork and launch of LitePay has enticed investors back into LTC after a long period of decline following founder Charlie Lee’s big selloff.
Neo has made small gains during the past month, beginning at around $130 on the first, falling to a low of $65 in the big dip and recovering well to end 10% higher at $143. Neo platform adoption for dApps is increasing so this altcoin is likely to show slow but steady growth.
Monero has made some ground in February starting out at around $270 on the first and taking a huge drop on the 3rd to $188 and the 6th to $149. Since the start of the month XMR has made an 11% gain to finish it at just over $300. It has doubled in value since the big dip and continues to be the anonymous altcoin of choice for traders and hackers alike.
Ethereum Classic has risen from $27 on February first to $36 at the end representing a 33% price hike for the original fork of ETH.
OmiseGO has had an impressive month starting out at around $14.5 and ending on $20.5. The 40% jump makes OMG one of the top performing cryptocurrencies in the top 25 by market capacity.
Zcash is also marginally up on the month trading at $416 from $390 at the beginning of it.
DigixDAO also needs a mention, sitting outside the top 25 at number 30 it has performed extremely well in February doubling in price. Trading at around $240 at the beginning of the month the gold based token has jumped an impressive 108% to end the month trading just over $500.
February Crypto Losers
Ethereum has lost ground in February starting the month trading at around $1,140 and shedding 22% to $890 where it trades on the last day. ETH has recovered from the big dip when it dropped below $600 for the first time since December 12 but could not maintain momentum up to its price at the beginning of the month.
Ripple’s XRP has also lost out this month beginning at around the $1.10 level and falling back to $0.95 at the month’s end. The 14% slide is a surprise since a lot of new partnerships have been announced by the San Francisco based blockchain company but they have not influenced price action in a positive way. Despite greater adoption of Ripple products across the globe crypto traders have remained skeptical with this one.
Bitcoin Cash has slid back in February starting at around $1,450 and ending the month 12% lower at around $1,274. Bitcoin Segwit adoption and Lightning Network integration has depleted the advantage BCH previously had over BTC.
Cardano has been a big loser in February, starting the month at over $0.50 and ending it over 35% down at $0.33. There has been very little positive news out of the Cardano camp and the smaller altcoins need a bit of fomo to drive their price action. ADA remains in the top ten but if the downward slide continues it will not be for long.
Stellar Lumens has also had a terrible month with XLM starting at over $0.50 and ending at $0.36. The fall of over 30% has resulted from a very slow and painful recovery from the big selloff starting in January. Stellar has never reached its early Feb highs and continues its bearish downward trend.
EOS started out well trading above $12 but has slid back throughout February by over 27% to around $8.90 where it currently trades. It has shown a very similar chart pattern to ADA and XLM.
Both Iota and anonymous altcoin Dash have been pretty flat trading marginally lower at the end of the month than the beginning.
Nem has suffered the worst, XEM has slumped this month by almost 50% from just under $0.80 at the start to just under $0.42 at the end.
The fact that most of these altcoins can only be traded in Bitcoin has caused their decline at the expense of BTC which has been pretty stable over the course of the month. To recap the top four performers out of the top 30 market capped coins were Ethereum Classic, OmiseGO, Litecoin and DigixDAO. The biggest losers in February have been Cardano, Stellar Lumens, EOS and Nem.
All figures courtesy of Coinmarketcap.com
