The broad-based S&P 500 is up 25% this year, and it's been a good year for the stock market. The aggregate value of digital currencies has more than doubled over the last year, reaching $2.37 trillion.
A 200% year-to-date gain would be a drop in the bucket for some cryptocurrencies. If you invested $10,000 at midnight on January 1st, it would make you a millionaire by December 8th.
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$5,024,657,500 is the amount of the Shiba Inu.
The meme coin Shiba Inu ( SHIB 8.41% ) has gained over a thousand dollars per token in a single year, making it the most eye-catching single-year gain in history. In losing six zeroes, Shiba Inu has delivered a 50,000,000% year-to-date gain. A $10,000 investment would be worth more than $5 billion.
A lot of catalysts have helped push Shiba Inu to historic short-term gains. In no particular order.
More exchanges are listing the coin, which is increasing awareness of the coin.
The launch of ShibaSwap in July has boosted liquidity, as well as lifted the average hold period for SHIB token.
The fear of missing out has played a role in investors expecting more upside even after life-changing gains.
The remaining coin is scarce due to the reduced supply of the token.
Despite all the positives, a simple truth remains: Shiba Inu lacks competitive advantages, true differentiation, and meaningful utility. Only a small number of merchants accept SHIB as a form of payment, and nothing about it stands out as a lure that will drive businesses to accept it over a growing sea of other payment coins. It may have had a year to remember in 2021, but it could well be the worst-performing digital currency in the foreseeable future.
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The next best-performing coin in the year is Axie Infinity. A $10,000 investment to start the year in this token is now worth more than $2 million.
The game is built on the trust of the ethereum platform. You'll need at least three Axies to go to battle in the game, which allows users to collect, raise, and battle token-based monsters. Experience points are earned by the winner and can be used to improve certain aspects of a users' Axies.
Each of the Axie's is a non-fungible token that can be monetized. Users can either buy or sell Axies in a marketplace, or they can be bred to create unique Axies that can be used in the game or sold later.
The revenue the game is generating is what is likely to have made Axie Infinity so successful. In August and September, Axie brought in a total of $342 million and $220 million in revenue. It was second only to Ethereum in terms of the number of applications that use the blockchain.
The biggest concern as we head into 2022, is whether Axie Infinity can remain popular. With so many other games in development, gaming interest can change in a second.
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The total cost of The Sandbox is $1,434,500.
The Sandbox was not playing around in 2021. The primary protocol token of the platform, SAND, began the year below $0.06 but has since rallied to over $5. A $10,000 investment on Jan. 1 would be worth over a million dollars.
The buzz surrounding The Sandbox is similar to what's driving AxieInfinity higher. The difference is that the next iteration of the internet, called the metaverse, allows users to interact in a 3D virtual environment. The platform rewards players for creating virtual worlds and interacting with other players.
Users retain full ownership of their virtual worlds as NFTs, unlike most games which are owned/developed by corporations. The NFTs can be used in a game on The Sandbox's platform or monetized on its marketplace.
Brand-name companies investing in the metaverse have likely benefited from the SAND token. Facebook changing its name to Meta Platforms and announcing billions in annual investments geared at the metaverse and virtual reality provides a lift for SAND.
The Sandbox has put itself on the map this year, though it is not certain if metaverse investments will pay off in the long-term.
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Solana had a total of $1,186,600.
A $10,000 investment in Solana at the beginning of the year would have investors smiling. Solana has gone from around $1.61 to $191 per token. With an initial $10,000 investment, investors would have a portfolio of over a million dollars.
The need for speed is one of the main reasons why the token price is higher. Solana is capable of handling 50,000 transactions per second, which is more than the 7 and 13 transaction per second that both Bitcoin and Ethereum are capable of. Visa claimed 24,000 TPS, but 50,000 would be more than double that.
The secret sauce that allows Solana to be a speed demon is its unique proof-of-history protocol. validators need to talk to each other to figure out how long the event has been. The proof-of-history protocol establishes a record of time that's elapsed between events. Eliminating this lag dramatically speeds up the network.
Solana's transactions are cheaper than payments made on existing infrastructure. It would take 4,000 transactions for a user to get $1 in fees on Solana's network.
Solana is one of the top performers.
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