Crypto market data provider CoinMarketCap (CMC) enumerates the best performing crypto assets amid a less than stellar first quarter for the broader crypto market.
According to CMC’s Crypto Market and User Trends Q1 2020 report, there are a handful of digital assets that made huge leaps during the “grim” quarter. CMC reveals that Bitcoin SV (BSV) tops the bill after surging by 76%. UNUS SED LEO (LEO) printed gains of over 26% and ChainLink (LINK) is not far behind as its market cap grew by 25.4%.
In addition, Tezos (XTZ) posted a 20% increase while Bitcoin Cash (BCH) soared by over 10%. The crypto market data aggregator highlights that these coins were able to swim against the current as investors sought liquidity and sold risk assets in the first quarter.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s market capitalization was badly beaten as it plunged nearly 10% for the quarter ending on March 31. Among large-cap coins, EOS (EOS) is the biggest loser, shedding over 16% of its market cap. Ripple (XPR) and Binance Coin (BNB) follow suit with losses of 8.16% and 7.98%, respectively.
Q1 at a Glance
As many of you may know, Q1 was a turbulent period for participants in the crypto industry. The start of the year saw a strong demand for crypto, with Bitcoin reaching a high of $10,500 and total market cap hitting $305 billion in February.
However, as the number of COVID-19 cases skyrocketed and spread around the world, leading the World Health Organization to categorize the virus as a global pandemic, all markets — including traditional safe havens like gold — plummeted before going on to recover in the following days.
- The price of Bitcoin fell a whopping 43% on March 12, touching a low of $3,900.
- On the same day, the total crypto market cap hit a low of $150 billion, 57% lower than the previous month.
While Bitcoin is oft-touted as “digital-gold,” it sold off the hardest, which caused people to question its status as a purported safe-haven asset.
That said, in Q1, both Bitcoin and the crypto market in general have outperformed global benchmarks for equities, like the MSCI World Index and S&P 500.
Today, crypto markets have regained a good portion of their March losses, but they still have some ways to go before they recover to the price levels we saw early in the quarter.
Within the Crypto Market, It Was a Mixed Bag
In Q1, Bitcoin suffered greater relative losses in market cap (-9.78%) compared to most of the top 10 other cryptoassets as well as the rest of the other cryptoassets as a whole.
However, there were several cryptoassets that gained significant momentum in this grim quarter. By market capitalization, BCH (+10.48%), BSV (+76.0%), XTZ (+20%), LINK (+25.4%) and LEO (+26.83%) were able to come out of Q1 better than they started.
Bonus insight:
Notably, BSV and BCH received a sudden surge in attention; the former shot up 29 spots to become the seventh most viewed cryptoasset on CoinMarketCap, and the latter rose 14 spots to become the 10th.
Something interesting we noted was a drastic drop in user traffic from China that coincided with the beginning of the COVID-19 global pandemic, also timed with speculations around the Great Firewall and China’s suppression of online citizen reports concerning the pandemic that might have affected access to internet services (see Section 3 in the detailed report for more information).
Amid the mixed landscape in crypto, two other trends seemed promising.
43.24% Growth Among Female Users
Within the female user segment, the Americas and European regions grew more than 50% in users. An exceptional growth of more than 80% in female users was led by countries including Colombia, Venezuela, Romania, Greece and several others. (See Section 5 in the detailed report for a full list of countries).
(Data from CoinMarketCap.com)
46.04% Growth Among Youth Users
In relation to the youth user segment (aged 18-24), the continent of Oceania saw the biggest percentage jump of 151.95%, followed by Africa with 91.47%. Section 6 in the detailed report lists the countries that saw exceptional growth of more than 80% in young users; these include India, the UK, Spain and Mexico among others.
(Data from CoinMarketCap.com)
Report Conclusion
It is telling that our data shows how the crypto industry is still nascent and continuing to evolve.
Q1 showed us that the opportunities for crypto market growth do not rest solely on Bitcoin. While Bitcoin dominance holds strong, other cryptoassets such as BSV and BCH have displayed abilities to outperform Bitcoin and global asset benchmarks like the S&P 500 Index.
Seemingly diminishing is the hype around crypto as a fund raising mechanism. From the 2017 boom of initial coin offerings (ICOs) to exchange-led fundraising in initial exchange offerings (IEOs), the viability of raising capital via the issuance of tokens is now at a trough. That said, there is much untapped potential in the blockchain revolution. We for one at CoinMarketCap are in high anticipation of new, innovative solutions that the industry will bring.
It is still too early to foretell the role and fate of crypto, as it could hold different meaning to different groups of people, depending on the economic and social climates in which they live. As shown by our user data, crypto continues to garner more attention from different corners of the world, especially with the growing interest from young (and baby boomer) demographics. As the crypto evolution unfolds, let’s continue to keep an active pulse on it.
You can check out the full report here.
Read more at: https://blog.coinmarketcap.com/2020/05/01/crypto-market-trends-user-trends-according-to-coinmarketcap-q1-2020-edition/
