Biggest Winners of 2017
Region: Europe
Dec 29, 2017, 9:00:55 AM Published By Wirex Team
This year has been a roller coaster for the cryptocurrency and blockchain startup space. We've seen the cryptocurrency market cap increase from $17 billion to $600 billion. We've seen coins increase in dollar value, by unheard of percentages. We've seen crypto-made millionaires (and billionaires). And best of all we've seen the blockchain and cryptocurrency community grow. Let's take a look at some of the biggest winners of 2017.
By market cap
The entiremarketcapsurpassedhalf a trillion dollars for the first time in history - breaking every single record previously unbroken. These are the coins with the biggest marketcaps:Bitcoin(BTC)
The list of winners wouldn't be complete without the grand daddy of all cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin. Since starting the year at $940 USD, Bitcoin managed to skyrocket to almost $20,000 (December). That's a market cap of around $15 billion on Jan 1, 2017 to $330 Billion at the peak! Bitcoin has paved the way for how all the other cryptocurrencies perform; Being backed by many influential figures such as John McAfee, Andreas M. Antonopoulos and supported by many others such as Richard Branson, and Bill Gates, it doesn't seem likely that Bitcoin is going away any time soon. Did you know you can buy, store and spend Bitcoin using the Wirexapp?Find out howEthereum(ETH)
The smart contract platform has been number 2 for pretty much the entire year. There was a point (mid year) where it looked like Ethereum would take the mantle from the King (the flippening) but it wasn't to be. In fact BTC just ran further and further ahead. Ethereum isn't doing too badly, though. It's grown from $8.26 ($722 million market cap) to an all-time-high of $875.05 ($85 billion market cap); That's over 100x gain on the year. Not bad for number two. By the way our development team have added the integration of an Ethereum wallet onto the roadmap for Q2 2018.Bitcoin Cash(BCH or BCC):
The controversial Bitcoin fork started on shaky ground but has since risen to the number 3 spot. When Bitcoin cash hit the exchanges, it took on a price of around $248. Since then, we've seen it hit a high of $4355 for a 17x gain.Biggest gainers
2017 saw some of the biggest moves we've ever experienced in the cryptosphere to date. Here arethree:Dash(DASH):
Since starting the year at $11Dash has hit a high of $1605 most recently. That's a 14,000% return on your investment! Dash is showing no sign of slowing down, with Masternodes (locking up 1000 coins and providing ~11% return per year) plus with their community and development team continually growing, many believe that Dash solves all of Bitcoin's problems.Nearly there!NEO(NEO)
The so-called Ethereum of China, NEO was trading at $0.143369 at the beginning of the year. It's recently hit an all-time-high of $79.76. So anyone who was lucky or game enough to buy Antshares/NEO at the start of the year would have increased their holdings x555 times. A return on your investment of 56000%!!!Ripple(XRP)
Ripple, isn't the most popular blockchain project with the community but the numbers say otherwise. At the beginning of 2017, Ripple started at $0.0065 US dollars. It's hit an all-time-high of $1.37. A massive 20,000% return on your investment. Wow!Funds raised during ICO
ICOs, the unregulated crowdfunding method have been all the craze this year. With little to no restrictions, ICOs have been an extremely popular method for organisations to raised funds. Let's take a look at some of the one's that raised the most.- Filecoin (decentralized cloud storage) - Raised $257 million in August/September.
- Tezos (Self-Amending Distributed Ledger) - $232 Million in July.
- EOS (Smart contract platform) - $185 million (ongoing).
- Bancor (prediction markets) - $153 Million in June.
